optware on flash drive on one port and data on hdd 2nd port will it work?

[breakline]

Hello all ,

here is what i have and what I want to do and wondering if it is possible?

what I have:

500gb hdd on my rt-n16 running asuswrt-merlin 3.0.0.4.266.23b ( thank you RMerlin for the awesome firmware! )

What i want to do is wipe everything and start fresh , if i format the hdd to ext3 and do a factory reset while on merlins asuswrt will that be a fresh start on merlins asuswrt ? or if I do a factory reset will it take me back to stock?

ok and I want to run transmission and cherokee webserver and all the other packages i might use from an 8gb flash drive in one usb port and use the 500gb hard drive as a data only drive on the other port , is that possible? and if so is it reccomended to have a swap partition? and if so how would I mount the swap partion?

if anyone could point me in the right direction i would appreciate it greatly!

 

[joegreat]

What i want to do is wipe everything and start fresh , if i format the hdd to ext3 and do a factory reset while on merlins asuswrt will that be a fresh start on merlins asuswrt ? or if I do a factory reset will it take me back to stock?

Factory reset mean resetting on the setting to default. The default settings are defined in the Firmware.
So: You reset the configuration of the installed(!) firmware. The firmware stays the same.

ok and I want to run transmission and cherokee webserver and all the other packages i might use from an 8gb flash drive in one usb port and use the 500gb hard drive as a data only drive on the other port , is that possible?

Sure, you can install Entware (the better version of Optware) on any partion you have prepared and mounted on your router.
By using the search function you would find this: Using Entware\Optware on stock firmware

and if so is it reccomended to have a swap partition? and if so how would I mount the swap partion?

Yep, Swap is a good idea as Transmission need as lot of memory - but not the flash drive, on the HHD it's fine.
Again: Please use the search function to find this thread: Swap,fstab

With kind regards
Joe

 

[breakline]

ok thanks joegreat, I've been using optware but i guess its time to try something new and exciting .

would you reccomend that i use entware on the flash drive and swap , data partition on the hdd or would it be better performance wise to have all 3 partitions on the hdd? right now i just have it set up as one partition with data and optware on same partition .

 

[joegreat]

better performance wise to have all 3 partitions on the hdd? right now i just have it set up as one partition with data and optware on same partition .

Hi breakline,

Well, it depends what you call performance:
I only experianced some performance issues due to heavey I/O on the UBS drive (high io-wait rate) due to many ready/writes, but this did not harm the overall performance of the router.

Remember: The firmware is in the router ROM and uses the Router RAM - it does not depend on USB HDD or USB Thumbdrive.
Entware programs will be loaded once into RAM and will not depend on reading/writing to much on the Entware partition.

Only the swap file might make a difference as some (unused) RAM can be freed up and give the running processes more RAM.
Some reported already RAM shortage when using the (crapy?) ASUS Download Manager and DLNA in parallel.

With kind regards
Joe

 

[breakline]

Hi breakline,

Well, it depends what you call performance:
I only experianced some performance issues due to heavey I/O on the UBS drive (high io-wait rate) due to many ready/writes, but this did not harm the overall performance of the router.

Remember: The firmware is in the router ROM and uses the Router RAM - it does not depend on USB HDD or USB Thumbdrive.
Entware programs will be loaded once into RAM and will not depend on reading/writing to much on the Entware partition.

Only the swap file might make a difference as some (unused) RAM can be freed up and give the running processes more RAM.
Some reported already RAM shortage when using the (crapy?) ASUS Download Manager and DLNA in parallel.

With kind regards
Joe

wow thats a lot to process idk how you guys do it on a daily basis lol , im not stupid but definately a newb .

I just really want to know if it will be any way beneficial to run a flash drive with entware only , and swap and data partition on hdd or if it would be best to just have one drive with entware partition , swap partition and data partition on one drive ?

im sorry just a total newb to all this. Im using transmission and cherokee via TeHashX guides on optware but i was using download master at first and have a feeling thats where my ram loss is going to. I have an average of 2MB or less after anything i do.please help and i will gladly help you anyway i can. I still want to go the entware route but still interested in why this is the way it is?
Im totally ok with donating to someone who undertands this more than i to help me learn a little bit i dont want something for nothing , I just want to learn and understand.

 

[joegreat]

I just really want to know if it will be any way beneficial to run a flash drive with entware only , and swap and data partition on hdd or if it would be best to just have one drive with entware partition , swap partition and data partition on one drive ?

OK! Let's keep it simple:
Most people run everything on one USB HDD, without problems!
For a start it's the best thing to do.

My setup is slightly different: I have inserted a Micro-SD-card into the internal reader of the Router plus a 750 GB HDD via USB.
Why did I do this? Bcs. I had a spare 1 GB SD-card and I like to seperate things.
The Internal 1 GB SD-card contains:
- Entware
- Syslog (incl. archive of older Logs)
- Internet traffic statistics
- My scripts and configuration files
The USB HDD contains
- A swap partition
- A big (ext 3 formated) data partition to hold the files downloaded/shared via Transmission

So, as always, it's your choice to make it simple (option one) or specific to your thinking, needs, perferences (option two - a I did), or any other way!

With kind regards
Joe

 

[Chrysalis]

is there a reason optware cant be installed on jffs? I am not keen on using external storage devices connected to my router.

if not is there a howto for this firmware to put optware on cifs?

 

[RMerlin]

is there a reason optware cant be installed on jffs? I am not keen on using external storage devices connected to my router.

Mostly space. The RT-N66U only has about 8 MB of space left.

Just plug a basic cheap USB flash drive, that will get the job done for Optware. That's how I do it myself.

if not is there a howto for this firmware to put optware on cifs?

You can't. Optware requires a native Linux filesystem, cifs won't work.