Ethernet NAS vs. USB drive connected directly to router

I Currently stream data on a WD MyBook usb 2.0 hard drive connected to my routers USB port. This data is streamed wirelessly to my Blu Ray and it has been pretty stable for a few years now. If I now attach a Seagate NAS (STCT8000100) directly to the router using gigabit Ethernet what practical difference will I see? Will the NAS be as reliable or better (or worse)? I expect that the streaming will be comparable due to the wireless part of the equation but will there be system overhead due to Ethernet vs. USB 2.0 That mucks with stability vs. my current set up? Am I overthinking this?

Why on Earth would anyone need that much bandwidth for home usage?
"You know, let's put it this way, if all the people in Hollywood who have had plastic surgery in dallas or beverly hills plastic surgery, if they went on vacation, there wouldn't be a person left in town."
~Michael Jackson

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NAS vs USB drive connected to E3000

Greetings,
Can someone summarize (or point me to a summary) of the tradeoffs of using a USB drive attached to my Linksys E3000 wireless router vs some variety of NAS device just plugged in to the network?
I am running a small home network (PC-based, windows 7/Windows Vista), with one directly-connected PC and several laptops and a wireless printer.
I want to be able to, at the very least, perform backups of the various computers I have.
Apart from speed differences (USB2.0 vs. GigE), what do I gain or lose? Which is more flexible? etc...
Thanks.
- s.west

Why on Earth would anyone need that much bandwidth for home usage?
"You know, let's put it this way, if all the people in Hollywood who have had plastic surgery in dallas or beverly hills plastic surgery, if they went on vacation, there wouldn't be a person left in town."
~Michael Jackson

[Solved] Delete files from usb drive connected to wireless router

Hello,
I have a home network with Samba for file sharing.
I have a Netgear router with a Western Digital 2TB external drive attached to the router.
I installed Samba according to the arch wiki and everything works fine but I cannot delete or access some files from the shared USB drive.
I access the file as follows:
$ cd /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/USB_Storage/
Here are the permissions:
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 DEANSNETWORK
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 MYGROUP
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 WORKGROUP
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Dec 31 1969 READYSHARE -> ../READYSHARE
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 0 Dec 31 1969 USB_Storage
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/USB_Storage/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 22 21:04 BACKUPS
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 15 10:43 WD
$ ls -l /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/USB_Storage/BACKUPS/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 11 22:36 Laurie_Laptop
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 22 21:04 TRASH
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 12 09:50 Work_Laptop
If I try to delete the BACKUPS directory, I get errors:
$ rm -r BACKUPS/
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/Laurie_Laptop’: Permission denied
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/TRASH/Documents/C++Prog/2541/BibleTriviaTest’: Permission denied
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/TRASH/Documents/C++Prog/2541/HouseTest’: Permission denied
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/TRASH/Documents/C++Prog/Bitmanip’: Directory not empty
rm: cannot remove ‘BACKUPS/TRASH/Documents/C++Prog/CurrentMusicPrograms/Musc110’: Directory not empty
etc...
Attempting to change the mode doesn't work:
$ chmod 777 BACKUPS/
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ ls -l
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 22 21:04 BACKUPS
drwxr-xr-x 2 edgar users 0 Jul 15 10:43 WD
Thanks for any help you can provide.
Last edited by mrgar (2014-07-24 02:11:56)

Here is the output:
$ mount | grep /mnt
smbnetfs on /mnt/smbnet type fuse.smbnetfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
The USB drive is Western Digital My Book 2 TB drive attached as a NAS to the router that shares it. I installed Samba on the arch machine so I can access and backup various home computers onto the NAS.
Here is some info I just found on the Western Digital Support site:
The Western Digital units mentioned above use a proprietary file system and cannot be reformatted as FAT32, NTFS, or a Mac File System.
The file system on the WD My Cloud EX2, WD My Cloud EX4, WD My Cloud, WD My Book Live, WD My Book Live Duo, WD ShareSpace, WD ShareSpace, WD TV Live Hub, My Net N900 Central, WD My Book World Edition, WD NetCenter hard drives support access from Windows, Mac and most Linux based computer systems through a SAMBA network sharing connection.
I thought I would mention that I can access the NAS and write, read and execute from the drive.
$ cd /mnt/smbnet/WORKGROUP/READYSHARE/USB_Storage/
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ mkdir Test
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ ls
BACKUPS Test WD
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ cd Test
[edgar@arch Test]$ vim testfile.txt
[edgar@arch Test]$ ls -l
total 1
-rwxr--r-- 1 edgar users 16 Jul 23 07:47 testfile.txt
[edgar@arch Test]$ cat testfile.txt
This is a test.
[edgar@arch Test]$ rm testfile.txt
[edgar@arch Test]$ cd ..
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ rm -r Test/
[edgar@arch USB_Storage]$ ls
BACKUPS WD
However I want to copy large files with cp -ruv from my arch machine to the NAS.
This is where the trouble lies. Thanks for your help.

