Backing up to Asus RT-N56U attached hardrive

[flintbomb]

I have the Asus RT-N56U router with a ext3 formatted 270gb Maxtor One Touch USB hard drive attached to it.

When ever I try to backup my Windows 7 x64 wired or wireless attached laptops I get this error popup;

error: Not enough storage is available to process this command(8) while writing to z:\full_backup

The most common reason for this error is related IRPStacksize. I have tried increasing this on my laptops with no luck. I believe the RT-N56U is causing this error. If I attach the harddrive to another computer on the router/network and share it, I can make a backup no problem. Just not with the hard drive attached to the Asus router. Ive tried R-Drive Image and Paragon backup software, unfortunately windows backup does not support network attached drives with the home addition. I can access the drives and copy, read, write from them, I have even ripped 35gb Blurays straight to it no problem just no backup software will work.

It would be great to hear other peoples working setups for backup. Thanks in advance to every one who takes the time to post.

Other things I've tried;
Setting up accounts on the router.
Mapping/Not Mapping drive.
Backing up to the FTP server access (same error)
Increasing IRPstacksize on laptop to limit(can't on router because no option in user interface)
Splitting file sizes of backup to less than 2gb.
And about 500 other combinations.
Formatting drive ext3.

 

[stevech]

can you do SMB sharing and/or FTP successfully?

You might also try reformatting the drive as FAT32 or EXTx. Embedded Linux struggles with NTFS, and I've found NTFS with Linux to be much slower than Linux-native or even FAT32.

 

[flintbomb]

can you do SMB sharing and/or FTP successfully?

I am able to copy and write files to the drive via my windows computers and I have transfered small files back and forth ftp. I backup my laptop computer with R-Drive image which makes a backup image of the entire C: drive of my laptop. I can copy the finished backup 100gb file to the drive but if R-DRIVE trys to write it there it gives the above error.

You might also try reformatting the drive as FAT32 or EXTx.

I will try that tonight see if it works. Thanks

 

[flintbomb]

still error

I tried formatting to ext3 and no luck still get the same error when trying to backup my laptop. I would be intrested to hear if other people can back up there computers with this router, and how they do it. Thanks again all!

 

[flintbomb]

mixed luck

I have now tried Norton Ghost for a total of 3 highly recommended backup programs. I have gotten 1 of my 2 Windows 7 laptops to backup occasionally, but not dependably. Still the same error. Am I the only person that can't back up to this routers NAS successfully?

 

[stevech]

<supposition> I'll take the controversial position that moving gigabytes, maybe even hundreds of megabytes, to a hard disk connected by USB to a consumer router, is likely to be unreliable. The disk I/O resources in a low cost consumer router are just too meager, and the transfer speeds are too slow. </supposition>

I wouldn't chance it, because I really want reliable backups.
I use SecondCopy for key files/folders, and I use Acronis TruImage for cloning the boot drive (since disks are cheap), and TruImage for partition backups. I used Norton Ghost many years ago but moved on.

 

[flintbomb]

rethinking this

Maybe a better question is "Does anyone backup there computers wireless to a RT-N56U router with attached hard drive."

 

[Guz]

Have you tried upgrading your firmware?

I just got my RT-N56U. I got it just for the same reason, to run backups to an attached USB drive (and eventually to be able to get to the files from the internet). Also to save electricity, as I'm tired of having my W2K8 servers constantly up and running. A router and a USB use far less electricity than 2 old SFF desktops.

I've just spent the last two days trying to copy the files from my old server (W2K8) to the attached USB formatted as NTFS. The darn thing wouldn't work, as it would just slow down to a crawl, time out or error out. This was using CAT5 connectivity.

I tried all the disk formats I could, NTFS, FAT32, FAT16, ext3, exFAT (don't bother, it won't recognize).

I had 1.0.1.4 installed since I'm the USA. I finally said to heck with it and installed 1.0.1.4o because of the changelog saying it fixed some NTFS issues.

Big difference. I'm now uploading nicely at ~13MB/sec and I am farther along in my uploads than before. Granted, I'm only using ROBOCOPY right now. Eventually I will test using Microsoft's SyncToy, since that's what I use to make quick backups.

