Fastest way to copy from USB drive to NAS?

[RocketJSquirrel]

My old Seagate USB drive attached to my RT-N66U has begun it death throes. I've decided to replace it with a Western Digital MyCloud "mini NAS".

I have about 1.5 TB of data on the USB drive. I'm wondering what is the fastest way to transfer all those files to the NAS. Is there a way to avoid routing all those packets through my computer? I.e., go straight from USB and out through the router LAN port without going through my Windows 7 PC? How would I accomplish that?

Extra details: the USB drive is formatted as ext3 but I don't have any real Linux boxes.

 

[RMerlin]

My old Seagate USB drive attached to my RT-N66U has begun it death throes. I've decided to replace it with a Western Digital MyCloud "mini NAS".

I have about 1.5 TB of data on the USB drive. I'm wondering what is the fastest way to transfer all those files to the NAS. Is there a way to avoid routing all those packets through my computer? I.e., go straight from USB and out through the router LAN port without going through my Windows 7 PC? How would I accomplish that?

Extra details: the USB drive is formatted as ext3 but I don't have any real Linux boxes.

You will need a custom firmware that will let you mount the NAS directly onto the router, and then do the copy from within the router's shell.

 

[RocketJSquirrel]

You will need a custom firmware that will let you mount the NAS directly onto the router, and then do the copy from within the router's shell.

Thanks. I didn't realize that would require custom firmware. Does the Merlin firmware handle that? I am using 3.0.0.4.374.33_0-sdk5 but could update if needed. Not terribly interested in some exotic firmware; the time to install and learn it would probably swamp the time to just copy via my current setup.

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks. I didn't realize that would require custom firmware. Does the Merlin firmware handle that? I am using 3.0.0.4.374.33_0-sdk5 but could update if needed. Not terribly interested in some exotic firmware; the time to install and learn it would probably swamp the time to just copy via my current setup.

Yes, see the README on how to mount a remote CIFS share.

 

[RocketJSquirrel]

Thanks. The key (for me) was learning the secret word CIFS. The mounts worked perfectly.

The punch line -- now that I've started a many hours (perhaps days) long copy operation -- is that the WD MyCloud has a USB port. Perhaps I could have plugged the USB drive directly into that and bypassed the network completely. Maybe I'll try that on the next share.

EDIT: Woot, it's my 100th post!

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks. The key (for me) was learning the secret word CIFS. The mounts worked perfectly.

The punch line -- now that I've started a many hours (perhaps days) long copy operation -- is that the WD MyCloud has a USB port. Perhaps I could have plugged the USB drive directly into that and bypassed the network completely. Maybe I'll try that on the next share.

EDIT: Woot, it's my 100th post!

Cool I actually looked up WD's product page as using a USB port would have been my first idea, but it wasn't even mentionned there.

Be aware however that it might possibly be a host port (meaning intended to plug an additional USB disk for sharing it through the NAS firmware).