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External storage issue
I have an R6400 router (latest firmware: V1.0.1.24), and want to connect a Seagate Backup Plus 4TB external drive to serve as back up for several computers in the house. Prior to connecting it to the...
> More than me!
Perhaps, but, as I said, my actual experience with ReadySHARE
consists of some (not much) reading.
> So advice is to forget about using this as a network drive through the
> router?
The way I look at is this:
You "copied some files onto" the disk, which, I gather, is still
formatted with a NTFS file system, as supplied by Seagate. I assume
that if you eject and disconnect the drive from the Mac, and then
reconnect it, those files are still seen by the Mac (Finder).
Then you eject and disconnect that disk from the Mac, and attach it
to the router, which seems happy enough, but now those files which you
know must be on the disk are not visible?
Unless there are some odd-ball permissions involved (which doesn't
seem very likely), then I'd say that the Paragon NTFS file-systemsoftware is doing something on that disk which confuses the GNU/Linux
NTFS file-system software on the router. At least one of them could
have a bug, and file-system bugs are not particularly desirable if you
expect a backup (Time Machine or other) to be useful.
One more thing I'd want to test would be if you could actually do a
Time Machine restore operation using a backup from that
ReadySHARE-served NTFS file system. In principle, the normal Mac OS can
read a NTFS file system (without the Paragon software, which might not
be available in the macOS restore/recovery environment), and it should
be able to do network access, too, so it could work, but I'd want to see
it work before I trusted it. Which would be true of any backup system.
A write-only backup system always looks good when you don't need it, but
tends to disappoint when you do need it.
Around here, I use an old Seagate NAS220 network storage gizmo for my
Time Machine backups. I don't know what the actual on-disk file system
is in that thing, but I believe that it's some native GNU/Linux thing
like "ext3". But the NAS box runs software which presents the data to
the network as an Apple File System volume. (You can see the TimeMachine XXX.sparsebundle files using the Finder Go > Connect to
Server... > afp://nas220 [...], just like any normal Apple-shared
volume. ("Get Info" says: Kind: Mac / Where: Network.)
There's still software involved (as usual; it's hard to avoid), but
the actual underlying file system is an OS-native one, and the only
worry is the Apple File Protocol layer on the NAS box. And it did
actually work for me recently, when the (original) disk in my MacBook
(13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008) died. So, network storage for Time
Machine backups has worked in the real world. Whether ReadySHARE with a
NTFS disk works, I don't know.
If all you care about are Time Machine backups, then you might also
consider formatting this disk with an Apple-native file system, instead
of its original, Windows-friendly NTFS. You'd still need to worry about
the router's Apple-file-system software, but it'd be a different stack
of stuff from the NTFS stack. I'd still test it, and realistic testing
is the best advice I have for any proposed backup scheme.
antinode wrote:
What, exactly, did you download (and install)? The Paragon
NTFS-for-Mac driver? ("This driver provides write access for Seagate
external drives in Mac OS without having to reformat.")
Yes--that's right.
Installing a NTFS driver on the Mac should have approximately no
effect on the drive itself. (If that's what you did.)
Makes sense--didn't see additional files on the drive (but thought maybe they were hidden)
And who, beside you, knows what either of those model numbers is?
My model is SRD0PV0--other is on a page on this site somewhere.
Perhaps Netgear's GNU/Linux multi-file-system software really does
work well, and is perfectly compatible with disks from Windows and Mac
systems, but I wouldn't bet my data on such a thick stack of software
from such a wide variety of vendors. But what do I know?
More than me! So advice is to forget about using this as a network drive through the router?
> More than me!
Perhaps, but, as I said, my actual experience with ReadySHARE
consists of some (not much) reading.
> So advice is to forget about using this as a network drive through the
> router?
The way I look at is this:
You "copied some files onto" the disk, which, I gather, is still
formatted with a NTFS file system, as supplied by Seagate. I assume
that if you eject and disconnect the drive from the Mac, and then
reconnect it, those files are still seen by the Mac (Finder).