 

[Guz]

UPDATE:

Things were looking good, for awhile. Then ran into write permission issues. I didn't even enable permissions, just everyone R/W.

Found unmounting the drive, unplugging it, reconnecting the drive, cleared things up.

Further testing in progress. I have a feeling it's the UPnP daemon that's messing things up. So I'm repeating the copy without the UPnP daemon running.

 

[Guz]

Continuing on.

I have tried resetting the router back to factor, then attaching the newly formatted (NTSF) drive. Leaving everything at factory, still have issues.

I have tried turning off and on UPnP. Still have issues.
I have tried both firmware ver. 1.0.1.4 and 1.0.1.4o

Methodology.
Using Microsoft's SyncToy 2.1 (64bit) upload 5,371 Files, in 1,373 Folders, ~20GB (my collection of MP3's).
I've also tried the same with ROBOCOPY (with appropriate switches to continue on error)
I've also tried just drag-n-drop via Windows Explorer.

What happens: Eventually there will be several directories where some of the files were copied properly, but the remaining files for the directory are denied.

The only way to correct the issue, is to unmount, remove, and reattach the drive.

I have also put the same USB drive to a Windows 2008 server, shared off the drive, and repeated the same tests, with no errors. So the drive can be ruled out.

I have submitted a ticket with ASUS.

P.S.
I haven't tried it with the drive formatted as FAT32, because I have files over 4GB that I want to eventually store on the drive.

 

[flintbomb]

firmware

I have tried all versions of firmware except the newest (1.0.1.7). I kinda gave up with backing up to RT-N56U attached hard drive.
Also had permission problems that can only seemed to be fixed by reformat. I think in the process of switching USB setttings "ie. turning off/on FTP server and UPnP server" in a attempt to get the backups working, the router screws up the drive folder permissions.

I guess I am not the only one who has spent too many hours trying to figure this out. Does anyone have working RT-N56U backup setups?

 

[Guz]

Crap, how did I miss the (1.0.1.7c) firmware on their website. I thought the (1.0.1.4o) was the latest.

I will try the (1.0.1.7c) firmware this afternoon and report back.

 

[flintbomb]

Thanks

Thanks for keeping the thread alive, hopefully we can figure this out.

 

[NoorE]

Similar problem

Hi all,

Came across this thread after Googling for answers to a similar problem. When I first set up my external HD on my RT-N56U, after some hassle, I got it working right, and could write and read, etc. I hadn't figured out automatic backup yet, but i was able to manually copy over important files which was good enough at the time.

I don't know what has changed between then and now but my permissions are all messed up. I can delete whatever I want on the router-connected HD, I can create or copy over folders (empty), but whenever I try to copy over a file it says I do not have permission to do so. According to the RT-N56U GUI, anyone on my network should have full read/write permissions, but clearly that is not the case...

I have upgraded to the latest 1.0.1.7 firmware, and I also tried bringing the HD over to a computer, formatting it, and then plugging it back into the router, and still no luck (I didn't try resetting any of the router settings, so I dont know if that is necessary also, but just formatting by itself didnt seem to do anything). I don't have any idea what the problem is so I don't have any idea of how to go about troubleshooting it.

So, I'm in this mess with you guys also, hopefully between the three of us and whoever else is lurking in this thread we can figure it out...any suggestions on other things I/you/we could try?

 

[Guz]

Do me a favor, submit a ticket with Asus support about this. If they don't know there is an issue, they can't fix it.

 

[Guz]

I've tried firmware versions: 1.0.1.7c and 8.1.1.4 BETA.
If you format the drive as ext3 it works.

I haven't tried FAT32, because I have files over 4GB in size I want to eventually store on the drive.

One other thing I've noticed, it doesn't handle file attributes properly. That is you can't set the attributes on file (Read, Hidden, System). I'm not a UNIX Guru so I'm not sure how it's normally handled.

 

[NoorE]

Possibly solved?

