Breaking the 4TB / 8gig barrier via routers USB port

[tech960]

I picked up a Asus GT AC5300 (or 5333 as it says on the box). I was trying out plugging one of my USB drives into the USB 3.0 port. Just a 4tb to test it.. so I got it setup and I am able to watch movies from it via 4G from work, etc.. But now that I go to plug in the main drive, the 16TB drive, I find out of the hideous limits on these ports.

Are there any routers out there that will support my larger drive and .mkv file sizes (around 38+gig)? Or do they all use the same lame little software port that works the same way. At this point I guess I just need to build a real NAS, but I was hoping to get around that and just plug in my larger USB drives into the router and be done.

 

[FTC]

Hi, given the fact that these routers already support GPT formatted drives, that they support filesystem formats that have in the order or higher than 16TB max volume sizes, and that the GT-AC5300 does have 4+ times the memory amount of something like the rt-ac3200 (1GB vs 256MB) and this last one does already support 4TB volumes, .. I would not be suprised if your GT-AC5300 does in fact work fine with a 16TB drive... Did you test it ? what is the format of your big drive ? In any case it would be a 'non supported' configuration, but worth a try. It would not work only if :

- The firmware does *enforce* a max limit (which I think is probably unlikely) or
- There is some addressing limit being reached (unlikely if you are plugging a disk already working and formatted) or
- There is some kind of 'extension' not yet incorporated by the linux kernel / driver level being used by the firmware (I would investigate this one if not working).

 

[RMerlin]

Get a real NAS, for a long list of reasons. First of all, those routers don't even have enough RAM to properly cache the metadata on such a large disk.

 

[FTC]

Get a real NAS, for a long list of reasons. First of all, those routers don't even have enough RAM to properly cache the metadata on such a large disk.

Well, that was one of my points. If the RT-AC3200 w/256MB does have memory to cache the metadata of a 4TB drive, a router such as the GT-AC5300 with 1GB (4 times the memory) ought to have enough memory to cache the metadata of a 4 times bigger drive (16TB).
However, Merlin point is of course right in the sense that a real NAS will always be a much more robust and performant solution.

 

[RMerlin]

If the RT-AC3200 w/256MB does have memory to cache the metadata of a 4TB drive

256 MB isn't enough to run a fsck on that 4 TB disk.

 

[tech960]

Ok so how much RAM should I use in my yet to be designed real NAS.. 32, 64, 128? I think the best DIY NAS would be my current PC after I upgrade to AMD Threadripper 16 Core coming out soon, but the size and fan noise is not attractive or ideal. I want something much smaller.

I have noticed my 1G of memory of the GT5300 is at 99% usage at all times since I plugged in the 4TB. Maybe the Asus documentation is a bit dated. The link of supported drives says 2009 in the URL. That was back in the day of the 4TB limit issues. I'll plug it in tonight and see what happens. But so far any file over 7 or 8 gigs doesn't play very well. I'm guessing its the crap Asus cloud app. All I want to be able to do is play the movies I leeched at home at work, outside of the jobs network. Hopefully I can find a more native way to do this.

 

[RMerlin]

A typical NAS should be fine with 4 GB RAM. If going with standard DDR4 DIMMs, considering how cheap RAM is, I would go with 8 GB.

It will depend on your usage patterns, and the OS used on the NAS.

 

[jeff3820]

Also look at Synology (https://www.synology.com/en-us), QNAP (https://www.qnap.com/en-us/), and Asus (https://www.asustor.com/en/) dedicated NAS systems. For just storage all of these units are fast enough for any home network. In addition, Synology and QNAP have excellent software for so many different applications...it's actually astounding what they have these inexpensive hardware devices doing. I have had my Synology unit for 3-4 years now and I'm still finding new applications for it...the software is really phenomenal. I paid less than $200 for my 2 drive unit then added 2 6TB drives...has worked flawlessly. Lots of other configurations are available. Start with 1-2 drives and add as the budget/needs change.

 

[FTC]

256 MB isn't enough to run a fsck on that 4 TB disk.

... Maybe. but don't tell my RT-AC3200... It is happily running and doing fsck's of my USB 2x4TB RAID1 enclosure since quite long already... Now seriously, I am using NTFS AND have swapping enabled, and these may be the reason why it runs in my case..

 

[System Error Message]

The problem isnt the router, the problem is your hard drive. The router does not carry RAID drivers with it. you could however manually install what you need by going into ssh on the router and accessing the linux bit (RMerlin's firmware is recommended for this too).

 

[sfx2000]

Get a real NAS, for a long list of reasons. First of all, those routers don't even have enough RAM to properly cache the metadata on such a large disk.

Lots of issues here - drivers, memory, etc...

A NAS will provide better support and more performance and stability, so I concur with @RMerlin.

The primary NAS vendors also offer additional functionality that most BHR's cannot, again do to memory and other items...

 

[tech960]

Welp, I guess the jokes on me for RTFM.. The USB 16tb Raid-0 worked without a hitch. But the AiCloud interface for connecting to it just sucks. I'm now looking into a VPN solution. Any recommends?

 

[RMerlin]

Welp, I guess the jokes on me for RTFM.. The USB 16tb Raid-0 worked without a hitch. But the AiCloud interface for connecting to it just sucks. I'm now looking into a VPN solution. Any recommends?

OpenVPN.