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n600 c3700 usb port question - previous answer incomplete
I'm helping a friend set up his N600 C3700V2 to be a DLNA server and File server. I did a quick test with one of my external USB hard drives, and it worked. However, I want to connect a much larger...
The C3700 is a pretty low performing device with pretty anemic speeds on both the modem side and the wireless side.
I wouldn't be putting to much time/effort into getting it running decent as most ISP's probably won't support much for speeds on it being a 8x4 modem.
In terms of hard drives, thats harder as its literally a gamble. there's to many drives out there to test them all.
Your best bet is to connect that driver to a pc/laptop and use it as a shared storage and install a media server software to it like plex or jellyfin.
"The C3700 is a pretty low performing device with pretty anemic speeds on both the modem side and the wireless side. I wouldn't be putting to much time/effort into getting it running decent as most ISP's probably won't support much for speeds on it being a 8x4 modem."
I disagree. The device is connected to Comcast / xFinity and is running quite well, going at the full speed my friend is paying for, and supporting multiple devices at speeds that do what he wants them to do: mostly serving videos, but also backups for other systems.
His "main" PC is running Windows and has been working as his DLNA server for some time, using Windows Media Player as the server. I set this up, and also set up my own system like it several years ago. Surprisingly, it works quite well with Roku, supplying more than enough bandwidth for HD videos on a very big screen TV. WMP was one of Microsoft's better products, which is probably why they cancelled it (I wish that was a joke, but it isn't).
Having one central server to act as a backup device for this PC, his laptop, is Surface Go, his cell phone, and his family's cell phones would be quite useful Since the C3700 is online all the time, it's a logical place to put a storage drive instead of having to have the PC on all of the time for that.
"In terms of hard drives, thats harder as its literally a gamble. there's to many drives out there to test them all. Your best bet is to connect that driver to a pc/laptop and use it as a shared storage and install a media server software to it like plex or jellyfin."
The goal here is to at least have a backup for the PC, and probably a replacement with the PC as the backup. As stated above, it has more than enough bandwidth for this application.
I don't know about jellyfin, but I have tested Plex and several other servers for this purpose, and, as amazing as it sounds, Windows Media Player worked better than any of the others I've tried, and doesn't "snoop" on the users the way Plex does. In my quick test I think the C3700 will work at least as well as a DLNA server, and should be good enough for occasional backups which can run at night when the router isn't being used very much.
You don't always need the biggest or the "best" for all applications.
I don't expect Netgear to test every hard drive on the market, but what I'm asking for is really very, very basic generic disk volume information that should be provided. Specifying which type of formatting is not brand or model or volume specific. Saying what the maximum supported partition size is should not be a secret, and should not require testing many different drives: the people at Netgear who installed the firmware / software should know what size drive is supported, and share that with us. No brand names or models are needed.
I 100% agree that the biggest isn't always the best.
And while its working right now, it probably won't always be. The isp's have been dropping the speed tiers on docsis 3.0 devices for what they support. For cox, anything over 150mbps is now starting to require docsis 3.1.(with a 32x8 modem) Xfinity hasn't been as bad at cox at it but they've been dropping it down as well. The modem in the c3700 used to support up to 343mbps. Xfinity has dropped that speed. I don't have the exact speed supported anymore because xfinity makes it a PITA to get but I'm betting its not much. In 2020 it was for up to 280mbps but that was before they started dropping speed tiers. The most recent I could find was support for up to 150mbps.
Its more something to keep in mind that he might not be getting the actual speeds he pays for and if he does, it might not be for much longer as the ISP's push for higher capacity and requiring docsis 3.1.
I made do the same way for quite a while with backing up devices to an external hard drive on a router. Then I moved to a dedicated server that hosts my backups and my plex server. It was a massive change. And it was a older intel 4 core computer that I picked up for free fixing something for someone. You don't realize how much the performance of the router was holding you back until you upgrade a bit. The usb 2.0 ports on the router are going to be a bottleneck. Plus its wifi is pretty slow. I've used one before for testing and it wasn't fast. yes you can stream netflix/youtube but its usually because those apps are great at buffering ahead and adaptive streaming for your service. When you start streaming live or actually checking what the shows are streaming at in terms of quality, is where you run into issues.
Again, not saying you can't use it. If its working, great! But its just something to keep in mind that it was a pretty basic modem/router when it was released and isn't getting any faster. Its going to be the bottleneck in the speed/performance of a home network.
the hard drives do make it more problematic. I usually just advise people to buy from somewhere with a good return policy in case it doesn't work. Also, get drives that are powered with an external power supply. I doubt that that usb port is going to be putting out much power. Netgear doesn't update much on their supported external power supplies and you see them moving away from it with removing support for USB services like readyshare vault.
I understand your concerns. However, for this particular application, you are focused on the wrong end of the process.
For many people, the speed of the connection between themselves and whatever is at the other end of the Internet is of primary importance.
For people who are watching videos, as long as the internet link can handle the bit rate of the video, it's "good". The bit rate needed to watch most videos is an order of magnitude less than the current internet connection. I've seen 20 mbps connections handle multiple video streams. And, oddly enough, Comcast recently doubled my Internet connection speed at no additional cost (!!!), and my old Arris cable modem handles it just fine.
As for backups: yes, the connection through the router is important, but he's getting good speeds there. And, in his case, he's perfectly happy to start a backup before going to bed, and have it finished by the next morning. In his situation, cost is the overriding factor, and he's willing to trade speed for cost. As for the connections from his PC (the current DLNA server) through the C3700 to the TV; as I said, they have been more than adequate for even HD on a large screen TV. So the C3700 is working fine for him. Will it make everyone who tries one happy? Possibly not, but there is no reason to replace it at this time (and there is no such thing as "one size fits all" anyway). Plus, making the router the DLNA server removes a network link from the process, and USB 2.0 is fast enough to serve videos. Will he have to wait longer to load a new video from his PC to the router? Yes, probably, but that isn't an issue for him.
In this case, the worst that can happen is that the C3700 won't work as well as the PC as a server, and I can just move the USB hard drive from the router back to the PC. But having the USB drive set up and capable of working on the router means he would have a backup for the PC if it ever malfunctions by moving the external drive from the PC back to the router. In his situation, there are family reasons why he needs to be able to play videos through the TV reliably.
I did some tests.
The C3700 is limited to 2 TB. It won't work with anything larger. I tried dividing a disk into several 1.9 TB partitions, but the C3700 won't mount any of them. It must have really ancient software in it, even though it was purchased new about a year ago.
We're just going to have to ignore that feature for now, or possibly plug in a 2 TB drive and use only some of the features. It did work with a single partition drive of less than 2 TB.
This is really disappointing.