Re: R7000 sees USB 3.0 portable drive not 8TB external drive

Vine-Leaf · ‎2020-01-03

This router has both a USB 2 and 3 ports. I plugged a USB 3.0 WD Passport 3 TB drive into the USB 3.0 port. The drive spins up and the indicator light goes on. This drive is formatted NTFS

I plug in a MYBook 8TB drive and apply power to the drive. I listen to the drive spin up since it doesn't have a power indicator. Wait about 3 minutes and the indicator light does not come on. The drive is formatted exFat.

Does the router recognize ezFat drives? I used that format to allow it to share files with both Windows and Mac computers.
Is there an upper limit on the size of the disk it will recognize?

Really like the idea of having the storage on our home network. We have a lot of videos and I would actually like to put a 14 TB drive on the router as prices are dropping but won't purchase until I can get the 8TB drive to work.

Vine-Leaf · ‎2020-01-21

I determined that neither of the large WD drives worked. I looked at the netgear support site for the R7000 (https://kb.netgear.com/18985/Will-my-USB-drive-work-with-ReadySHARE)

Based on this I tried the Seagate - Backup Plus Hub 8TB External USB 3.0 (SRD0PV1) Plugged it in and after a while readyshare found it and made it available.

I will use my WD drive as a backup for the shared drive as an extra precaution.

I used the 3.0 front facing USB port. I plan to see if the drive will also connect from the USB 2 port on the back.

View solution in original post

antinode · ‎2020-01-03

> I plug in a MYBook 8TB drive [...]

Into which port? It shouldn't matter, but that's not proof that it
doesn't.

> Does the router recognize ezFat drives? [...]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM

Visit http://netgear.com/support , put in your model number, and look
for Documentation. Get the User Manual. Read. Look for "USB Device
Requirements". Did you find exFAT there? Until you put a supported
file system onto the disk, you can expect it not to work.

> [...] I used that format to allow it to share files with both Windows
> and Mac computers.

The file system on a shared disk is largely irrelevant to a
file-sharing client system. The file-sharing software on the router
needs to deal with the disk. The file-sharing client system needs to
deal with the file-sharing software on the router, not with the disk
directly.

On a Mac, specify "smb://" as the scheme in a "Connect to Server"
"Server Address:". (That's the file-sharing protocol, nothing to do
with the on-disk file system. As explained in the R7000 User Manual.)

> Is there an upper limit on the size of the disk it will recognize?

Probably, but I haven't seen it documented. Various reports in these
forums disagree. Some problems have been reported for disks bigger that
4TB, but some successes have been reported, too. Running the experiment
might be more reliable, but some forum searching might be useful.

> Really like the idea [...]

It's a good idea. Whether Netgear's implementation of it is also
good is a different question.

> Model: R7000|AC1900 Smart WIFI Router, R7000P|Nighthawk AC2300 Smart
> WiFi Dual Band Gigabit Router

Which model is it? Firmware version?

michaelkenward · ‎2020-01-04

@Vine-Leaf wrote:

I plug in a MYBook 8TB drive and apply power to the drive. I listen to the drive spin up since it doesn't have a power indicator. Wait about 3 minutes and the indicator light does not come on.

By coincidence:

Re: Hard drive won't stay on via USB 3.0 port on R... - NETGEAR Communities

In essence, 8TB is bigger than any drive known to work with ReadySHARE.

Vine-Leaf · ‎2020-01-06

I can see that you are very knowlegable about the router and, given your sensei rating, probably other routers as well. I also appreciate the fact that in the middle of your diatribe, you did provide information that I needed to better understand my problem. That said, I actually would rather not have an answer than to have it delivered in such a demeaning manner. This is the first time that I have been in a support forum where the "helper" decided to flame. I expect that in SM like FaceBook or Twitter. I don't expect it in a support community.

If this is the norm for help on the NetGear support group, I will probably look for another option when I need to replace this one.

Vine-Leaf · ‎2020-01-06

Thank you. That indeed is probably part of the problem in addition to the wrong format for the disk. I appreciate your help. I think it does work with a 6 TB disk as I had one working earlier in the year.

michaelkenward · ‎2020-01-06

@Vine-Leaf wrote:

If this is the norm for help on the NetGear support group, I will probably look for another option when I need to replace this one.

No.

But a few contributors seem to make it a hobby to demean other people.

michaelkenward · ‎2020-01-06

@Vine-Leaf wrote:

I think it does work with a 6 TB disk as I had one working earlier in the year.

That makes two reports of 6 TB working on ReadySHARE.

Can you remember what it was that worked for you?

ReadySHARE does fine here with a 4TB WD Elements.

Unfortunately, Netgear does not keep its own database up to date, so it is down to users to fill in the gaps.

Vine-Leaf · ‎2020-01-11

While my 6 TB worked before it is not recognized now. At this point that drive is almost full. I am thinking that the Router / Readyshare initially examines the drive and produces some sort of index. I am not claiming to know anyting about how this works. I am making a guess based on evidence. When I was able to hook it up before, the drive had less than 4 TB on it. I am going to continue testing to find out if reducing the amount of storage used on the drive allows Readyshare to recognize the drive. If this is the case, then at least I will know the parameters needed to make an external drive work.

As an aside, I can hook two smaller drives on the two USB ports and both are recognized.

michaelkenward · ‎2020-01-11

@Vine-Leaf wrote:

I am thinking that the Router / Readyshare initially examines the drive and produces some sort of index. I am not claiming to know anyting about how this works.

It will of you have DLNA active.

Nothing massive though. 1.14 GB on my half full 4TB drive with ~750GB of music.

Vine-Leaf · ‎2020-01-21

I determined that neither of the large WD drives worked. I looked at the netgear support site for the R7000 (https://kb.netgear.com/18985/Will-my-USB-drive-work-with-ReadySHARE)

Based on this I tried the Seagate - Backup Plus Hub 8TB External USB 3.0 (SRD0PV1) Plugged it in and after a while readyshare found it and made it available.

I will use my WD drive as a backup for the shared drive as an extra precaution.

I used the 3.0 front facing USB port. I plan to see if the drive will also connect from the USB 2 port on the back.