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Forum Discussion
I have an R6400 and want to connect a HDD via USB as a NAS drive
I have a Nighthawk R6400 router and have a HDD connected to it via its USB port. I want to set up Readycloud but cannot seem to do it. Advice please?
Mph3842 wrote:
All I want to do is to be able to upload my photos from my phone to the USB drive since Gogle Photos is now limiting space.
Congratulations. You have made the right first decision. Too many people leave important photos on their phones and then wonder why they all disappear when they lose their phones.
Mph3842 wrote:
All I want to do is to be able to upload my photos from my phone to the USB drive since Gogle Photos is now limiting space.
The best strategy probably depends on the phone. I use cameras rather than phones, but the same thing works. I can set up the cameras to copy photos over wifi, but I find that it is better just to use a USB link to a PC and then copy everything from there.
But that raises the first question, you have a USB drive attached to the R6400. Is there also a PC in there?
If so, I would be tempted simply to copy the photos from the phone to the USB drive using the PC as an intermediary.
I also use ReadySHARE to copy the photos on to a USB drive. (I like to have more than one copy.) I even use ReadyCLOUD to get at them.
Despite recent claims from Netgear that it is killing the service, ReadyCLOUD still works. I have more than 20 years of photos on a 2TB USB drive.
I can't see that I will ever get 8TB of storage for photos. If you look at the USB compatibility page I linked to earlier, you will see that there are plenty of 4TB drives that work with the R6400. Get one of those and it should work fine with ReadySHARE and ReadyCLOUD.
I am seeking a home grown solution to replace Google photos without the expense of a synology NAS set up. I will try a smaller USB drive. Thanks
> [...] I will try a smaller USB drive. [...]
Do you expect that to restore a ReadyCLOUD control to the BASIC >
ReadySHARE page in your router's management web site? I don't.I'd expect the results from a smaller drive with an incompatible file
system to be very similar to the results from a larger drive with an
incompatible file system.Of course, with my weak psychic powers, I don't know which file
system is on your "an 8TB Seagate Hub Plus", but one of us might be able
to find out by connecting it to some computer or other. It's possible
that 8TB is too big for your router firmware, but that's not the only
possible problem.Is "an 8TB Seagate Hub Plus" anything like an "8TB Seagate Backup
Plus Hub"?
Mph3842 wrote:
I am seeking a home grown solution to replace Google photos without the expense of a synology NAS set up. I will try a smaller USB drive. Thanks
A smaller drive would be a good start. As you will see from the compatibility list for the R6400 , there are plenty of 4TB drives there, but nothing bigger.
ReadySHARE USB Drives Compatibility List | Answer | NETGEAR Support
That's been common knowledge for some years now, as you will see from many similar conversations here.
There are one or two claims from Netgear that some devices will take bigger drives. For example, the R7000 and R7000P are said to accept the Seagate Backup Plus Hub 8TB SRD0PV1. (If someone gives me one of those drives, I might be tempted to try it on my R7000P.) But that may depend on having the righht firmware.
Fortunately, USB support extends to most of the file systems that you are likely to encounter. (Check the list in the manual.) Trouble arises when you want to use a USB drive that needs its own software to work.
You could experiment with ReadyCLOUD and any USB drive that you have lying around before you buy a new drive, just to see that this bit still works. Netgear has a habit of changing things on new firmware, although it seems to reserve those tricks for workhorse routers like the R7000 and R7000P. It has removed various features from those to make way for services like Circle and Armor that it can sell to owners.
But even when Netgear says that it has ditched something you can't be sure. For example, on recent firmware update warned of the death of ReadySHARE Vault on the R7800. Nope. Still works here.
> Fortunately, USB support extends to most of the file systems that you
> are likely to encounter. [...]Unfortunately, it does not extend to one of the file systems which
you are most likely to encounter, namely, exFAT.It's not obvious to me that "most of the file systems that you are
likely to encounter" is a useful concept.> You could experiment with ReadyCLOUD [...]
How, exactly, if the router's management web site lacks any such
option?- Thank you. My drive does not have es Fat.
> [...] My drive does not have es Fat.
> What is the file system on your "8TB Seagate Hub Plus"? [...]
Just one of the many unanswered questions already asked. Look for
"?".
Mph3842 wrote:
Thank you. My drive does not have es Fat.I wouldn't expect it too. Out of the box, USB drives I have bought recently come "Formatted NTFS for Windows" with a warning "Requires reformatting for macOS". No need to change anything, especially given your intended use of the thing as a photo store.
One thing that hasn't come up before is the router's role as a media server. This could be useful if you want to view photos on something like an Xbox or Playstation. This involves ReadyDLNA, which is just the sort of feature that Netgear has been killing with its firmware "improvements". Fortunately, the R6400 seems to have escaped ths fate and your router should support ReadyDLNA along with ReadyCLOUD.
Which NETGEAR routers support ReadyCLOUD? | Answer | NETGEAR Support
As I suggested earlier, there is nothing to stop you from playing with these features before you go the whole hog.
Attach a USB drive to ReadySHARE in the router, begin the journey here:
Sign up and sniff around in there and you will find the client you need. (Some of the links wired into the manuals no longer work.)
I use ReadyCLOUD on a daily basis. I also have the Android app for it.