Zyxel NSA325 does not appear to support 3TB external Drives

[raymondox]

I have been running my NSA325 with 2*western Digital red internal drives as Raid 1. I am very pleased with the cost performance of the device and its has been working well.

I am now getting to the point where the contents of the NAS are approaching 2tb and so I have tried to use a 3tb external USB3 drive.

I have tried both a Seagate 3tb STCA3000200 USB3 drive and a Western Digital 3 tb WDBACW0030HBK USB3 drive. I have tried them on both the USB2 and USB3 ports. They both power up as thought they are connected but neither are recognised by the NAS. Both drives work perfectly well on windows PCs.

Also has anyone got a 3tb drive to connect properly, with no action other than plugging it in, and if so which one.

 

[stevech]

no doubt, you tried those drives on a windows PC as NTFS? I use my USB3 drive with my Synology in NTFS format to assure portability of the data. NTFS is a bit slower in write speed when used with a Linux-based NAS, but it's a compromise I accept, and after the first big backup, the recurring backups are small and speed isn't an issue.

 

[raymondox]

no doubt, you tried those drives on a windows PC as NTFS? I use my USB3 drive with my Synology in NTFS format to assure portability of the data. NTFS is a bit slower in write speed when used with a Linux-based NAS, but it's a compromise I accept, and after the first big backup, the recurring backups are small and speed isn't an issue.

Yes I used then fine on my PCs on windows vista, 7 and 8. I have used 2tb NTFS discs fine and like you I keep a copy of the NAS on them so I can easily port the contents via USB or use in case the NAS fails.

Its just when I try a 3TB drive its just not recognised. I reckon its something to do with the way 3TB and upwards drives are formatted to allow them to be used on all versions of windows.

I may switch to synology or QNAP if I cant find an answer as I'm near the 2TB limit.

 

[tipstir]

I have been running my NSA325 with 2*western Digital red internal drives as Raid 1. I am very pleased with the cost performance of the device and its has been working well.

I am now getting to the point where the contents of the NAS are approaching 2tb and so I have tried to use a 3tb external USB3 drive.

I have tried both a Seagate 3tb STCA3000200 USB3 drive and a Western Digital 3 tb WDBACW0030HBK USB3 drive. I have tried them on both the USB2 and USB3 ports. They both power up as thought they are connected but neither are recognised by the NAS. Both drives work perfectly well on windows PCs.

Also has anyone got a 3tb drive to connect properly, with no action other than plugging it in, and if so which one.

Those 3TB you have 2x of them = 6TB can replace the ones in your NSA325. If you use the USB make sure you use USB3.0 if you have the USB3.0 interface on your 3TB instead. I would consider replacing what you have internally.

 

[raymondox]

The 2 internal drives are both already 3tb in raid 1. Sorry I didn't explain that.

So I need a 3tb external drive attached to back them up as NTFS so I can use them if the NAS fails or I need to use the data offline.

Yours would be a good idea except I'm already past that point.

I am looking to find out if anyone has connected a USB external drive which is 3tb or more on an NSA325

 

[raymondox]

Zyxel are working on it

Zyxel Support have confirmed there is a problem with 3Tb drives on USB and are working on it. I will keep this forum posted on any progress.

 

[dotdavid]

Just to add that the Zyxel NSA-221 also appears to have a problem with external 3TB hard drives.

Do you think it's worth reporting that to Zyxel's support or would they already know about it, based on the fact that the NSA-325 doesn't support them? The firmware of these things seems quite similar.

 

[raymondox]

Just to add that the Zyxel NSA-221 also appears to have a problem with external 3TB hard drives.

Do you think it's worth reporting that to Zyxel's support or would they already know about it, based on the fact that the NSA-325 doesn't support them? The firmware of these things seems quite similar.

I have reported it to Zyxel and they are working on it. I have tried v4.60 beta 2 and it still didn't work. v4.6 beta 3 (final) is due out 3rd March. I'll try again then.

The beta test is available on the Zyxel german forum.

http://www.zyxelforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=136&t=4644

 

[dotdavid]

I have reported it to Zyxel and they are working on it. I have tried v4.60 beta 2 and it still didn't work. v4.6 beta 3 (final) is due out 3rd March. I'll try again then.