USB drive connected to Airport Extreme becomes read-only

Hello
I have a USB drive connected to my Airport Extreme 802.11n (2nd generation, firmware v7.6). To access the drive, I've set secure shared disks to "with accounts" then defined a user account with read/write access. I connect to this drive using two Windows 7 SP1 64-bit computers.
Reading and writing to the disk is fine. However, after a day or so, I can read from but cannot write to the disk! I then have to restart the USB drive to write to it again. This has been happening for a while.
Also connected to the Airport Extreme (using Ethernet) is a Lacie NAS drive (which runs a cut-down version of Linux). This works fine: I've never had any problems with it! It too is password protected.
Please help!
Thanks
Praful

Tried what you suggested last night - no change. What is odd, though, is that I can create a new folder on the external USB HDD (through the Hub) and copy a file into it. While I can then close Finder, re-open and see the Folder and file I copied, I still can't see all the data that is currently stored on the drive...Is this a delete and re-copy scenario?
Thanks!

Can't access a USB Drive connected to Time Capsule from a Windows PC. Apple Care can't/won't assist. HELP!!!

Trying to get my Windows 7 PC to access the USB Drive that is connected to my Time Capsule. I have a Fat32 Formatted USB drive connected to a 2TB Time Capsule and I'm trying to get access to that drive from a Windows 7 PC. I've attempted to map the network drive (based on some 3-4 year old articles I could find online) but any time I access a file from the PC, the Time Capsule "freaks out" and disconnects all connections to it which forces me to unplug it to restart the Tim Capsule. I'm at a loss now as to what to do.
Spent a few hours talking to Apple about this and much more. Apple Care can't or won't help with this particular problem (the guy I talked to, as nice and helpful as he wanted to be, had no experience supporting their hardware in a Windows environment).
Someone has to know how to fix this so, PLEASE, help if you can!

First off, Archon23, what you want to achieve is possible. I have access to both my Time Capsule (TC) and the USB drive connected to it, from a Win. 7 and Win. XP machine.
Here is what I see from the Windows side of things:
     From My Computer - TC USB Drive (Y)
     From Windows HomeNet - Time Capsule:
Now getting there is the trick.
One caveat before proceeding: I am not well versed in Windows Networks, Windows Sharing and Firewall settings so some of the following may not be elegant, may not be absolutely required, and may not be the best way of getting there. But it is what I did to see both the TC drive and it's attached USB drive on the Windows side of my network..
1.) First, I added Airport Utility to the Inbound rules of Win 7 Firewall
While poking around my Network Sharing and Firewall settings trying to figure this out, I got a Pop-up recommending I do that. AND I did that. Oh, and while you are at it, make sure you have a Home network established.
2.) Next, on a hunch, I installed a USB Wi-Fi Adapter (under $20) to my Win PC, enabled that Wi-Fi connection and disabled my Ethernet connection. I was getting no where on this matter with my Ethernet connection to a DSL Gateway. But with a Wi-Fi connection to my AirPort Express Base Station, I made progress.
3.) Finally, while poking around my Network Sharing Center some more, one by one I started the various network device Setup Wizards in there, and Trouble Shooters, to find the elusive TC/USB devices in question...AND voila, it worked.   And it's stable, been this way for going on two weeks now.
Good luck.

Accessing a USB drive connected to Airport Extreme over Internet

Hello!
I have an iPad, I have an Airport Extreme with a USB drive connected and I have a MobileMe account.
And I'm aware that as yet there's no Back To My Mac for iPad.
Is there an easy way on the iPad to connect remotely to the USB drive, over the Internet?
I don't want to have to leave my MacBook Pro on whilst I'm travelling.
I've looked at Logmein and Filebrowser and iTeleport and can't find a way to do this.
Has anyone managed to suss this???
Many thanks....

