Forum Discussion

Aspirant

Dec 19, 2017

Solved

USB HDD used as destination for Backup of 314 / use old NAS instead?

I purchased a Seagate Expansion 3TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 (STBV3000100) few years back to serve as my destination to backup my RN314. I plugged it into the front port of my NAS and whi...

StephenB
Dec 20, 2017
I am thinking you formatted the USB drive on the NAS, likely using the EXT format that Mac and Windows doesn't recognize. I think there was a bug a while back that would account for the loss of space.

I don't see much point in using a drive format that you can only read on the NAS. Generally I think NTFS is the best option, so I'd reformat it on the PC. Then you'd be able to read/write to the drive from windows, and read from it on a Mac. You might need to delete the partitions ("volumes") using Windows Disk Manager first, and then create a new partition that fills the whole disk.

As far as the max size goes, a lot of the very large USB drives (5TB and up) use SMR technology. These might cause some issues with the NAS. There's no easy way to tell if a large USB drive uses SMR or not - the specs generally don't say. One approach is to get a powered USB enclosure + an internal drive - then you will know the drive specs.

StephenB

Guru - Experienced User

Dec 20, 2017

JustKJ wrote:

As an asude, I still have the chassis of my old ReadyNAS NV+ can I fill it with retired HDD from my upgrade and use it as a backup destination? EIther place it offsite and backup over the net (might be too slow) or bring it onsite once a week and store it off site?

You can, keeping in mind that the NV+ is limited to 2 TB disks.

There used to be a free rsync-over-ssh add-on for the NV+, but I am not seeing it now. You could use a VPN - that could potentially be hosted in the two routers, or in PCs on each site. ZeroTier and OpenVPN are two options there.

JustKJ wrote:

I plugged it into the front port of my NAS and while I am able to back up to it, it only recognizes 2 TB of space.

If you attach the disk to a windows PC and look at it with the Windows Disk Manager, what partitions do you see?

JustKJ
Aspirant
Dec 20, 2017
Thanks stephen for the quick response.

When I look at the drive through the NAS interface, it shows a max of 2TB (SMB protocal). I use to be able to connect directly to my Mac and see the files or use a Virtual Machince PC see it, but when I connected it just now, my Mac responded that it was in an unreadable format, and offered to Eject, Ignore, or format.

I plugged it into my wife's work PC and it offered it format it right away.

I believe my course of action is to purchase a new drive, make a full new back up to it, then reformat the old drive, and begin alternating between them.

So i guess back to my first question, what the the largest USB HDD size that my NAS can recognize and use a s destination for backups?
- StephenB
  Guru - Experienced User
  Dec 20, 2017
  I am thinking you formatted the USB drive on the NAS, likely using the EXT format that Mac and Windows doesn't recognize. I think there was a bug a while back that would account for the loss of space.
  
  I don't see much point in using a drive format that you can only read on the NAS. Generally I think NTFS is the best option, so I'd reformat it on the PC. Then you'd be able to read/write to the drive from windows, and read from it on a Mac. You might need to delete the partitions ("volumes") using Windows Disk Manager first, and then create a new partition that fills the whole disk.
  
  As far as the max size goes, a lot of the very large USB drives (5TB and up) use SMR technology. These might cause some issues with the NAS. There's no easy way to tell if a large USB drive uses SMR or not - the specs generally don't say. One approach is to get a powered USB enclosure + an internal drive - then you will know the drive specs.
  - JustKJ
    Aspirant
    Dec 26, 2017
    Thanks again Stephen, great information and suggestions. Here is what I am looking at:
    
    Enclosure:
    https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-enclosure-Aluminum-Support-HDL-SU3/dp/B00M94AGRM
    
    Hard Disk:
    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LOOJBQY
    
    I did not see SMR listed in the stats on the sale page, and to be sure, I downloaded the manual and searched it for SMR and did not find it there.