$30 dollar twin-bay SATA dock for 2 USB3 drives on RT-AC68u

[RussellInCincinnati]

A USB 3.0 Connectland DOCK-3UBT3 (also SYBA CL-ENC50038)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817801093
twin-bay SATA II hard drive dock will let you attach TWO hard drives (2.5 inch laptop/SSD or 3.5 inch desktop drives) to a single USB 3.0 port of, say, a Merlin RT-AC68u router.

You get 49 megabytes per second read and 40+ megabytes per second write speeds off the NTFS-formatted drives (with near 100 percent router CPU utilization) during large file copies, with stock CPU settings.

Don't mess with overclocking, you might destroy your router. But if you do decide to increase the RT-AC68u CPU clock frequency to "1200,666" the peak copy speed off of a hard drive rises to something like 58 megabytes/second. Overclocking (with CFE 1.0.2.0 US on a TMobile TMAC1900) to "1200,800" gets you to a tad over 60 megs/second according to a Windows file copy dialog box. CPU rises 2 degrees C, from 78C to 80C temperature, due to the overclocking. Peak overclocked temp now reaches 81C during an overclocked file read.

Also noted, the CPU utilization on one of the CPU cores goes DOWN from 99% to 80-odd-percent, during large file read with overclocking to 1200,800.

The hard drives spin down nicely as set in the Merlin config pages, with the slight oddity that if one drive in the dock is accessed, the other drive (if there is one) also spins up at the same time.

Have found EXT2-formatted drives to be somewhat slower than NTFS, both in max read and max write speed, with Merlin 49_5 firmware.

The significance of this twin-drive-dock for hanging big USB 3 storage off of the poor little Asus router, is that the AC68u only connects to hubs at up to USB 2.0 speeds.

I.e., you can connect as many drives/printers as you might want through the Asus ports to a hub at USB 2.0 speeds. And you can connect a single USB 3 drive directly (i.e. not through a hub) into the USB 3 port, and that one drive might connect at USB 3 speeds. But the Syba twin-bay SATA dock is the only cheap enclosure that have found, to connect multiple ordinary hard drives to an Asus WiFi router, at greater-than-USB-2 speeds.

 

[watusi]

It doesn't really have a USB hub inside? It doesn't need any special driver?

I love SATA docks, though I only use them for "utility" purposes. That is, I have one laying around to plug into various systems to make a special backup, etc. I just recently replaced my old USB 2.0 ThermalTake docks with a single UCTech USB 3.0 dual dock.

I also bought a couple WD Red 3.0TB drives, WD30EFRX. So far, I have only used it on my Mac Mini. I haven't put it on my MacBook (USB 2.0 only) yet. My Linux system has a couple of actual SATA hot swap slots. It is convenient to be able to use the bare drives anywhere.

I was thinking, though, of getting another for my AC87. I was wondering about the two-drive issue. Currently, I use a fast USB 3.0 flash drive - Silicon Power Blaze B30. They had unbeatable prices around Christmas.

I assume I would have hassle trying to use the flash drive AND a SATA dock. Then I would need a USB hub, and, as I understand, additional driver software. But I think with these drives, performance on the router with the hard drives would match that with the Flash drive. On the MacBook, of course, the flash beats the heck out of the hard drives.

 

[Cake]

That is really good write/read speeds for ntfs over ethernet for the price and low power consumption. My raspi with 2 portable usb (2.0) drives (ntfs) max's out at 2.8 MB/s when transferring files.

 

[RMerlin]

I also bought a couple WD Red 3.0TB drives, WD30EFRX. So far, I have only used it on my Mac Mini. I haven't put it on my MacBook (USB 2.0 only) yet. My Linux system has a couple of actual SATA hot swap slots. It is convenient to be able to use the bare drives anywhere.

Note that using a Caviar Red in a single drive setup is usually a bad idea. Among other things, those drives have TLER enabled as they are expected to be used in a RAID, so that means a higher change of data loss in case of any minor read error (the kind that a few retries could manage to properly read in a standard desktop drive).

If cheap, mass storage is what you're after, the Caviar Green are a much better fit.

 

[RussellInCincinnati]

USB 3 access to more than one storage device must be through dock

It doesn't really have a USB hub inside? It doesn't need any special driver?...was wondering about the two-drive issue. Currently, I use a fast USB 3.0 flash drive - Silicon Power Blaze B30. They had unbeatable prices around Christmas.

I assume I would have hassle trying to use the flash drive AND a SATA dock...

Side note, my only experiments thus far are on the AC68u. RMerlin could perhaps tell us how theoretically similar the USB 3 capabilities are between the AC68u, AC87, etc.

Am not seeing any way of using a flash drive AND a hard drive dock, both at USB 3 speeds, in the AC68u. You'd have to hook them both up through a USB 3 hub that is in turn plugged into the router USB 3 port. Which in my experience with 2015 January Merlin 49_6, will not get you what you want. Because hubs connect to the AC68u at no higher than 480 megabits per second (USB 2.0 speed).

So you would indeed have a problem trying to use a USB flash drive AND a USB SATA dock at full USB 3 speeds. The only way can see to use 2 storage devices at USB 3 speeds, is when both the devices are SATA storage units (for example a SATA solid state drive and a SATA hard drive). And those storage units are plugged into the slots of a twin-slot USB 3 hard drive dock such as the Syba/Connectland device mentioned at the top of this thread.

Again have noted that NTFS-formatted devices run somewhat faster than EXT2-formatted drives. Also overclocking the AC68u to 1200,800 (not recommending this as it will void warranties and could destroy the router) is quite effective in perking up the USB 3 transfer rates to storage devices. When everything is optimal the AC68u storage finally "feels" like a real NAS when interacting with it simplistically through the File Explorer windows, or doing multimedia playback streaming to a small number of Windows 7/8 clients.

