RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
This is my second Netgear router with a USB port that is supposed to support backups using ReadyShare. The first one, a R6250, worked for quite a while before simply no longer being able to see the attached drive. The drive was 100% functional, it just stopped working on the router's USB port. I believe the error was USB drive not found or words to that effect.
I just bought a new Netgear RAX80 router. I bought a 1TB WD Passport drive and connected it. It was configured and backed up immediately. I looked and the files appeared to be on the drive correctly.
I needed to reboot the router because of an Internet modem crash and the USB drive was no longer available. I tried the drive on all sorts of OS platforms but it could not be mounted. I don't know what scrambled the metadata but the drive was toast.
I tried another USB drive that I had and it was not recognised by the router even though it works fine on other PC's.
What is so peculiar about this USB port? Does it not need to comply with industry standards? I look at the support site and it lists "drives that are reported to work". Considering the drive I had that worked for a number of months, one that didn't work after one backup and another that won't mount or be accessed at all I'm hesitant to buy any drive even if it is on the "reported to have worked" list.
What is wrong with this port (or in the case of the RAX80, 2 ports).
I should not have to jump through hoops to get a simple industry standard drive to function, right?
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
Hi michaelkenward,
I connect the USB drive to the router's USB port and attempt to connect and use it with ReadyShare software. The results are varied as I described. I have used a number of drives and this is my second Netgear router.
I have repurposed several of the drives and I returned the brand new WD drive so I could get a refund. I don't want to buy another drive just to have it fail or get trashed if that is what happened to my most recent attempt.
I gave up on this out of frustration and uninstalled ReadyShare from my Win10 PC.
I have a 55GB USB drive that I can troubleshoot with and I can reinstall ReadySHARE Vault but I need to feel confident that I can buy any decent 1TB USB drive and have it work.
It's not rocket science, it's a USB port and drive ('U' stands for Universal) and the software is ReadySHARE. I also have a "ReadySHARE" command on the RAX80 router under both Basic and Advanced which I should be able to use for the ReadySHARE Vault if I reinstall that software on one of my PC's to test I prefer to start with my main PC which is connected to the RAX80 port directly via RJ45.
I attached a screenshot of the ReadySHARE command from my RAX80 just for information purposes at this point.
I cannot be the only person having these issues. Your thoughts?
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
The trouble with ReadyShare is that it is a basic and poor altenrta8ve to [roper network attached storage (NAS). There are just so many ways in which it can go wrong.
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
Hello again michaelkenward,
I'm sorry if I was misleading. I had not yet attached the 55GB drive. I just wanted to show the current configuration. I said that I have a 55GB drive available if someone wanted to work with me.
I have just attached the drive (see new screenshot attached). The drive shows up as drive letter 'T' and has been assigned a name of \\ReadySHARE\T_Drive . I have not yet installed the ReadySHARE Vault software.
If I/we get this working I will need to buy a much larger drive (1TB just for the constantly changing data) to do my backups.I do regular FULL backups offline and monthly. I only want the network drive to store things change all the time while using a PC. I would also like to direct my security cameras to store on it but I wouldn't be upset if that didn't work. It should but I don't know if I could actually "expect" it to.
I didn't want to buy a drive until I felt as though I wouldn't just be wasting my money. I'm not happy that the list of so called "tested drives" is so short and it is near impossible to find an exact model doing a search engine search on the Internet. The search tends to ignore most of the exact model information and assume you just want a "1TB USB drive" because that is what was 'basically' searched for. The other issue is that even if I find a drive that is on the tested list, I cannot get it for a good price unless I simply luck out. I mentioned when I opened this issue that I am not happy with the way Netgear "words" the list. They simply list as "Reported to work". Not a very confidence inspiring message. It should say tested and supported by Netgear.
I believe the latest failure I experienced may have something to do with the way WD Passport drives present themselves. I believe they are autoencrypted. I can and will buy a NON encrypted drive if I feel comfortable that a normal drive will work for my environment.
