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RN104 doesnt see WD Elements 3TB USB HDD on any USB ports
Hi, I have had up until yesterday two 64 GB USB sticks in the two rear ports of my RN104 for backup of files. I was using them both for back up of different stuff, but its just not enough room. So I have a WD Elements drive from around 2013, USB 2.0 3TB sitting in my desk, so I remove the USB sticks and plug this WD drive in and...... nothing. I see the activity light on the drive going just crazy so I gave it some time. Hours really, checked it this morning and nothing. Popped in the two USB sticks and they both show up in the GUI no problem. Remove them and try WD Elements again and nada. I check the HDD formatting on Windows 7 machine and its NTFS as it came from the factory. Reformatted anyway, still nothing. Does anyone have any ideas how to get this thing to recognize a 3TB USB HDD? Firmware note. I had this morning 6.5.1, updated to 6.5.2 this morning and no love, so I went backward to 6.5.0. Still nothing. Does any USB HDD work? Let me know and I'll go get one. Thanks for any help on this. KN.
Good Morning. Thanks for the reply BrianL. Update 2 incase anyone reads this.
Before you get to involved in research because I screwed up... I found some stuff out. I kept farting around with the WD Elements case and the 3TB drive. I guess I should mention first off (because I didn’t think it was an issue before) that the 3TB drive is a replacement drive for which was originally a 2TB drive in the Elements case.
I hooked this WD Elements drive back up to the PC and it still showed 3TB. For some reason I decided to instead of just formatting again I deleted the whole partition. When I went to make the new partition it only showed 2TB available on the 3TB drive. So I went ahead and made the partition 2TB. I then took it back to the NAS104 and plugged it in and it saw it just fine! So... the USB interface board inside the Elements case must somehow have a limitation built into it. Because the 3TB was formatted before I put it in the case is why it worked in the first place with the PC whiich saw it just fine, so I thought the NAS would too. It’s been a fun learning experience.
Anyway, I went this morning and bought a Vantec Nexstar G6 or 6G enclosure, I can't tell from the logo. It’s a USB 3.0 and SATA III so it’s fast and only $23 at Frys. I did a speed test on it with a PC and it transfers data from the 3TB to PC at 140MB/sec. Good enough for me. I'll try it tonight when I get home to plug in to the NAS104. I hope it sees it. KN.
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Morning,
Well to answer my own question I figured out how to get the NAS to see the 3TB drive. The NAS104 apparently doesn't like the WD Elements USB interface. I took the drive out of the WD enclosure and connected it using a Sabrent USB 2.0 to SATA adapter. The NAS see's that as WD30EZRX. So now I'm just going to go to Fry's and see about finding a new USB 3.0 enclosure for my drive.
I hope this may help anyone else having a WD Elements USB HDD issue. KN.
Hi knelson454,
I'm glad that you found a workaround to make your hard drive work in your ReadyNAS. I won't say that this is an issue but It should have detected your external USB drive via it's mini USB interface (data cable). Let me dig some information or some old threads about external WD hard drives and let you know if I find something.
Kind regards,
BrianL
NETGEAR Community TeamGood Morning. Thanks for the reply BrianL. Update 2 incase anyone reads this.
Before you get to involved in research because I screwed up... I found some stuff out. I kept farting around with the WD Elements case and the 3TB drive. I guess I should mention first off (because I didn’t think it was an issue before) that the 3TB drive is a replacement drive for which was originally a 2TB drive in the Elements case.
I hooked this WD Elements drive back up to the PC and it still showed 3TB. For some reason I decided to instead of just formatting again I deleted the whole partition. When I went to make the new partition it only showed 2TB available on the 3TB drive. So I went ahead and made the partition 2TB. I then took it back to the NAS104 and plugged it in and it saw it just fine! So... the USB interface board inside the Elements case must somehow have a limitation built into it. Because the 3TB was formatted before I put it in the case is why it worked in the first place with the PC whiich saw it just fine, so I thought the NAS would too. It’s been a fun learning experience.
Anyway, I went this morning and bought a Vantec Nexstar G6 or 6G enclosure, I can't tell from the logo. It’s a USB 3.0 and SATA III so it’s fast and only $23 at Frys. I did a speed test on it with a PC and it transfers data from the 3TB to PC at 140MB/sec. Good enough for me. I'll try it tonight when I get home to plug in to the NAS104. I hope it sees it. KN.
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