3TB (GPT) external disk support via USB3.0 on ARM Duo/NV+ v2

It's been 6 months since the original post, but I haven't seen any mention that this may be available in a firmware upgrade.
I'd like to be able to connect my 5 drive (8TB) RAID box with a USB3.0 connection directly to my NV+ v2 and use it as a backup device.

Since the ARM v2 hardware platform supports GPT drives internally, I believe that it should be possible to support GPT via the USB ports.
The x86 platform supports GPT via USB ports, so the code to do this should be available to carry forward to the ARM platform.

Please consider adding support for GPT drives via USB3.0 in an upcoming firmware upgrade.

Thanks

I don't know that GPT is your problem as much as it is the fact that it is a RAID configured external box.

Thanks for the reply PapaBear.

Using the (Sans Digital TR5UTP) RAID external box is ultimately what I'd like to use, but first GPT support would be needed for it to have a chance.

Initially, I'd settle for using my 3TB Seagate external USB 3.0 drive. That doesn't work either. A 2TB drive (mounted in an external dock) works.

As far as I know, drives larger than 2TB don't work via USB on the ARM boxes. I've read posts from others having problems with drives larger than 2TB, and so far have not seen a post where someone was successful using a 3TB drive via USB. If someone has had success, I'd appreciate it if you would post the make and model number.

(BTW, I currently connect the external Sans Digital TR5UTP RAID box via USB3.0 to a Centos Linux box and backup my ReadyNAS machines to the RAID box on the Linux machine)

I have a Sans Digital TR5M+B set up as a JBOD box. Now this version uses an eSATA cable that must be connected to a desktop add in card. I used it for a long time for backups before I was able to get a second NAS so I could do an NAS to NAS backup via rsync, the fastest and easiest way to do a backup. The ARM based Duo v2/NV+ v2 supports rsync if running RAIDiator 5.3.5.

I'm almost paralleling what you've done PapaBear.

The main reason I bought the NV+ v2 was to use it as a backup for my other ReadyNAS boxes and do the NAS to NAS backups via rsync. I'm starting out with minimal internal storage on the NV+ v2 (until I can afford to buy larger drives), and planned to do the rsync from the other ReadyNAS boxes to the Sans Digital connected to the NV+ v2 via USB3.0 in the meantime.

I made the assumption that the USB3.0 ports of the NV+ v2 would support drives larger than 2TB (every PC with USB3.0 that I've used supports my 3TB Seagate external drive). The NV+ v2 is the only device I've run across that has USB3.0 but doesn't support 3TB drives.

That's the reason for my Feature Request. I believe that the ARM boxes can and should support GPT drives via their USB3.0 ports.

I hope that this feature request will be considered for one of the upcoming firmware updates.

Since I wasn't successful using my 3TB Seagate GoFlex external USB 3.0 drive, I decided to see if I could have any luck using a bare drive in docking station. After some experimention, I'm able to mount a 4TB (Seagate ST4000DM000) Drive to the ReadyNAS NV+ v2 :-D
(I'll try the same process with the Sans Digital TR5UTP RAID external box next. I'm backing up data from it to the 4TB Seagate prior to re-partitioning and re-formatting it.)

I was able to do this by using a PC running CentOs 6.2, partitioning the drive as a single GPT partition (via parted) and formatting it with the ext4 filesystem.

I've posted what I did here: http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=71331