connecting a hard drive to router (mine is AC1900)

[Shotzy]

Hi. I'm a bit technologically challenged. Can someone give me a brief step-by-step description of how to connect a hard drive to my router. The router has this functionality. I need to format the drive for both Mac and Windows, so I'll use ExFat format. I want 4 password-protected partitions. The hard drive is a new Western Digital 8TB desktop 'MyBook'.  I'd also like to know if the drive will be accessible remotely (away from home) since the router is hard-wired to the provider (Cat-5). Is all this even possible? Thanks.

[plemans]

Not using exFAT. 

https://kb.netgear.com/24059/What-are-the-USB-drive-requirements-for-ReadySHARE-on-my-NETGEAR-router

With what you'd like, why not look at a NAS? 

They can be picked up used pretty cheap. 

You'll get better functionality versus trying to cobble something together. 

Plus you can add a 2nd drive for redundancy. 

[microchip8]

In addition to the above, password protected drives are not supported by any consumer router, NG or otherwise.