Well, I went ahead and submitted a ticket to Asus, and afterwards did some more testing. I found that: In the router GUI, under Advanced Setting -> USB Application -> FTP Share, if i set that to "Share without account", and log into the HD through FTP (I use Filezilla client), all my permissions work fine, I can do whatever I want through FTP. However, if I have FTP Share set to "Share with account" with an Admin account (given full permissions), and I try to log into FTP with the admin account, I don't have any write permissions (can't delete or add files, etc.). I also found that messing with the HD through FTP seemed to randomly screw around with the network sharing permissions - at one point I suddenly had full permissions through network sharing, then after that I had even less permissions than before (couldn't even delete or create empty folders anymore). So, conclusion is, weird...

Now for the good news: I finally tried something that seems to have completely solved the problem (so far, although it has only been a little while - will let you know if it goes bad again). What I did is: In the router GUI, under Advanced Setting -> USB Application -> Miscellaneous Setting, set "Enable Download Master?" and "iTunes Media Server" to NO. As soon as I did this, all my permissions started working fine - through network sharing and FTP (without an account and with the Admin account both worked fine). So my conclusion is that at least one of these settings must be interfering in some way with proper working of the HD, permissions settings, and all that. I don't know if it is just one of these, or both of them, I took them both down at the same time, and I'm not really concerned about testing to see which it is, lol, just glad it's working.

So, that's the end of the road for me, I don't care about download master or iTunes media server, this is a backup HD for me not a media center. However, it is not really OK that Asus promotes that the router has the ability to offer these for the HD, and then it doesn't work right or messes up other parts - so I think there is still a valid bug here that should be fixed. I will let Asus know about it in more detail if they contact me about my ticket.

I hope this works for you, and helps. Good luck!

 

[NoorE]

Welp, i just lost my write permissions again, so i guess it wasn't a permanent solution...maybe what fixed it momentarily was the router turning itself off and on to turn off those settings, and not the settings themselves. I'm back to square one, unfortunately...

 

[Guz]

I think I found it on the SMB side.

It's the file attributes (Archive, Read, System, Hidden) when the drive is formatted to anything but ext3. If with the copy program it tries to set the attributes to say +H or +HS it might make it at first, but then subsequently will fail, and then lock you out of a directory.

I've been testing with XCOPY, ROBOCOPY, and SyncToy. If I exclude any System, Hidden files the other files copy up properly.

P.S.
Try turning on Telnet and telneting up to the router and verify copy/creating files/directories.

Oh, if you want to try formatting the drive to ext3, I found MiniTool Partition Wizard Home - Free works nicely. For those of us who don't run Linux

P.S.S.
I just got off the phone with Asus Support and had them submit the bug. Since I can recreate the issue consistently.

 

[NoorE]

Most important part first: I have discovered that if you access the HD through FTP with it set to "share without account", you have full permissions for all folders, even the ones that have become locked out in network share or FTP "share with account". So I am using this to backup right now and to delete folders that have become unusable instead of having to re-format the whole disk again. Hopefully that will help you guys also until Asus can fix this permanently.

I am also in touch with an Asus rep who said he will submit a report about it to their product team, so hopefully we can see a bug fix in the future.

Finally: Guz, I think i've confirmed the same issue with me that you explained in your last post. For me it is just one file, desktop.ini, a hidden system file that I guess copies over with windows default folders. Once it is on the RT-N56U HD, it seems to mess up the permissions of itself and the folder it is in, and I can no longer delete or add anything to the folder, nor can I delete the desktop.ini file. So I'm guessing this is one specific instance of what you said in general.

The weird thing is that it is inconsistent – sometimes desktop.ini doesn’t seem to affect it at all, and I can delete it fine, other times not. As examples, I copied over just about every folder from my Windows HD, and found desktop.ini in “Contacts” “Desktop” “Documents” “Downloads” “Links” “Music” “Pictures” and “Videos”. I was able to delete the file, and use the folders, just fine in all of those except “Contacts” “Desktop” and “Links”. Once I copied those 3 folders over with the desktop.ini file inside, they became locked out and I could not delete them or add to them after that. I cannot tell what could be different about these, I compared folder settings and they seem to be the same, so I do not have any idea as to why.