The beta test is available on the Zyxel german forum.

http://www.zyxelforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=136&t=4644

Thanks for the links, I've had a look around that forum and the linked FTP servers and it seems to be mainly for the 325. I hope they'll update the 221 to the new firmware but perhaps it is too old now - I got it for a bargain price ;-)

I'm using a Seagate drive that came pre-formatted, someone on the forum suggested that it might be something to do with the format used, so I might try wiping all the partitions and seeing if that helps although I'm not too hopeful. Otherwise I'll have to just use the USB port on my router and hope that works.

 

[SNJJNS]

A yes to your question

I have been running my NSA325 with 2*western Digital red internal drives as Raid 1. I am very pleased with the cost performance of the device and its has been working well.

I am now getting to the point where the contents of the NAS are approaching 2tb and so I have tried to use a 3tb external USB3 drive.

I have tried both a Seagate 3tb STCA3000200 USB3 drive and a Western Digital 3 tb WDBACW0030HBK USB3 drive. I have tried them on both the USB2 and USB3 ports. They both power up as thought they are connected but neither are recognised by the NAS. Both drives work perfectly well on windows PCs.

Also has anyone got a 3tb drive to connect properly, with no action other than plugging it in, and if so which one.

I have a WD MyBook Essential 3TB attached
P/N WDBACW0030HBK-1
Model WDBACW0030HBK-UESN
Purchased Feb 2013
It wouldn't work with the software that came with it the Smartware designed for backup so I copied the software to my PC, formatted it via the PC (quick format makes it NTFS anyway) and then used the NSA325 to create a volume on the external drive. The NSA formats and erases all the data as it creates the new volume on the external drive. It now seems happy to exist with the NAS and has even used the ZyXEL backup scheduled to work overnight without the PC being turned on. I can access the MyBook volume from Windows 7 Home Premium as a share on the network and have used Microsoft's Synctoy version 2.1 to make a backup of the photo and video albums. The USB 3 is really fast using SyncToy so I haven't bothered with the one touch routine on the NSA325. The NSA has two Seagate 3TB drives in RAID1 array. The MyBook on a couple of occasions has gone to sleep. This is indicated by a slowly flashing LED on the external drive. I've found in these circumstance a simple removal of the USB 3 lead and replugging reactivates the MyBook. It takes a little while if the MyBook has entered a sleep mode to be recognised after this unplug/plug routine but it can either be seen using the Volume menu on ZyXEL admin or going via the network icon in Windows explorer. I've been using the MyBook permanently attached whilst moving files to the NAS but the idea is to remove it eventually so it is a proper "off-site" backup either stored at my son's home, or concealed somewhere in our own home.

Steve

 

[dotdavid]

Just to let you know I got my 3TB external drive working on my NSA221 with firmware v4.00.

I deleted the existing NTFS partition, and then plugged the drive into the NSA. I tried to create a new NTFS partition using various USB ports but then tried an EXT3 partition using the front USB port, which has actually worked (although it sat on 99% for a worryingly long time). Now my 3TB volume is mounted as an EXT3 drive and seems to be working fine for backups etc.

Not sure if you've tried an alternative filesystem to NTFS, or if my drive will remain working if I unplug it or switch ports, but it might be worth a try.

 

[heathuser]

I am happily running 2x2TB MBR NTFS and 2x3TB XFS drives in one external box attached to my NSA325 with USB3.

As a further test I borrowed my daughters HGST Touro Desk 4TB USB 3.0 Black External Hard Drive HTOLDX3NB40001ABB

I restarted my NSA325, which caused the 4-drive box to power down, then disconnected it.

I then plugged-in the above HGST 4TB USB3 drive, already hooked to AC power, and the CPU went to 100% and stayed there for 30 minutes, when I unplugged the drive.

10 minutes later the CPU went to 2-3%

I then tried again, powering up the HGST after attaching to the NSA325, and the same thing happened.

The drive is not mine, so I could not wipe it or reformat it to see if the NSA325 would access it with something other than the default GPT NTFS formatting.

I did however, attach both the HGST and the 4-drive box to my opensuse 12.1 tower and speedily copy to and from all 4 drives and the HGST.

