Author Topic: USB FAT32 drives read only  (Read 6574 times)

kingbeige

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USB FAT32 drives read only
« on: September 21, 2008, 03:04:24 PM »
   

I didn't realise that this would be the case when I bought my linkstation although I'm told it is in the spec somewhere.

 

This is a real pain for me. I heard a rumour that there would be a firmware update at some point to resolve this but can't find anything about it.

 

Does anyone know any more? 


mas985

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Re: USB FAT32 drives read only
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2008, 06:26:56 PM »
   

That is the way I understand it as well. You can only write to XFS or EXT3 formated drives. NTFS and FAT32 are not writable.

 

However, it really shouldn't matter since you can find Windows free utilities which will read EXT3 drives if that is your concern. While connected through the NAS, there is no issue but if you try to connect through windows USB, then you will need the utility. Here is one utility that you can use:

 

http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm

 


kingbeige

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Re: USB FAT32 drives read only
« Reply #2 on: September 22, 2008, 02:18:21 PM »
   

Thanks Mas,

 

I guess I'll have to go for that for now. Are there any advantages between XFS and EXT3?

 

Will that utility let me read and write to the disk from Windows or just read? 

 

Cheers


mas985

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Re: USB FAT32 drives read only
« Reply #3 on: September 22, 2008, 02:37:01 PM »
   

I am not an expert on this but I believe XFS has performance advantages over EXT3 however the downside is that I have not found a free Windows utility to read the XFS disk via windows (other than through the NAS). This was the reason I stuck with EXT3.

 

Google EXT3 vs XFS and you will see a ton of debate.

 

I believe that the utility will allow you to read or write. But remember that the utility is only needed if something goes wrong with the NAS and you can no longer read or write through the NAS.


kingbeige

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Re: USB FAT32 drives read only
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2008, 04:45:43 PM »
   

Thanks again Mas.

 

I'll go for EXT3.

 

The usb drive I want to connect, I was hoping to be able to connect to other PCs simply, for taking photos to show family etc. So it would be useful if Buffalo did an update for FAT32 at some point, but I guess I'll have to work around it for now.


bluegeek9

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Re: USB FAT32 drives read only
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2008, 11:58:44 PM »
   As long as the usb hard drive is less than a few hundred gigd EXT3 is the best option for you since there is stable read/write support in Windows (with 3rd party tools of course).  After ~300gigs EXT3 starts to run out of steam.