Buffalo Forums

   I have been using the forums to figure out why my USB drive appears to be read only. The conclusion I have reached is that in order to able to write to it, it must be formatted in XFS. So my USB plug-and-play drive is no longer plug-and-play on Windows computers. Is this correct? I cannot move my USB drive to another non linux computer and read the data? Please say it isn't so!

#1.  What is the model number of the unit you are talking about?  Always list this when posting a concearn/problem

#2.  Our external HDD's can be formatted to whatever you want them to be, I am assuming you were looking at the NAS devices.

#3.  Yes they can be formatted to NTFS, unless you are talking about the flexnet, which isn't formatted in XFS, but fat 32.  This can be formatted but you would lose the LAN feature.

   I apologize for the lack of details.

I just purchased a LinkStation Pro Duo LS-WTGL/R1 2T NAS. I own a 1T WD "My Book" USB drive that is already formatted (NTFS) and has data on it. I have hooked that drive to my LinkStation. All of my data is there and accessible. I can share it. However, I cannot do anything to change that disk. I cannot rename, add new folders or copy new data to it. This data needs to be portable. That is, I need to unplug the USB drive and use it on other computers.

I found this knowledge base article that seems to describe my situation:

http://www.buffalotech.com/knowledgebase/users/kb.phpid=10123&category_id=8&sid2

If there is another answer that allows me to do what I need to do I would love to hear it.

Then that is correct, unfortunately, if you are backing up to a usb hard drive then you must have the same file system as the device you are connecting it to.  In this case that is XFS.  I am sorry for the inconvenience but that is the way HDDs work.

 

You can just use the external HDD for backup and set up web access.  This way you can still access the information remotely and you could do so from any computer with any file system.

   

Thanks for your response.

 

The usb drive is not used for backup.  It is a means of making large amounts of data portable.  I will investigate the web option although many fies are very large and not everybody is willing to pay for the high speed necessary to move lots of data effectively.

 

This is probably a deal breaker for me but I will think about it for a couple of days.

 

Thanks again.