Then you eject and disconnect that disk from the Mac, and attach it
to the router, which seems happy enough, but now those files which you
know must be on the disk are not visible?
Unless there are some odd-ball permissions involved (which doesn't
seem very likely), then I'd say that the Paragon NTFS file-system
software is doing something on that disk which confuses the GNU/Linux
NTFS file-system software on the router. At least one of them could
have a bug, and file-system bugs are not particularly desirable if you
expect a backup (Time Machine or other) to be useful.
One more thing I'd want to test would be if you could actually do a
Time Machine restore operation using a backup from that
ReadySHARE-served NTFS file system. In principle, the normal Mac OS can
read a NTFS file system (without the Paragon software, which might not
be available in the macOS restore/recovery environment), and it should
be able to do network access, too, so it could work, but I'd want to see
it work before I trusted it. Which would be true of any backup system.
A write-only backup system always looks good when you don't need it, but
tends to disappoint when you do need it.
Around here, I use an old Seagate NAS220 network storage gizmo for my
Time Machine backups. I don't know what the actual on-disk file system
is in that thing, but I believe that it's some native GNU/Linux thing
like "ext3". But the NAS box runs software which presents the data to
the network as an Apple File System volume. (You can see the Time
Machine XXX.sparsebundle files using the Finder Go > Connect to
Server... > afp://nas220 [...], just like any normal Apple-shared
volume. ("Get Info" says: Kind: Mac / Where: Network.)
There's still software involved (as usual; it's hard to avoid), but
the actual underlying file system is an OS-native one, and the only
worry is the Apple File Protocol layer on the NAS box. And it did
actually work for me recently, when the (original) disk in my MacBook
(13-inch, Aluminum, Late 2008) died. So, network storage for Time
Machine backups has worked in the real world. Whether ReadySHARE with a
NTFS disk works, I don't know.
If all you care about are Time Machine backups, then you might also
consider formatting this disk with an Apple-native file system, instead
of its original, Windows-friendly NTFS. You'd still need to worry about
the router's Apple-file-system software, but it'd be a different stack
of stuff from the NTFS stack. I'd still test it, and realistic testing
is the best advice I have for any proposed backup scheme.
Thank you SO much for the time you put into that answer--I'll poke more to see if I can get it to work, and definitely try out the back-up routine before relying on it. That is just excellent advice anyway.
In the meantime I've gone over to the Seagate world to see if anyone has any ideas over there.
BTW I thought about getting an NAS set up, but to be honest I was trying to save money, since the router has the port and presents itself as making this easy.
ztrachtenberg wrote:BTW I thought about getting an NAS set up, but to be honest I was trying to save money, since the router has the port and presents itself as making this easy.
I use both ReadyShare and NAS. The latter is better for things that you want to leave permanently connected to the network. So it is the way to go for things like backup copies of important files and system images.
USB drives are better for copies of things you might want to move or share on another device that isn't on the network, music files for example, of work that you want to take on the road.
NAS devices are more expensive, but you can find offers from time to time, especially if you don't need something that powerful.
To play around a bit with your current devices, have you tried using a USB stick with ReadyShare?
By the way, the manual for the R6400 goes into some detail about using it with Time Machine. See page 74.
>>> R6400 | Product | Support | NETGEAR <<<
Did you ever experiment with the different USB ports on the R6400? I have seen reports here that things that don't play nice with the (front) USB3 port work fine with the (rear) USB2 port.
> [...] the router has the port and presents itself as making this easy.
Yup, sounds good. And if it actually works, that's even better.
The question is whether the ReadySHARE software is only a
slapped-together collection of unreliable building blocks which were
available (free) for the GNU/Linux which the router was already running,
or, a well integrated, well tested package which can be trusted with
valuable data.
I still haven't done anything with ReadySHARE, so I can't say. I
have seen Netgear release firmware updates with serious Web interface
defects (broken links which kill the Web server), so I'm unwilling
blindly to trust their software quality. ("Trust but verify" or
"Distrust but verify" -- "verify" is the important part.)
