Buffalo Forums

   

Hi, I have recently got the Buffalo 1TB Drivestation NAS and formatted it to NTFS. This caused NAS to stop working.

 

However, I cannot understand why, after formatting to NTFS and trying to connect via LAN, I am being asked for a username/password. Seems to me like this is some in-built system in the drive to stop accessing it when the drive is NTFS. Why is this happening? What ARE the username and password?

Are you trying to access the web interface of the unit when its in NAS mode through IP Address? If so, the default username and password are 'admin' and 'password,' respectively.

The unit cannot function in nas mode when formatted to NTFS. It has to be FAT32.

1. Switch the drive to USB mode and attach it to the computer.
2. In Windows Disk Manager – DELETE THE NTFS PARTITION on thedrive. Note that this will delete any data on the drive – The drive should now show asUnallocated Space
3. Shut down the DS Flexnet.
4. Reboot the DS Flexnet. After it’s had 30 seconds to spin up,push the button on the front to switch it to LAN mode (the light on thefront should be green once the button is pressed).
5. Run the DriveNavi.exe on the installation CD.  Click on “Options” at the bottom of the screen, and then “Browse Setup Page.”
6. A browser should open up and the web interface for the FlexNetshould load. If it doesn’t, go back to the Drive Navi tool and clickthe “View Information” button there to find the LinkStation’s IPaddress and connect manually with a browser.
7. In the Web Interface, click on Disk Management on the leftcolumn, then “Format Disk.” This will restore the original FAT32partition to the drive as well as the Share folder that it needs to benetwork-accessible.

 

   I have read on another thread that the problem is that NTFS write is not stable. My requirements are to just READ from NTFS partition on LAN. Is there a firmware to just have READ capabilities via LAN on NTFS?

No, this is not something that we support.  The device must be in FAT32 in order for the unit to have the NAS functionality.

   So is this something you *plan* to support with a future firmware release? FAT32 is limited to 4GB files, hardly reasonable in today's storage market.

 

I feel misled - nowhere on the box does it say that you are limited to 4GB files :(  (yes I know you can store more if you use NTFS with only USB, but that's not why I bought the unit).

 

 

"So is this something you *plan* to support with a future firmware release"

 

No, but I can send feature requests, but as I have stated, I doubt it.

 

"I feel misled - nowhere on the box does it say that you are limited to 4GB files   (yes I know you can store more if you use NTFS with only USB, but that's not why I bought the unit)."

 

I apologize for the inconvenience but the 4 GB size limitation is a limitation of the file system.  This unit was not intended for large transfers at a time.  

   

Sigh. Guess I'll have to buy another brand. It might be a limitation of the file system, but it's an outdated file system that *you* have chosen as the basis for your product. NTFS itself is 15 year old technology, I find it hard to believe you can't find a solution to support it. I don't think >4GB is an unreasonable requirement these days.

 

To my knowledge, we are the only brand to offer a USB/NAS hybrid device at such an attractive price point. The device runs a very basic OS off of flash, and FAT32 is the only filesystem that will work with the NAS capabilities. It was designed to fill a market niche of people who wanted USB and NAS capabilities in the same device.

 

The Linkstation and Terastation series use a high performance filesystem called XFS, and do not suffer from the 4 GB filesize limit. These devices will only function as NAS, not as a directly connected device with USB.

   Why was't the FAT32 NAS limitation listed on the box? This way we ended up purchasing this device when we would have probabbly spent the extra money for the LinkStation or Terastation!

That's a good question, I'm not sure. I'll forward that up to our marketing people.

   Icy-Box also have a USB/NAS device, the NAS901B, which is also an FTP server. Unfortunately, it also has the 4GB limit for NAS, that's why I didn't purchase that item.

   What kind of OS it then? Are u sure that only fat32 works with it in NAS mode. Why not for example EXT2? Has anyone tried does it work with other than NTFS or FAT32?

On a fat32 parition, you can't have afile that is larger than 4GB. On a Fat32 partition, to even have a 4GBfile, which would be the largest file you could have, you would have tohave a fat32 partition larger than 4GB. OS+FAT+the file.

If I recall correctly the largest fat32 partition you can have is 2TB.

FAT32 has a 2 Terabyte Partition Limit and a 4 Gigabyte File-Size Limit.

   Yeah but could ext2 file system be used? Is the OS based on Linux?

Yes.  It seems that your looking for more of a NAS than an external hard drive. 

   Well I was actually just looking for a USB storage. Then found this one and bought this cause it also works through network. I had no idea it doesn't support files bigger than 4g and I really need that feature. Is it possible the to partition it in two parts. Other side in NTFS and other in Fat32. So that network features and files accessed would only work on fat32 but both would be accessible through usb? The thing is that I want to connect the storage to my TV (it supports USB connection) through usb and play some homevideos through it. Sometimes their sizes exceeds 4gs and in that case I could move the files using usb. But in other cases I could use network to move files into it.

That MIGHT work... if it did, the first partition would need to be FAT32. However, the device was not designed for that use, so it may or may not work.

   I tried that myself.... didn't work. Drive needs to be formatted FAT32 as one drive for NAS to work

   Thanks for the info.