I am not ware of any way of doing what you want since, to my knowledge, the AE does not function as a server to "serve" the contents of a connected USB drive. I have a LaCie NAS and that NAS includes a FTP server that I can access via my iPad via AirSharing HD.

Can't Delete Files on USB Drive Connected to Airport Extreme

I'm trying to delete some files on a USB drive connected to my Airport Extreme, but I keep getting a error message that I don't have sufficient privileges to do so. I've tried super deletion applications like FileXaminer, without any success. What other methods are there?

Thanks for the info.
Were you using the drive for Time Machine backups, by chance? Time Machine backups are stored in a different format when the disk is connected directly to a computer. So, you won't be able to continue to use the old backups when the drive location is changed.
You might want to check the drive by connecting directly to your Mac and running Disk Utility to "Verify Disk" and "Repair Disk" if indicated.
Even if the drive has it's own power supply, a powered USB hub is usually needed on the AirPort Extreme because the power at the USB port is quite limited.
Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

Backing up a USB drive connected to TC

Hi,
I have a small home network which consists of a usb drive connected to my time capsule. Is there anyway i can back the usb drive thats connected to the TC up via Time Machine....so the USB drive thats connected to the TC is back up to the TC via Time Machine??!!
..from what i understand Time Machine is unable to back up network drives, and i need something like ChronoSync...is this correct?
Many thanks in advance
Paul

paulsutt wrote:
I need something like ChronoSync...is this correct?
yes.
alternatively, you could periodically connect the drive directly to your computer and use e.g. [url="http://www.bombich.com/"]Carbon Copy Cloner[/url] to make incremental backups of the drive to yet another drive.
JGG

USB drive connected to airport i cant see it??

Hello all, i have an airport extreme. network is all setup fine. I have a USB drive connected to the airport setup for timemachine backups. What i would do is turn it on every week for the day and all my mac would backup to it. Last night i turn it on for my backups and none of my macs seems to be able to find it. Well today right out of the blue the imac suddenly sees it and runs a backup. But i cant see it with the macbook pro. I double checked the setting on the airport and dont see anything out of place. I can however see the drive in finder but when i click on it system tells me it cant connect. Any suggestions?

WesternCanuk wrote:
Apple is now forcing me to purchase a time capsule as they do not support puggin in a USB drive.
it's not new. this information has been available for some time.
Now this worked perfectly
it did (and does) so for many users. it just means is that, if you run into problems (as you do now), there will be no support from Apple.
I now have to physically connect my usb drive to each of my computers to have them back up?
no. you'd connect the drive to one machine and let the other Macs back up to it via your network.
printer i suppose ?
yes. and HD's for sharing files across your network - just not for TM backups !
JGG

Cannot Delete Folders from USB drive connected to Airport Extreme

When I try to delete files from the usb drive connected to my airport I get "cannot remove folder, the directory is not empty.
This only happens for some of the folders that are empty. No problem deleting any files whether they were created before or after I setup the airport. The folders that won't delete were created after I hooked up the drive to the airport however, I can make new folders and delete them no problem now. The ones that don't delete say "read only" in the properties. when I uncheck read only it reverts back to read only automatically.
Any ideas what might be causing this?

Tried what you suggested last night - no change. What is odd, though, is that I can create a new folder on the external USB HDD (through the Hub) and copy a file into it. While I can then close Finder, re-open and see the Folder and file I copied, I still can't see all the data that is currently stored on the drive...Is this a delete and re-copy scenario?
Thanks!

Automatically open USB Drive (connected to Airport Extreme) in Finder

I have a 1TB USB drive connected to my Airport Extreme (version 7.6.3).
File sharing is enabled in the Airport-configuration program.
But I liked to have this USB drive displayed (automatically) on the desktop. Same as is happening with the harddisk.
So I don't have to manually open the networ, Airport Extreme station and the USB drive (see picture below).
Does anyone have a suggestion ?
Thanks in advance.

Thanks Bob.
I noticed that the USB drive is displayed with a different icon. Below the icon if I use the automatic connection as you have suggested.
And if I connect it manually I get the belowlisted icon.
What is the difference between those ?
And is there a difference in performance or capabilities ?
Thanks in advance.

