Using a 4+ TB Drive (6TB)

[bitmonster]

I am about to get a 6TB drive. According to the compatibility chart, only up to 4TB EXT4 partitions are supported. So I assume I should format it with 4+2TB EXT4 partitions, and then share that out via Samba so Windows clients can use it like a network share..

Is there anything I should know or be aware of?

Also what's the typical transfer speed in this scenario over Samba from Windows? Pretty slow at only around 150MB / hour? I have around 2-3TB to load up so this could conceivably take all damn week.

 

[ColinTaylor]

@bitmonster As you're new to this forum I respectfully draw your attention to the search box that appears at the top right of each page. It's a bit clunky but it's worth investigating. If you have a specific question (like maximum disk/partition sizes) it's highly likely that someone has already posted the answer. And it's usually a lot quicker than waiting for someone to reply.

 

[sfx2000]

I'll be a bit nicer - big drives are a problem with a single partition... basically it comes down to memory resources...

Split it up and create two mounts, and you should be ok...

 

[skeal]

Also keep in mind this is not a file server it is a router in the end.

 

[bitmonster]

As you're new to this forum I respectfully draw your attention to the search box t

Noted, thanks. I'll be more mindful of this.

big drives are a problem with a single partition... basically it comes down to memory resources... Split it up and create two mounts, and you should be ok...

Thanks.. So this can handle two partitions ok then.

Also keep in mind this is not a file server it is a router

What does that mean in practice... Does it put a huge strain on the router or something. At the end of the day I'll be sharing to a handful of clients (maybe) and doing regular dumps over LAN from the PC - backups, etc. Is this not suitable for this purpose? I am hoping to avoid the expense of a dedicated file server / NAS as we are not an entertainment driven household - so I think our needs are modest.

I have heard of others streaming blu-rays and the like off this so I thought it worked ok for the average house.

 

[skeal]

Noted, thanks. I'll be more mindful of this.


Thanks.. So this can handle two partitions ok then.


What does that mean in practice... Does it put a huge strain on the router or something. At the end of the day I'll be sharing to a handful of clients (maybe) and doing regular dumps over LAN from the PC - backups, etc. Is this not suitable for this purpose? I am hoping to avoid the expense of a dedicated file server / NAS as we are not an entertainment driven household - so I think our needs are modest.

I have heard of others streaming blu-rays and the like off this so I thought it worked ok for the average house.

It would be easy to overwhelm the processor and memory. Just have a heads up and know that in the end it's a router. You can always connect a NAS.

 

[bitmonster]

Thanks but yeah a NAS isn't cheap either although that's good to know. I hope the 6TB drive is not a wasted investment then but I guess even a NAS could use that later if I do go down that route.

Have people found it's generally ok for modest usage though?

 

[skeal]

Thanks but yeah a NAS isn't cheap either although that's good to know. I hope the 6TB drive is not a wasted investment then but I guess even a NAS could use that later if I do go down that route.

Have people found it's generally ok for modest usage though?

Sure. It should work with modest use. If you think you can watch 4k video and backup that laptop at the same time though, may be a bit of a problem. Just saying.

 

[bitmonster]

Thanks that makes sense.. I'll just schedule any backups or large transfers to occur off peak then. I understand Samba is quite slow and it does seem to chew up the RAM?

Basically the 'use case' is a generally one or two users streaming video files or whatever, and occasionally dumping backups and large media files (usually via LAN).

 

[skeal]

Thanks that makes sense.. I'll just schedule any backups or large transfers to occur off peak then. I understand Samba is quite slow and it does seem to chew up the RAM?

Basically the 'use case' is a generally one or two users streaming video files or whatever, and occasionally dumping backups and large media files (usually via LAN).

Samba.....is Samba.

 

[bitmonster]

I guess... So it's unavoidable that it will just take forever to load up unless I do a direct NTFS -> EXT4 transfer with a USB3 Linux box running all weekend - which it looks like my old laptop can handle with two USB3 ports.