Notice am not saying that the AC68u is usable for having lots of folks open lots of database files and indexes at once, with many users doing complex file locks, etc. It doesn't make sense to try to make the $200-dollar-ish Asus WiFi routers available this year do what low end/7 watt NASes like a $131 dollar QNAP TS-212P are designed for...in simple combination with a decent low end 'AC WiFi router such as an Archer C7 or Edimax BR-6478AC.

And look at the tons of NAS features, redundancy, ports and simultaneous user lock-limits the QNAP Synology etc NAS boxes have beyond base-level Samba file sharing. My recommendation is to only expect that the Asus WiFi routers will work to do multiuser (and not too many users at that) access to running single .EXE files, or copying and backing up files that are not in use by others, and/or editing single-file networked documents or photos.

I.e. Home sharing/browsing/copying of docs and media across a network, yes. Small Office use and/or with business software, no.

 

[DallasFlier]

A USB 3.0 Connectland DOCK-3UBT3 (also SYBA CL-ENC50038)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817801093
twin-bay SATA II hard drive dock will let you attach TWO hard drives (2.5 inch laptop/SSD or 3.5 inch desktop drives) to a single USB 3.0 port of, say, a Merlin RT-AC68u router.

Thanks, very good info!

Unfortunately, your link just throws a 404 error for me...

 

[RussellInCincinnati]

Thanks, very good info!

Unfortunately, your link just throws a 404 error for me...

Then try
https://www.google.com/search?q=SYBA+CL-ENC50038&oq=SYBA+CL-ENC50038&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60j69i61&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8

to see references to the Syba or Connectland USB 3, 2-drive SATA dock that have definitely found to work perfectly with the AC68u. Again, noticed that the Merlin firmware drive spindown works quite nicely to power down drives in the dock, when they go unused for the Merlin firmware spindown time. With the slight oddness that when you access one drive in the dock, the other drive spins up too.

 

[watusi]

Note that using a Caviar Red in a single drive setup is usually a bad idea. Among other things, those drives have TLER enabled as they are expected to be used in a RAID, so that means a higher change of data loss in case of any minor read error (the kind that a few retries could manage to properly read in a standard desktop drive).

If cheap, mass storage is what you're after, the Caviar Green are a much better fit.

There seems to be some controversy about this particular series of drives. What is has is actually no longer called TLER, but NASware 3.0. And nobody seems to know exactly what that means.

The drives a "positioned between desktop and nearline."

I'd think that it it takes more than 7 seconds to recover, in any case, that sector is probably toast.

I only use robust filesystems on them - EXT4/HFs+ and assume they will do their own recovery attempts till the cows come at least to the gate.

Currently, I only use these for backups, etc. (as this is what the dock is for) and my thought was I'm going to be taking these in and out and throwing them in a drawer or a safe. So, a bit more mechanical protection is welcome.

I assume there is some way to disable the TLER?

I'll need to think about this again before buying some drives for mass storage. Currently, I just have an older Seagate Barracuda 1TB drive on a Linux system for that. One of the identical drives that I used to use for backup failed, and it's a drive with a notorious failure rate. The one in the Linux system chugs on, though. I do need to make a replacement there. And that's why I'm thinking of moving the mass storage from the Linux system to the router.

 

[RMerlin]

I assume there is some way to disable the TLER?

I know that in the past, this could sometime be adjusted using a tool. I'm not sure however if that's still the case (same about the dangerously short spindown timer on the Green - you used to be able to disable that using a tool provided by WD).

I'll need to think about this again before buying some drives for mass storage. Currently, I just have an older Seagate Barracuda 1TB drive on a Linux system for that. One of the identical drives that I used to use for backup failed, and it's a drive with a notorious failure rate. The one in the Linux system chugs on, though. I do need to make a replacement there. And that's why I'm thinking of moving the mass storage from the Linux system to the router.

I don't know if Seagate improved, but our failure rate with our customers was ridiculous with the Barracuda 7200.11 and 7200.12. Backblaze's own internal data showed that we weren't alone with those failing Seagate that were 2-3x higher than with any other brand.

 

[nonstatic]

Would it be fair to assume similar performance on the AC56U, considering it shares the same CPU/RAM as the 68U?

Also, why EXT2 and not EXT4? EXT4 seems to be the recommended filesystem by ASUS for HDD's: https://www.asuswrt.eu/how-to-format-usb-drive/

Just curious how the EXT4 speed would measure against NTFS, instead of EXT2.

 

[RussellInCincinnati]

no idea of whether AC56u is going to give you same USB storage speeds

Would it be fair to assume similar performance on the AC56U, considering it shares the same CPU/RAM as the 68U?

Also, why EXT2 and not EXT4? EXT4 seems to be the recommended filesystem by ASUS for HDD's: https://www.asuswrt.eu/how-to-format-usb-drive/

Just curious how the EXT4 speed would measure against NTFS, instead of EXT2.

Maybe someone else knows if the 56u has the same USB 3 performance potential as the AC68 router.

Why not try EXT4 and let us know if it's any faster than EXT2? My vague understanding is that ext4 is a journaling file system that is not going to necessarily be any faster (though it is certainly more fault-tolerant) than ext2.

 

[nonstatic]

A look at some reviews indeed had the 56U at about the same transfer speed on USB3. Not able to test myself because I don't have any spare HDD's at the moment.

I was actually planning to buy a Synology but was wondering if it would be overkill for my needs. May give this a shot just to see if it's enough for me. I'm in Europe and haven't managed to find any clones of the two models you posted, so I'll be shooting in the dark but I guess I can just put a dock on Ebay if it doesn't work.