Can Time Machine backup USB Drive connected to Airport Extreme Base Station

I need a new N based wireless router. I would prefer to get just the $179 Base Station and not the $299 Time Capsule. I already have a nice external USB 500GB drive that I would connect to the AEBS. So, once I have this new wireless router/base station installed at home and I have the external USB drive connected to it, can my new Macbook Air with a USB connected 400GB drive be used to backup what is on the Macbook Air and also backup the 500GB USB drive info that is connected to the extreme base station?
Thanks
tj

I found this when searching Apple's web site but it is old, October 2007, and said it could not be done. Has this changed since then?
Here is what I found.
Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine doesn't back up to AirPort Disks
* Last Modified on: October 26, 2007
* Article: 306833
Time Machine in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard can be used to back up to many kinds of Mac OS Extended-formatted drives, but it does not support AirPort Extreme's AirPort Disk feature.
Time Machine can back up to another Mac running Leopard with Personal File Sharing, or to a Leopard Server volume, or an Xsan storage device.

Can a time machine usb drive backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme*

can a time machine usb drive conected to my mac book backup the data from an external usb drive connected to and airport extreme ?

Hi Adam, if you think yoiur HD may be failing you could do a TM restore onto the new disk. I would rather see you do a clone either SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner.Of your internal drive. That way you have a bootable backup in case it does fail.
btw - what are the symptoms of your failing drive?
-mj
Message was edited by: macjack

Time machine backup from USB drive connected and backing up to Time Capsule

Hi all forum virgin here, so be gentle.
I'll get straight to it. Much net trawling hasn't resulted in a definitive answer on this which surely I'm not alone in
I have: MBP networked to TC (where TM resides) and USB drive connected.
A- I simply want to TM backup not only MBP but USB drive on network as well?
As far as I can see there is no way of selecting this and after TM back has finished the only way I can check is
to enter TM (fancy space screen view) and obviously idrive doesn't appear in finder view.
I have tried connecting to MBP and obviously TM backs it up too and I can see in Enter TM. But I need this
drive on network so a further 2 things here:-
B- when I remove from MBP and TM backs up again will it see it's not there and delete as a change?
C- will it keep in previous backups if I cycle back to that particular one?
Andy help here would be most welcome

Slymon2000 wrote:
B- when I remove from MBP and TM backs up again will it see it's not there and delete as a change?
Sooner or later, yes, as LaPastnague says. It depends on when the backups are done. The first backup of each day is kept for a month; all others are deleted after 24 hours. After a month, the first backup of the week is kept as long as there's room, and the others deleted.
Obviously not a reliable solution.
A better method might be to use a different app to back it up to the TC's internal HD, but that presents another problem. See #Q3 in Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule for an explanation and some possible workarounds.
The 3rd-party apps CarbonCopyCloner and ChronoSynch can do network backups (others probably can, too).
So you might be able to "reserve" some space on the TC's HD and use one of those apps. As LaPastnague says, though, that will be relatively slow.
If there isn't enough room on the TC's internal HD, you could get another USB drive and connect it to the TC also (via a powered USB hub) and back up to it. That will be even slower, though.

Using Time MACHINE with a USB drive connected to an Airport Extreme

Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software products that may be mentioned in the topic below. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information below at your own discretion.
Please click here:
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Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme AirDisk
|
Note: If you got here by clicking a link that looks like this:
_. . . discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2299608#Q1_
Note the number at the end, after the +*pound sign,+* (#) and click the corresponding item below:
Please pardon the inconvenience.
|
QUESTIONS
*Q1. Can I use the USB drive(s) for Time Machine backups AND other data?*
*Q2. How do I set up Time Machine to back up to a USB drive connected to my Airport Extreme?*
*Q3. How do I delete backups?*
*Q4. How do I back-up my backups?*
If you don't see your question here, try Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions.
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PROBLEMS
*P1. The Backup disk image could not be created.*
*P2. Time Machine could not complete the backup . . sparsebundle could not be accessed. (Error 109).*
If you don't see your problem here, try Time Machine - Troubleshooting
This is the 3rd version of this tip. It was submitted on May 16, 2010 by Pondini.
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Hi, Nubz!
Yes, I just saw that, and am still chuckling.
Maybe that will mollify the Jive gods?
Thanks again,
Jim

Ethernet NAS vs. USB drive connected directly to router

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