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Products => Solved Storage Threads => : windcrusader August 25, 2009, 05:16:18 PM

: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: windcrusader August 25, 2009, 05:16:18 PM
   

Hi,

 

I have a Terastation model TS-RHTGL/R5 F/W 1.33 and I am having a problem with automatic backup to a Seagate external USB drive. It seems the USB drive enters some kind of power saving mode after about 15 mins and the Terastation is not able to wake it up correctly so the drive becomes read-only and the backups fail.

 

I have googled for a solution and apparently this is a known issue with Seagate drives under linux. The solution requires running the sdparm utility from the command line which we don't have access to for the Terastation.

 

Can anyone help with a solution to prevent the USB drive powering down so that the automatic backup can work?

 

: Re: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: Kameran August 26, 2009, 03:48:55 PM
The only thing that we can really tell you is that the usb hard drive needs to be formated to xfs to work with your buffalo device.  After that if your ext usb hard has it's own sleep mode issue, we do not have a fix or support there hardware.
: Re: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: windcrusader August 26, 2009, 07:39:25 PM
   

Yes I understand you cannot help with other manufacturers 'issues'. However, given that the Terastation is running embedded linux it would be nice if there was some way to access advanced administration functions - ssh to the linux shell for example. This way I could set up a small script to periodically write a file to the external drive and prevent it from going to sleep.

 

 

 

 

: Re: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: Colin137 August 26, 2009, 08:58:36 PM

Being a fan of Linux myself, I agree that it would be nice to have SSH access. The reason it's not is fairly simple... These devices are designed for the home, small, and medium business markets. I can only imagine the support nightmare that could possibly ensue. Granted, that's only my opinion, and it's not really my call either :)

 

I'll send a feature request up for you, windcrusher.  I'd recommend posting in the Terastation suggestion thread as well.

Message Edited by Colin137 on 08-26-2009 08:59 PM
: Re: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: windcrusader August 26, 2009, 09:08:05 PM
   

I agree about the support problem with SSH access to the shell. However, you could simply disable the shell access by default and only allow it to be enabled by advanced users who understand what they are doing. Also make the disclaimer that such users do so at there own risk (and the risk of bricking their unit) and that support for this is limited.

: Re: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: Colin137 August 26, 2009, 09:10:42 PM

Quite a good suggestion, windcrusher.

 

Here's the thread for the Terastation Feature Wishlist: http://forums.buffalotech.com/buffalo/board/message?board.id=0101&message.id=13516&query.id=4318

: Re: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: daoswald August 27, 2009, 01:33:20 AM
   

I have a Seagate USB drive that was doing exactly the same thing; going into a sleep mode after a period of inactivity.  The sleep mode wouldn't be a problem if I was just trying to access the drive myself; it wakes up on its own when it detects access, after a few seconds of lag.  The problem, as you've identified, is that the Terastation/Linkstation backup utility doesn't wait long enough before assuming an error, and the backup fails.

 

There is a good solution.  The solution is to go to Seagate's website and download the "Drive Manager" utility.  Then plug the USB drive into your PC via USB (temporarily), start up the Drive Manager utility, and use the utility to disable the USB drive's sleep mode.  

 

Now you may disconnect the USB drive from your PC and plug it back into the Terastation/Linkstation.  It will remember the configuration you just set.  Now with sleep mode disabled it will always be available for backups from the Tera/Linkstation.

 

This worked great for me.  My LinkStation Live 320 backs itself up nightly to the Seagate FreeAgent drive with an incremental with deletes backup.

 

Before I discovered this Drive Manager utility I thought of another solution that would also work.  Let's assume you have not disabled the sleep mode.  Set a backup job to back up a very small folder; it could even be empty, or could contain a small file.  Set the backup job to ignore errors, and set it to run five minutes before your real backup job.  This should trigger the drive to wake up, and it will still be awake when the real job runs.  The only problem is that your backup logs will be full of error reports, which isn't ideal in my opinion.  But it ought to work.

 

I believe disabling the sleep mode as I discussed earlier is a better solution though.

: Re: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: windcrusader August 27, 2009, 02:17:18 AM
   Thanks for your suggestion. I didn't realise the free agent software could also be used for my Seagate drive. I have changed the power save setting to 'never' with the software. I have plugged it back into the Terastation and am now waiting for 15 minutes to see if it times out. Fingers crossed.
: Re: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: Colin137 August 27, 2009, 03:03:21 PM

Thanks so much for that insight, daoswald! I have a feeling that will help many people.

 

windcrusader, please let us know if this works for you so we can move this thread to the Solved section.

: Re: Terastation II backup to usb problem
: windcrusader August 27, 2009, 04:53:11 PM
   Changing the power management option to never using the Seagate Freeagent Desk software worked a treat. My overnight backups worked correctly at 1am this morning and the usb drive didn't power down. Problem solved!