Unless I can find a way to mount and write EXT4 on Windows (unlikely).

 

[FTC]

Hi, I am working in a scenario very similar to what you describe and it works flawlessly. To give you an idea of transfer speeds, I can reach 50MB/sec read or write to my 4TB shared USB disk that is directly plugged in my RT-AC3200 (running at 1.4Ghz), so it is not that slow either and it can easily support a few concurrent streaming sessions. In any case and as already said, 4TB is the max partition size I would recommend for routers with 256MB /memory.

 

[bitmonster]

Thanks for that... What if I have a USB2 1TB (NTFS) and USB3 4TB (EXT4) drive working through a powered USB hub - that should still work ok? I can't see my shares or UPnP folders showing on my PC yet, but may be a problem PC side.

Decided to get a slightly more expensive WD 4TB rather than the Seagate 6TB due to widespread reports of failures on the latter and reported reliability of the former.

 

[john9527]

Just a warning...the USB enumeration code used to be a bit 'flakey' when running through an external USB hub. I don't know if it's been fixed over time.

So if you get some unpredictable results, you might try removing the hub.

 

[bitmonster]

Thanks.. I'll just manually copy the drive over to the bigger one if I have to then.

Do you get any performance or other benefits from using EXT4 rather than NTFS.

Can Samba be configured to share the first level directory rather than only second level directories.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

 

[FTC]

Hi, I have been using NTFS since 3 years ago with a 3TB drive and now the 4TB USB one. When I installed this last one (4TB), I made some tests with EXT3/EXT4 but finally I went back to NTFS again because the drives were behaving a bit strangely (some operations were extremely slow) when accessed through samba shares. I think this problems were related to the huge drive size and available memory in the router... because I have a smaller flash (128GB) EXT3 USB drive also connected to the router and it works flawlessly,
As a summary, all in all, in these days if using merlin with huge drives for samba sharing my recommendation is to use NTFS.

 

[bitmonster]

Wow thanks, I never would have considered that. I thought the device native file-system would have performed better, not worse.
I'll just keep it at NTFS then... How's it working with NTFS for you?

 

[FTC]

Wow thanks, I never would have considered that. I thought the device native file-system would have performed better, not worse.
I'll just keep it at NTFS then... How's it working with NTFS for you?

It's working fine, I use this drive as a family repository for backups, media (dlna server), general usage and shared space... for 3 years already. It has been also working *very hard* as my torrent download/upload space for many months of this period, so I am quite confident that this is a robust solution.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Wow thanks, I never would have considered that. I thought the device native file-system would have performed better, not worse.
I'll just keep it at NTFS then... How's it working with NTFS for you?

I can't comment on the relative performance of the different filesystems, but personally I prefer to avoid using NTFS.

There has been the occasional compatibility issue with NTFS formatted drives in the past. Either because the driver was changed in the firmware (NTFS is propriety) or because the PC that created it used attributes/permissions that the router didn't understand. There can also be issues trying to check NTFS filesystems on the router as discussed here.

I prefer to use ext4 (or ext2/3) if the partition is going to be used exclusively by a Linux-type O/S. If I need data to be transportable to other systems then I use FAT32 (even though there's a 4GB file size limitation) because it's universally accepted by PC's, media players, game consoles, etc.

 

[bbunge]

I have used EXT3 and NTFS on my 1TB external drive drive. Decided to stick with NTFS as I saw no performance increase with EXT3. Am using a USB2 enclosure.

One recommendation is to use a thumb drive in the other USB slot and add a swap file. If you format the thumb drive to EXT2 or EXT3 it can be used for Entware. I am doing that to run Transmission which writes the downloaded files to my 1TB drive.

If you want a good utility to format drives use Gparted https://gparted.org/ Write it to a live CD or a thumb drive. Yumi is a good tool to make a thumb drive bootable https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/ I carry a 64 GB thumb drive with me that has Gparted, Clonezilla and a couple varieties of Linux that I can use to boot a computer.