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Can I connect my USB drive 24/24h on my router?

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gobtron

Occasional Visitor
I have a Asus RT-AC66U and I will flash the firmware with Asuswrt-Merlin. I read that disk spindown is something possible with Merlin. So should I just let my USB drive plugged in all the time in the router? I don't want to abuse my USB drive, so I wondered if it's safer to unplug it. Maybe there is a way to actually shut down that particular usb port so it powers off the drive? Then I would just enable the usb port and mount the drive.
 
I read that disk spindown is something possible with Merlin. So should I just let my USB drive plugged in all the time in the router? I don't want to abuse my USB drive, so I wondered if it's safer to unplug it. Maybe there is a way to actually shut down that particular usb port so it powers off the drive?
Yes, spin down works with Merlin's firmware, but only if NOTHING is accessing the drive. If you enable AICloud or Samba the drive will not spin down if it's accessed.

A "forced disable" will create problem with the enabled AICloud or Samba as the drive is not responding. This could lead to the need to reboot the router if you want to access the drive...

So you better leave the drive connected and it will spin down (or not) depending on the usage! :rolleyes:

My USB Hard Drive is 24x7 on and its working like a charm with Transmission. And this already for years. So no worry to ruin the drive fast! :eek:
 
So with AICloud, Samba or whatever, the disk should spindown if not accessed for a certain period of time? Then it "wakes up" if a request is made to access it?
 
So with AICloud, Samba or whatever, the disk should spindown if not accessed for a certain period of time? Then it "wakes up" if a request is made to access it?
Yes, if there is not activity from user or the software polling or re-scanning something.
 
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Yes, if there is not activity from user or the software polling or re-canning something.
Note that one of the side effects of the 'drop_caches controversy' and the re-enabling of it in the recent builds, is that the disks will be prone to spinning up just by opening the web gui on ARM based routers.
 
The Asus RT-AC66U is Broadcom based, right? Not ARM?
The AC66U is MIPS based, not ARM so the drop_caches change doesn't apply.

Regarding the drives themselves, there have sporadic reports of problems with the Seagate USB drives (they seem to have trouble waking up after sleep for some). WD seems to have had good reports, and I've had good luck with Vantec enclosures to use existing drives (I'm currently using a Vantec USB2 2.5in enclosure with an old WD drive I had).
 
The AC66U is MIPS based, not ARM so the drop_caches change doesn't apply.

Regarding the drives themselves, there have sporadic reports of problems with the Seagate USB drives (they seem to have trouble waking up after sleep for some). WD seems to have had good reports, and I've had good luck with Vantec enclosures to use existing drives (I'm currently using a Vantec USB2 2.5in enclosure with an old WD drive I had).

Humm, I just bought a Seagate 2TB USB drive 4 days ago thinking I would hook it to the router to build a personal cloud and a centralized stocking space on the network. I hope I will have luck with it, because I already had bad luck with the router. It was DOA...
 

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