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Forum Discussion
Formatting external USB disk (Duo v2 5.3.6)
I added an external USB disk to my Duo v2. Being formatted on a Macintosh with GUID partition map and "MacOS Extended" filesystem, it wasn't recognized. No hint in the dashboard that new hardware was discovered (though unreadable) - nothing. Pretty bad user experience. After some googling I found a hint to format the drive with MBR and FAT. Did that, and the disk was recognized and automatically a share named "USB_HDD_2" appeared.
1) I am not quite happy with using FAT for the USB disk, mainly because of the max.file.size of 4GB. Is it possible to format the USB drive from the NAS to e.g. EXT3 or EXT4? I didn't see any option of formatting within Raidiator/Dashboard, but is it perhaps possible to do that from command line (root access)?
2) In DashBoard->Shares->Share Properties->Name the edit field is disabled, I cannot edit that ugly and misleading "USB_HDD_2" name - after all the user mounts a share from a NAS and not from a locally connected USB disk. I'd like to use the name "Media2" or at least something without "USB" in it. Is it perhaps possible to rename that share via command line (root access)?
Thanks, Marc
1) I am not quite happy with using FAT for the USB disk, mainly because of the max.file.size of 4GB. Is it possible to format the USB drive from the NAS to e.g. EXT3 or EXT4? I didn't see any option of formatting within Raidiator/Dashboard, but is it perhaps possible to do that from command line (root access)?
2) In DashBoard->Shares->Share Properties->Name the edit field is disabled, I cannot edit that ugly and misleading "USB_HDD_2" name - after all the user mounts a share from a NAS and not from a locally connected USB disk. I'd like to use the name "Media2" or at least something without "USB" in it. Is it perhaps possible to rename that share via command line (root access)?
Thanks, Marc
3 Replies
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fesh wrote:
1) I am not quite happy with using FAT for the USB disk, mainly because of the max.file.size of 4GB. Is it possible to format the USB drive from the NAS to e.g. EXT3 or EXT4? I didn't see any option of formatting within Raidiator/Dashboard, but is it perhaps possible to do that from command line (root access)?
Current firmware doesn't support USB storage formatting,you have to wait new firmware but I am not sure when it will release,you can format USB drive to NTFS to support large file on your PC instead.
2) In DashBoard->Shares->Share Properties->Name the edit field is disabled, I cannot edit that ugly and misleading "USB_HDD_2" name - after all the user mounts a share from a NAS and not from a locally connected USB disk. I'd like to use the name "Media2" or at least something without "USB" in it. Is it perhaps possible to rename that share via command line (root access)?
This is good idea but there is no way to allow you to do that, (USB_HDD_*) is a default USB device name,and the setting will revert to default at next plugging even you renamed device.- This is a serious shortcoming: every time a USB drive is disconnected and plugged in, it can (so far for me WILL) get a new name. That means that backups to the USB drive must be adjusted to the new name, etc. There should be a way to enter the drive id into the mount table or fstab so that it comes back with the same name regardless of what USB port of device it is plugged into. Windows assigns a DiskID (MBR drive) or GUID (GPT disk) so that the OS will recognize the same drive when it is reconnected. ReadyNAS needs to do something similar, and allow user specifed names (or perhaps a name suffix if every name must begin with USB_)
- USB HDD formatting and renaming worked for Duo v1. Hence v2 is a considerable step back. Why that?
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