USB External HDD

If the laptop has an ethernet port, you can of course speed up the transfer time.

Is your laptop a Windows PC? If so, I believe you can connect the external drive directly to the NAS.

The issue here is whether or not the NAS will recognize the hard drive format. It will read FAT32 and NTFS, which is also what Windows will read. Macs can use some other formats.

What is the make, model and size of the USB drive? Is it on the HCL (http://www.readynas.com/?cat=37)?

Normally, you should be able to plug in the USB drive into one of the ports and then create a backup job in Frontview to copy the data from the drive to the NAS (or vice-versa).

Basic steps are:

1. Plug USB drive into ReadyNAS.
2. Login to Frontview > Backup > Add new backup job.
3. Select backup source - USB Front/Rear Top/Rear Bottom
4. Select destination - you would select which share you want the files copied to (ie "Share: media" for backup your movies, pictures, etc.).
5. Select schedule.
6. Select options.

Make sure that you enable "Fast USB writes" in Frontview > System > Performance (requires reboot). Other performance factors to consider are the filesystem on the USB drive (FAT vs. NTFS vs. ext3). FAT and ext3 will offer the best performance.

StephenB wrote:
If the laptop has an ethernet port, you can of course speed up the transfer time. Is your laptop a Windows PC? If so, I believe you can connect the external drive directly to the NAS. The issue here is whether or not the NAS will recognize the hard drive format. It will read FAT32 and NTFS, which is also what Windows will read. Macs can use some other formats.

Hi there. My laptop is a Mac. The external drive reads/writes without issues with the laptop. Maybe the NAS cannot read the format created by Mac?

Would one fix be to attach the laptop via ethernet and then USB to laptop and transfer to NAS that way to speed up time?

dbott67 wrote:

What is the make, model and size of the USB drive? Is it on the HCL (http://www.readynas.com/?cat=37)? Normally, you should be able to plug in the USB drive into one of the ports and then create a backup job in Frontview to copy the data from the drive to the NAS (or vice-versa). Basic steps are: 1. Plug USB drive into ReadyNAS. 2. Login to Frontview > Backup > Add new backup job. 3. Select backup source - USB Front/Rear Top/Rear Bottom 4. Select destination - you would select which share you want the files copied to (ie "Share: media" for backup your movies, pictures, etc.). 5. Select schedule. 6. Select options. Make sure that you enable "Fast USB writes" in Frontview > System > Performance (requires reboot). Other performance factors to consider are the filesystem on the USB drive (FAT vs. NTFS vs. ext3). FAT and ext3 will offer the best performance.

I have a 500gb Seagate Free Agent. I saw that a couple people using them (2tb models).

Would the above procedure erase any data from the external?

wrz0170 wrote:
Would the above procedure erase any data from the external?

No, it's strictly a copy from the USB to the NAS. Of course, if you got really drunk and got the settings backwards (copied files *to* the USB and also selected "Remove the contents of the backup destination before a full backup is performed. This will clean the backup destination of files which were removed in the backup source. Warning, This will delete all files and folders in the backup destination" then you might have a problem. :wink:

dbott67 wrote:

wrz0170 wrote: Would the above procedure erase any data from the external? No, it's strictly a copy from the USB to the NAS. Of course, if you got really drunk and got the settings backwards (copied files *to* the USB and also selected "Remove the contents of the backup destination before a full backup is performed. This will clean the backup destination of files which were removed in the backup source. Warning, This will delete all files and folders in the backup destination" then you might have a problem. :wink:

Thanks :) I went the round about way and hooked up my laptop via ethernet. That did the trick to get the data off the external and onto the NAS in a quick fashion. Unfortunately, I tried the above and could not get it to go. Not sure if it's a read/write thing or not. I will keep plugging away.

wrz0170 wrote:
Thanks :) I went the round about way and hooked up my laptop via ethernet. That did the trick to get the data off the external and onto the NAS in a quick fashion. Unfortunately, I tried the above and could not get it to go. Not sure if it's a read/write thing or not. I will keep plugging away.

Possibly the USB drive isn't formatted to allow the NAS to read it. Since you have the data copied, it may be fine to let things be.

BTW, even if you have redundant disk drives in the NAS, you still need to back it up. There are failure modes that can result in loss of data (a couple of weeks ago I had to reload all the data back onto mine). One way to do this is to get a large USB drive which is only for backup.

StephenB wrote:

wrz0170 wrote: Thanks :) I went the round about way and hooked up my laptop via ethernet. That did the trick to get the data off the external and onto the NAS in a quick fashion. Unfortunately, I tried the above and could not get it to go. Not sure if it's a read/write thing or not. I will keep plugging away. Possibly the USB drive isn't formatted to allow the NAS to read it. Since you have the data copied, it may be fine to let things be. BTW, even if you have redundant disk drives in the NAS, you still need to back it up. There are failure modes that can result in loss of data (a couple of weeks ago I had to reload all the data back onto mine). One way to do this is to get a large USB drive which is only for backup.

Great advice about the back up. I plan on using the external for now but I will most likely get a larger drive to accommodate the household since we do both time machine and have some irreplaceable pics, etc. Hopefully find one that will play nice with our Macs and the Ultra 4.