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
FWIW, I installed ReadySHARE Vault again. As before, I see the 55GB drive from the ReadySHARE commnd on the router assign the sharename "\\ReadySHARE\T_Drive" and the folder of "root" folder "T:\".
When I run ReadySHARE Vault from the PC it says "Detecting ReadySHARE Drive" and then times out saying "No ReadySHARE device detected".
See screenshot of ReadySHARE trying to detect the drive and failure to detect the drive.
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
Forgive me for not answering. Something is broken in the Community system. Every time you post a message with an attachment my replies break.
This is not your problem. Netgear needs to mend the software for this place.
I have altready asked Netgear to intervene.
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
Hello michaelkenward,
I have made significant progress since yesterday.
Even though it was not necessary before, I had to map a network drive to the share created by the RAX80. Perhaps this is due to a Windows security update of some sort because I made no alterations to my Windows network security or firewall.
This Netgear site has had some problems in the past 24 hours and right after I did a ReadySHARE Backup, I lost all Internet connections and wifi in my house. I don't think the Netgear site issues are related to my LAN issues but it just adds one more layer of complexity to the problems I'm having.
Have you been able to see my uploaded screenshots?
I added a screenshot here of the drive now being seen by ReadySHARE on my Win10 machine. I edited out the backup name and nodename for security purposes.
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
Well, for me, I at least managed to get my Seagate 8TB Backup Plus Hub for Mac to be detected by ReadyCloud and ReadyShare and appear as a login item everytime I log into my Mac.
For starters.
Sadly though, I have zero access to all the contents of that HDD. All 8TB of it.
To think I made the jump to the RAX80 from the Airport Time Capsule hoping it will do a better job. This meant dismantling my Apple home network of a 3TB Time Capsule and three Airport Express base stations.
Network speed and wifi connections are solid nonetheless. That I have to give credit where it is due.
To add more clarity to the issue on hand, I have ReadyCloud installed on my iPhone, with all the necessary sign-ups and what-nots as a work around to ReadyShare. With this, I am able to open pdf, docx, xlsx and the like. But no luck on mp3s and mp4s. They just bring you back to the folder.
Rather upset as I cannot populate my Apple Music library and that I basically cannot access my files as and when I want to. Despite going through all the trouble and following all the steps that were shared on YouTube videos and this community.
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
@roszaimy wrote: Well, for me, I at least managed to get my Seagate 8TB Backup Plus Hub for Mac to be detected by ReadyCloud and ReadyShare and appear as a login item everytime I log into my Mac.
8TB is well outside the experience that anyone has reported here. It certainly does not appear in the Netgear "bible".
The only other report of humongous drives seen here was 6 TB, and that was a one off.
4TB USB drives are more common. (I have one connected to my R7800.) The bigger the drive, the more likely it is to need drivers for Windows, and that isn't something that you can replicate in a router.
@BiigRich is in safer territory with their drives.
Grown up network drives depend on wired Ethernet. USB is a toy in comparison.
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
I hope I'm on the right track. My main complaint here was several drives I tried not working, and the "Netgear bible" only saying here's a list that are "reported to work". This is of little comfort since I have had some issues and it would make troubleshooting any issues going forward a lot easier if Netgear would provide a modestly inclusive "tested and approved" list rather than "reported to work".
I have just ordered a 2TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim drive (STHN2000400) and hope it works. I can't see being restricted to the extremely short list of mostly unavailable drives on the "reported to work" list. That's simply preposterous IMHO.
My new Seagate drive is literally on a slow boat from China so I won't be able to check its function for a few weeks at best.
Before you ask, no, it's not on the list of 12 drives on Netgear's list. Hard to believe that out of millions of different drive models across the USB drive market that there would only be 12 on the list.
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
Well, two things changed. The "slow boat from China" I referred to sank. The company went out of business. Such is life.
Due to problems with the Netgear Community site when I created my "Biig Rich" account I have been forced to abandon that monicker and I am now "Big-Rich", but I am the original poster.
I have since ordered a Seagate drive model number STGX2000400, also 2 TB.
