Router USB SSD connection

[NDA]

I have recently upgraded to Fibre with BT and have a Smart Hub 2. It all works well. I use exclusively Apple stuff - MacBook, iMac etc.

I thought I might try to attach my Samsung SSD (the home of all my documents) to the USB port of the BT router. I can see the SSD on the routers home page - but can't connect to it. The router says it's connected, but I the Mac's say "The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection and then try again."

I am not an experience user when it comes to network storage, in fact I've never really used it before.

Any thoughts welcome.

Thanks

[anxious_ant]

If you are using Apple product I'm guessing you will be using SAMBA to connect?

Try the router's IP followed by the USB name as shown in the routers admin page.

So something like 192.168.1.1/usb

FYI Smart Hub 2 only has USB 2 so the speed might be a bit slow.

[NDA]

The USB is described as SanDisk, Extreme SSD so have tried:

smb://192.168.1.254/SanDisk, Extreme SSD

Same message.

Unfortunately the router does't assign an IP address to the USB/SSD.

Is it worth renaming the SSD? Commas and spaces might be an issue?

[anxious_ant]

NDA said:

The USB is described as SanDisk, Extreme SSD so have tried:

smb://192.168.1.254/SanDisk, Extreme SSD

Same message.

Unfortunately the router does't assign an IP address to the USB/SSD.

Is it worth renaming the SSD? Commas and spaces might be an issue?

The external drive will have the same IP as the router as it's mounted there.
Try smb://192.168.1.254/usb1?
The router will assign a name to the disk, I can't remember exactly what but you can view this when you log onto the management page of Smart Hub 2.

[xeny]

Any chance the router can only deal with NTFS and FAT variants and the drive is HFS+ or APFS ?

[thebraketester]

My experience of attaching hard drives to routers is that it is usually slow.... and slow gets annoying very quickly.

[anxious_ant]

thebraketester said:

My experience of attaching hard drives to routers is that it is usually slow.... and slow gets annoying very quickly.

Indeed. I tried that with a USB drive and decided to build my own NAS instead as the performance is too slow for what I need.
I wonder why the Smart Hub 2 doesn't come with USB3

[Ian Lancs]

My hub shows the disc as:

smb://api/Shared_Disk
Doesn't seem to change if its a USB stick or USB hard drive?

[Mattt]

I’d stick a proper NAS in, they’re not too expensive these days.

[NDA]

xeny said:

Any chance the router can only deal with NTFS and FAT variants and the drive is HFS+ or APFS ?

Yes, it could be this.

I have tried every suggestion given here... all with no joy.

I am not sure about NTFS, FAT etc. My SSD is formatted for use on a MacBook Pro - whatever that is. I assume if I wiped it and reformatted then it might work with the router, but not with my Mac? No idea.

It's not the end of the world, but I would have liked all my docs on the network. I don't store anything on my devices - all on attached storage.

[thebraketester]

NDA said:

xeny said:

It's not the end of the world, but I would have liked all my docs on the network. I don't store anything on my devices - all on attached storage.

Buy a proper NAS then.... honestly you will not regret it. They are very very reliable and quick even over a wireless network

[NDA]

thebraketester said:

NDA said:

xeny said:

It's not the end of the world, but I would have liked all my docs on the network. I don't store anything on my devices - all on attached storage.

Buy a proper NAS then.... honestly you will not regret it. They are very very reliable and quick even over a wireless network

Yep, just have... arrives tomorrow.

[thebraketester]

Excellent. They are seriously good bits of kit. remote access is handy too if out and about.

[NDA]

I have finally transferred all of my documents - music, photos and word docs - to the NAS drive. It took a very long time because every time the NAS didn't like a file name it stopped. It created all the folders, but stopped transferring contents. So I had to baby the folders over.

But it's now done and I have instant access to every document I've ever created.

As I mentioned earlier, I am new to this. The NAS I have is set up as RAID 1 - this seems to be the best 'format' as there's a redundancy there... if I've understood correctly how it works. Twin discs, one mirroring the other. Whilst it effectively halves the storage capacity, it does ensure the data is safe as there's no real need for a backup.

[crmcatee]

Except if your house now goes on fire and you've lost everything. Always have an offsite backup if it's important.

[xeny]

NDA said:

I it does ensure the data is safe as there's no real need for a backup.

because you never delete anything accidentally, and can't catch something like cryptolocker.

[Crasher242]

NDA said:

... it does ensure the data is safe as there's no real need for a backup.

There is always a need for a backup.

Preferably more than one backup.

And ideally one backup stored offsite or in a firesafe.

[Trustmeimadoctor]

thebraketester said:

Excellent. They are seriously good bits of kit. remote access is handy too if out and about.

never expose a nas to the internet!

[NDA]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

thebraketester said:

Excellent. They are seriously good bits of kit. remote access is handy too if out and about.

never expose a nas to the internet!

I have disabled web access as it's not a service I need..... I assume it's fairly safe when this is done.

[xeny]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

never expose a nas to the internet!

Depends what you mean by expose. Synology's Quick Connect gives access over the internet, but doesn't directly expose the NAS.

Various NAS vendors offer VPN packages, which are only useful if those ports on the NAS are accessible over the internet.