ReadyShare file system: Does R6900v2 AC1900 NightHawk support exFat Western Digital MyBook 4TB drive

[MauriceFrank]

Readyshare will not work with my new Western Digital MyBook 4TB external USB drive.

I checked the properties and the file system is exFAT. Is this file systtem supported? If not, I can reformat to another Windows 10 file system - which should I choose? NTFS or other?

I checked this page: https://kb.netgear.com/24059/What-are-the-USB-drive-requirements-for-my-Nighthawk-router

(Last Updated:11/28/2016 | Article ID: 24059)

and it does not list exFAT as a supported file system

This new drive replaced a previous WD MyBook 4TB USB drive purchased almost 5 years ago. That drive worked fine until it went to hard drive heaven a few days ago.

My R6900v2 AC1900 NightHawk firmware is up to date: V1.2.0.62_1.0.1

www.routerlogin.net does not tell me to upgrade

The new WD drive works fine on my Windows 10 PC with the same USB cable.

I inserted a generic USB tumb drive and it works. The routerlogin admin home page shows it working, and the readyshare page shows it working too.

So far, the router port seems to work, the WD drive works, I just can't get the router to connect to the drive.

Summary: as far as I can tell the file system is the obstacle. If so please confirm and advise which Windows 10 file system works best with NightHawk routers

Thank you for your help

[MauriceFrank · Accepted solution]

Changing the file system solved my problem - the readyshare drive now works.

I decided to do a full, not a quick, format of the WD MyBook drive using NTFS and the default (smallest) allocation size of 4096 bytes. I don't know if it's optimal, but it works.

One of the posts on this forum mentioned the file sytem, and that led me to try this. I can't recall which post because I read so many, but thank you!

[MauriceFrank · Accepted solution]

Changing the file system solved my problem - the readyshare drive now works.

I decided to do a full, not a quick, format of the WD MyBook drive using NTFS and the default (smallest) allocation size of 4096 bytes. I don't know if it's optimal, but it works.

One of the posts on this forum mentioned the file sytem, and that led me to try this. I can't recall which post because I read so many, but thank you!