I was able to see it on the RAX80 USB port and briefly on the ReadySHARE Vault software but I was not able to do a backup to it. After a reboot of the router I could still see it on the RAX80 but the ReadyShare Vault software went to its condition where it says there is no ReadyShare drive available.
I decided to try and end run around the ReadyShare Vault software and ran ReadyShare Connect.exe to map the RAX80 connected drive. Nothing changed except that now I see the drive mapped on my PC. I ran the same mapping software on my other PC.
Since the ReadyShare Vault was not seeing the drive at all, I decided to uninstall ReadyShare Vault and run AOMEI Backupper and use the mapped drive as the destination. It worked and I thought I had a workaround for my backup woes. Then I tried it from the other wireless attached PC and the network got slower and slower and the backup software got a write error and stopped.
I restarted the backup software and my entire network, both wireless and hardwired, grinded to a near halt. I aborted the backup and could not recover the network without rebooting the router.
Other problems seem related in some way but it's difficult to explain here. I had a problem a few weeks ago where my browser connections were ocassionally timing out and that was corrected by doing a factory reset. Well, those problems are either baack on their own or caused by trying to transfer data to the router's USB port corrupts something.
The whole situation is so conveluted now that I am not sure if I have a router hardware issue or configuration issue.
Since the last network bog down, I was not able to connect to one of my cameras, I deselected "AX" mode and selected "MU-MIMO" mode in the router and the camera came back. The other wireless nodes seem more responsive as well. I asked about this setting in another part of this forum but no one has replied. I have not yet done another factory reset but the issues seem connected.
I'm theorising that the corrupted area of the router's scrathpad was partially or totally overwritten by the change I made to AX to MU-MIMO configuration setting.
I need a GURU to get involved here and bring me back to planet earth or let me know what is going on with this router. I'm certain it will be a help to a lot of folks on this forum to clear this up.
Of course, just plodding around with these issues has let my phone support expire. 90 days phone support is a drop in the bucket for equipment as complicated as these routers are.
Re: RAX80, Looking for a USB drive that's more than just "reported to work"
I tried 3 different drives which all worked - all Seagate's - New 2T without external power worked after reformating to NTFS, Older 3T and New 4T both with external power all worked. Of course only after mounting the readyshare drive on Windows 10 (2PC's) and Win 7 (my just replaced older PC) I never used the ReadyShareConnect.EXE software, in fact only found it today and trying to find out it's purpose.
My problems with the RAX80 are however:
a) It looses the connection to the drive - reported by many - (the reason I tried all 3 of them) after some idle time and only a router re-boot brings it back on line (both with firmware V1.0.1.70 and V1.0.2.76) so my automatic backups from two PC's doesn't work. I read here that someone some time ago fixed this by reverting from V1.0.1.70 to an even older version and that that positive result was relayed to the powers to be. So it's disappointing that the problem was not corrected in V1.02.76. I assume the drive goes eventually to sleep as usual when not used but the RAX80 is not able to wake it up when needed.
b) The other problem I have is that files above 280MB are corrupted when they arrive from my two PC on the readyshare drive (on any of the 3 I tried), not so when I attach the drives to the PC. I have done numerous tests doing byte for byte comparison. And of course opening, say a larger Excel file ends up with reported errors not fixable by Excel. This applies to using any of the 3 drives.
I never had any of these two serious problems with my R7000 and had no choice but to revert back to my R7000 which works again perfectly. I tried the Router/modem from my ISP and while it has an USB port, I am now told that is only for attaching test equipment not a USB drive. Otherwise that Technicolor router/modem worked perfectly.
Trying to get help from Gearhead a Netgear company ended up when taking over my PC with stealing data and corrupting the PC's Killer Network card probably by someone pretending to be a Gearhead employee after having found out about my Case #, or a bad employee.
What really happend is up to Netgear Security people hopefully finding out. I just posted more detailed infiormation on that break-in as I was unable to find any info (e-mail or Telephone # for an appropriate party in Netgear) as they obviously should be interested in fixing the security issue they have. I am trying to help Netgear here by reporting this.
