Author Topic: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive  (Read 9328 times)

NickR

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #15 on: August 12, 2010, 12:39:33 PM »

Which drive are you using?   I ask because tech support just told me that I couldn't use this WD My Book or any other drive that came with software on it even if I reformat it. I have seen other people on here using mainstream drives that come with software.


Jotin

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #16 on: August 12, 2010, 12:41:52 PM »

I appologize if my response came off as rude it was not ment to. I also appologize if gary gave you the wrong info. And yes, some do come in ntfs and thats why the unit can format those drives in fat32. NTFS is windows only and FAT32 works across all devices hence why it is still in use even though its such an old format. But what this units supports a simple unit with no pre installed software, no sleep function, no usb hub,  and a partition with a size limit of 500GBs in fat32 or xfs.

 

http://buffalotech.com/products/desktop-hard-drives/drivestation/drivestation-combo-hd-ceiu2/

 

This unit will be perfect for this router. I hope that this will solve your issue.


NickR

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #17 on: August 12, 2010, 01:13:14 PM »

Thanks for the response Jotin. I understand, tonality is hard to express in text. Thank you for the part number for the Buffalo drive. I have read through the forum quite a bit and I see other people using drives that technically should not work. Do you have any idea how they are doing this?

 

       I am not sure if I will be buying any more buffalo equipment or even keeping this router. In a highly competitive environment such as consumer tech product must be refined and reliable. When the roadmap for this product was developed the key initiatives should have been and always should be "ease of use" and "performance".  So far this product has not shown "ease of use" and it is hard to measure performace when you can't even get it to work.

 

     I have more than six hours into this set up so far. I hold Ciso and Procurve certifications. I do not consider myself an expert but I certainly am not new to IT. I think this set up should have been much easier.

 

If Buffalo had written in the spec the limitations of the NAS on this device I could have greatly reduced the set up time by purchasing the right drive the first time or simply by not buying this router at all. A 500GB limitation seems odd when most people are buying drives in the Terrabyte range.

 

 


sofa_king_gay

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #18 on: August 12, 2010, 06:50:15 PM »

Dude

 

Only 500mb?  Can you do multiple partitions? I just got the 2TB WD Desktop Elements.  My router is on its way and I had no idea of this "limitation".  When looking up XFS its theoretical limit is  "16 binary terabytes." so its obviously the router.  Please say that you can have multiple XFS partitions. 

 

If you are only allowed to use 500mb that would be sofa king gay! 

 


NickR

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #19 on: August 12, 2010, 07:03:06 PM »

    Third trip to Best Buy to return the WD My Book and pick up the WD Element drive. According to the WD website and the employee at Best Buy this drive is featureless. No sleep function, no software, nada.....  I got a confused look from the poor young girl at the counter when I showed her my previous receipts since it showed the last exchange.

 

     I brought the new drive home. I plugged the drive in and with no surprise the router did not see it.  So I hooked it up to my laptop and deleted all partitions. I searched for hidden partitions using diskpart and found none. I point this out specifically because according to Buffalo tech this is why my last two drives failed.  I formatted the drive FAT32 less than 500GBs. Plugged back into the router and NADA.

 

OK Buffalo. I give up. Eight hours of my own time trying to get this router to work correctly. That's at $30 an hour. I think you owe me $240. That's a deal since I am not including mileage.


NickR

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #20 on: August 12, 2010, 07:08:02 PM »

Sofa_king_gay,

    Thats right. 500GB is the limit and NO partitions.  This information should be right on the spec sheet.  Does anyone know if DD-WRT recognizes larger drives?


Dustrega

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #21 on: August 16, 2010, 06:32:08 PM »

Probably best to ask them.


sofa_king_gay

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #22 on: August 18, 2010, 09:37:43 PM »

Best to ask them?

 

 

Why is there a size limitation on the xfs file system on this router?  Will this be fixed and not a mandated limit on size in the future?

 

There is nothing on the specs that say there is a limit.  The Buffalotech site just talks about its AirShare

 

"Share Wirelessly with AirShare™"

The built-in AirShare port lets you connect any USB storage device for shared storage directly over your network.


When connected to the router, the USB hard drive acts as a simple NAS on your home network for easy sharing of your favorite pictures, movies and music across all of your connected PCs, Macs and multimedia devices. If you are away from home, you can even access your data remotely using Buffalo's easy-to-use Web Access.

 

More specifications:

 

Built-in AirShare™ storage USB 2.0 Port

 

More specifications:

 

Number of WAN Ports1 x RJ-45

USB Interface

Standard Compliance

USB 2.0
Connector TypeA type
Number of Ports1

 

 

 

 

Please give us an answer for support of larger partitions will be supported  (that were not explained to us when we decided to purchase your router)

 


 



Aveyer

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #23 on: August 18, 2010, 10:19:55 PM »

Using FAT32 should allow you to use the drive, I'm using a 1TB FAT32 drive with it no problem.


huezo

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #24 on: September 07, 2010, 02:00:00 PM »

Hi! Here is how I got my 2 terabyte drive to work with XFS:

 

The USB HD model is WD Elements Desktop 2TB if i remember it right.

 

I had it NTFS formatted from FAT32 - router recognized it, but the formatting did not work.

 

I deleted the partition in XP disk manager - the router did not recognize it at all

 

...But when I used Norton Partition Magic 8 and deleted partition from disk,

added new extended partition as unformatted - voila!

 

HD was recognized and got formatted as XFS succesfully.

My FW is WZR-HP-G300NH Ver.1.74

(as I tried to update it first from 1.73 to fix the problem)

 

Status is now 1% filled on the 2TB drive, as it is painfully slow to transfer files in,

and I will see if it works fine over 500GB...512GB also,

as I have 3 more of these large drives to go... =D

 


Zullwick

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Re: Problems with WZR-HP-G300NH & WD Elements Desktop 1TB USB hard drive
« Reply #25 on: July 15, 2011, 07:55:42 PM »

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but I have spent more time than I would really like to on this problem. I have a 2.5 TB Western Digital Essentials external HDD.

 

I thought it would be as easy as plugging it in and formatting it to work with the router. It'll say it's reformatting, then when it completes it says it is still unformatted.

 

I tried formatting it to xfs in gparted then putting it on the router. Still says it is unformatted. Try reformatting it, same error as before. Except that viewing it in gparted reveals that it is showing up as 2 TB of space used up.

 

Formatting it to fat32 in gparted works fine (in the router it gives an error that 32GB is the maximum size). Trying to reformat it from the Fat32 to xfs (I have many files over 4gb) gives error saying that the drive needs to be at least 32MB in size (2.5 TB isn't enough?).

 

I had called the technical support about this. I was told that it was due to a WD green function on the router. That it wouldn't be able to work at all (works fine in fat32). On here the mods say 500gb is the max (but why? 500 gb is a pretty arbitrary number. 512GB I might believe). So far the only answers I've found turn out to be false.

 

What's up?