Re: I have an R6400 and want to connect a HDD via USB as a NAS drive
Thanks for your reply. When I look at the Netgear Router page, under Readyshare, the Readycloud button does not appear (see photo). The USB drive I have connected is an 8TB Seagate Hub Plus.
Thanks for your reply. When I look at the Netgear Router page, under Readyshare, the Readycloud button does not appear (see photo). The USB drive I have connected is an 8TB Seagate Hub Plus.
Readyshare is very picky about the USB drives it will accept. 8TB is too big for most devices. The limit seems to be about 4TB.
This list will give you some clues, although it is far from comprehensive:
Re: I have an R6400 and want to connect a HDD via USB as a NAS drive
> I have a Nighthawk R6400 router [...]
R6400[v1] or R6400v2? Look for "Model" on the product label. Firmware version?
> [...] When I look at the Netgear Router page, under Readyshare, the > Readycloud button does not appear (see photo). [...]
I don't trust Netgear router firmware with my stored data, so I don't use this stuff, so I don't pay close attention, but I got the impression from my readings here that Netgear was dropping (had dropped?) ReadyCLOUD support from recent firmware versions on some (all?) its routers. This could be an artifact of my usual false-memory syndrome, but, if you loaded an older firmware version and the feature reappeared, then that would be suggestive. I'm too lazy to scan all the firmware release notes to see if anything relevant could be found that way.
> [...] By convention NAS usually means Ethernet. That's not USB.
Sigh. "By convention", in this context, NAS means Network-Attached Storage.
A purpose-built NAS server typically uses a high-speed interface (Fibre Channel, SCSI, SAS, SATA, ...) to communicate with its storage devices (disks, et al.), and an Ethernet or other network interface to communicate with its client devices.
Some router models offer some NAS capability using a USB interface to a storage device, and the usual Ethernet interface for communication with a client. That is what's being discussed here.
Some of the participants in these forums seem to believe (and enjoy telling others) that "NAS" means a box whose label says "NAS", rather than a gizmo which attaches a storage device to a network.
Others believe that any gizmo which attaches a storage device, even a USB-connected storage device, to a network, like, say, a Netgear R6400[vX], constitutes network-attached storage (NAS). I have no trouble with this functional definition (because I can read), but some people seem to, which leads to "help" like:
> [...] By convention NAS usually means Ethernet. That's not USB.
A USB-connected disk, by itself, is not (normally) NAS. A USB-connected disk, when connected to a computer with the right programming (and a network interface), can be, literally, exactly, network-attached storage.
But I don't expect to persuade the local "experts".
It's true that a purpose-built NAS server which does not use USB as its storage interface will typically have faster hardware, and software/firmware which is more reliable and has more features (like RAID, for example) than a consumer-grade Netgear router-as-NAS. But, network-attached storage is still network-attached storage. For some of us, at least.
Re: I have an R6400 and want to connect a HDD via USB as a NAS drive
Thank you for your response. I agree with you that a USB attached drive is NOT the same as an NAS drive. 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. If you can suggest a way for me to do that I would be appreciative. The upload need not be automatic as I do not mind uploading them once a week by myself but what I do want to do it to be able to uload them (or view them) from anywhere. Thanks in advance.
Re: I have an R6400 and want to connect a HDD via USB as a NAS drive
> [...] 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. [...]
You seem to want plain-old ReadySHARE (LAN access to the shared storage), not ReadyCLOUD (outside-world access to the shared storage).
If your actual complaint is that the "8TB Seagate Hub Plus" is not appearing under "Available Network Folders", then that's not a ReadyCLOUD problem.
> [...] what I do want to do it to be able to uload them (or view them) > from anywhere. [...]
So, "All" was not really "all"?
_That_ would be a ReadyCLOUD problem. If that feature's not in the current firmware, then I'd investigate older/different firmware.
> R6400[v1] or R6400v2? Look for "Model" on the product label. > Firmware version?
Still wondering.
To deal with the empty list of "Available Network Folders"...
Visit http://netgear.com/support , put in your (actual) model number, and look for Documentation. Get the User Manual. Read. Look for "USB Storage Device Requirements". Find the list of supported file system types. Note that exFAT is not among them.
What is the file system on your "8TB Seagate Hub Plus"? If it's not one of the supported file systems, then you might want to format it appropriately. (NTFS is popular.)
> Readyshare is very picky about the USB drives it will accept. 8TB is > too big for most devices. [...]
I'd try it with a supported file system before abandoning all hope of using the whole thing.
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.
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.
Re: I have an R6400 and want to connect a HDD via USB as a NAS drive
> [...] 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"?
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.
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.
Re: I have an R6400 and want to connect a HDD via USB as a NAS drive
@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.