I copied over 1.5TB to the HGST and several hundred MB back to the other drives, just to assure myself that the HGST was functioning properly.

So, I can confirm, even though I have 3 external multi-drive boxes with 3TB drives, and a 1TB WD drive that all work attached by USB3 to my NSA325, that I have had no luck with a 3TB+ backup drive over USB3.

Sorry, I didn't try USB2 and have returned the drive.

More at: http://forum.nas-central.org/viewtopic.php?f=249&t=7575

 

[stevech]

My experience: A big NTFS disk plugged into a Linux/BSD based NAS will cause the OS to grind on the NTFS "mount". On the Synology I have, a 1TB NTFS drive on USB3 takes 1/2 to 5 minutes to mount. Seemingly more on the fist encounter of that drive. The write speed is far less than EXT4, but is acceptable for use as an infrequent backup.

Recently, I stopped using NTFS external on the NAS with its penalties of speed, and some compatibility issues with USB3 drive enclosures for the NAS' OS. I now use all EXT4/native NAS. I had used NTFS to assure I can read the backup on a windows PC if the NAS crumped or was stolen. Now, I have freeware to read EXT4 easily and reliably under Win7 64 bit. "Disk Internals Linux Reader" it is called. I hope this is the right decision. Doing a weekly backup via USB3 goes from 2-3 hours on NTFS to 45 minutes on EXT4. And my NAS is small.

I think most NASes are using the same USB3 and NTFS file system in the LInux distributions - and the NAS vendors don't/can't do too much to improve these drivers. I have several USB3 external enclosures. All work fine as plug and go, no delay, under Win7. Only one does with the NAS. All work OK on the NAS if you plug/unplug USB3 rather than just powering off the external enclosure. It has to do with the chipset in the USB3 enclosure and its timing for power-up/down the drive vs. what it is telling the NAS via USB3. Windows gets it right. These are Linux driver issues for USB3 that may never get fixed. Not an issue, but an inconvenience.

 

[tipstir]

WD Passport 500GB, 1TB and 2TB using USB3 since the NSA325 has USB3 port I don't see any issues using these 3 on it. Just updated the firmware on NSA325.

 

[Florin CHELARU]

I have been running my NSA325 with 2*western Digital red internal drives as Raid 1. I am very pleased with the cost performance of the device and its has been working well.

I am now getting to the point where the contents of the NAS are approaching 2tb and so I have tried to use a 3tb external USB3 drive.

I have tried both a Seagate 3tb STCA3000200 USB3 drive and a Western Digital 3 tb WDBACW0030HBK USB3 drive. I have tried them on both the USB2 and USB3 ports. They both power up as thought they are connected but neither are recognised by the NAS. Both drives work perfectly well on windows PCs.

Also has anyone got a 3tb drive to connect properly, with no action other than plugging it in, and if so which one.

I have the same issue, tested on two different Zyxel NSA325, with two different 3TB HDDs (WD and Samsung, both with USB3.0). The last one has the newest firmware (NSA325_4.70(AAAJ.0)) with the new web interface.

Sometimes worked to plug the external HDD on the USB2.0 port and after that, I have to format and create a volume (NTFS in this case) from the NSA325 web interface. A few times worked, but after trying to copy some files on it, the copy process stops after a few seconds, and the partition on the external HDD was not recognised till next reboot of the NSA325 and the creation of the partition again.
On USB3.0 port, the NSA325 did not recognised the 3TB external HDD in any way.

I have a second one, a Zyxel NSA310. This accepts 3TB on his USB2.0 ports without problems, even formatted in Windows (NTFS with 64k clusters). This has an firmware without new web interface (V4.62(AFK.0).

A note to the new firmware on the NSA325 is that the speed of transfering files dropped from 110MB/s to 55MB/s. This is a BIG ISSUE for me, because the NSA325 is used for virtual machines (NFS share) and now I have to build my own nas (freenas).
This could be a limit imposed to succesfully market the NSA325v2.

P.S.: sorry for my bad english, but I think you will understand...

 

[tipstir]

That's odd I'll test this out. I know 1TB to 2TB portable USB 3.0 drives have no issues with the newest firmware.