[HDD-AC86] Maximum HDD Size for RT-AC86U

[Skeptical.me]

Hi,


I am just wondering what the maximum Hard Drive size that can be used with the RT-AC86U?

I have a 4TB WD Elements, 6TB WD Elements, and a 6TB WD Red (NAS) HDD with external housing. Are these too large for the Router?

Thank you very much.

 

[RMerlin]

Officially, Asus's support list doesn't mention anything larger than 4 TB.

Unofficially, I'd say anything larger than 2 TB will give you problems. Router simply doesn't have enough RAM to handle large disks. You will get far better experience by going with a real NAS, especially with these storage sizes.

 

[Skeptical.me]

Officially, Asus's support list doesn't mention anything larger than 4 TB.

Unofficially, I'd say anything larger than 2 TB will give you problems. Router simply doesn't have enough RAM to handle large disks. You will get far better experience by going with a real NAS, especially with these storage sizes.

Thank you Mr Merlin, I had a feeling it wouldn't be much. I've actually got a QNAP NAS, so I'll just stick with that, although its getting quite full.

 

[RMerlin]

Thank you Mr Merlin, I had a feeling it wouldn't be much. I've actually got a QNAP NAS, so I'll just stick with that, although its getting quite full.

USB disks can also be plugged on QNAP's NAS, so you could share them from there, until you manage to upgrade the NAS itself.

 

[Skeptical.me]

USB disks can also be plugged on QNAP's NAS, so you could share them from there, until you manage to upgrade the NAS itself.

All the USB ports are taken by External drives lol I'm a digital hoarder.

 

[RMerlin]

All the USB ports are taken by External drives lol I'm a digital hoarder.

Time to look at a four bay NAS then. High capacity drives have greatly dropped in price over the past few years.

 

[Skeptical.me]

Time to look at a four bay NAS then. High capacity drives have greatly dropped in price over the past few years.

True. I look forward to purchasing my next NAS. QNAP are improving greatly. Cheers.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Dr. Phill]

Officially, Asus's support list doesn't mention anything larger than 4 TB.

Unofficially, I'd say anything larger than 2 TB will give you problems. Router simply doesn't have enough RAM to handle large disks. You will get far better experience by going with a real NAS, especially with these storage sizes.

So theoretically a 2TB drive should be totally fine without any issues in your opinion?

 

[RMerlin]

So theoretically a 2TB drive should be totally fine without any issues in your opinion?

"Should". Provided the enclosure uses standard protocols (some don't), there's no custom partition layout, etc...

 

[Dr. Phill]

I got it. Thank you for the quick response!

 

[Angst]

Officially, Asus's support list doesn't mention anything larger than 4 TB.

Unofficially, I'd say anything larger than 2 TB will give you problems. Router simply doesn't have enough RAM to handle large disks. You will get far better experience by going with a real NAS, especially with these storage sizes.

My RT-AC86U has a 4TB drive on it and I've had zero problems--I stream to my TV from it, run backups to drive, copy large files, etc. No glitches. Transfer rates are pretty decent as well. I have an 8TB drive I'm gunna test on it soon.

A NAS is a great idea and may end up going that way but, for now, I'm completely happy with my setup, especially if the 8TB drive works out well. I'll report back on that...

 

[FTC]

Hi, I have been using a RAID USB enclosure with 2 x 4TB NTFS drives (RAID1) in it plugged to my RT-AC3200 (256MB RAM) for 3 years as a samba server , Torrent repository and multimedia server storage without problems, and now the same drive is connected to my new RT-AX88U (1GB RAM) also doing the same function, so I guess the RT-AC86U (512MB RAM) will most likely run fine with 4TB or slightly bigger disks. In any case I concour that a proper NAS is a safer and probably more reliant solution.

 

[follower]

8TB, 10TB: work fine.

 

[Angst]

Hi,


I am just wondering what the maximum Hard Drive size that can be used with the RT-AC86U?

I have a 4TB WD Elements, 6TB WD Elements, and a 6TB WD Red (NAS) HDD with external housing. Are these too large for the Router?

Thank you very much.

OK, I've tired out an 8TB drive on my RT-AC86U without a hiccup. So, 4TB & 8TB seem good to go on this router.

 

[magus]

hello,
so using this case and this or this drive should work just fine right? I'm planning to use this drive as my media server with 4k uhd remuxes and play them on my TV coneccted with lan cable to my ac86u.
My firmware is AsusWrt 3.0.0.4.384_81351-gcb63868.

 

[Angst]

hello,
so using this case and this or this drive should work just fine right? I'm planning to use this drive as my media server with 4k uhd remuxes and play them on my TV coneccted with lan cable to my ac86u.
My firmware is AsusWrt 3.0.0.4.384_81351-gcb63868.

No real way to tell. All I can attest to is that the 8GB external drive I hooked up works fine. I am wondering why you plan to buy an enclosure and internal hard drive when you can buy a good WD external hard drive for considerably less. Data rates might be a tad less, but still more than sufficinet for a media server. Search Amazon for:

WD 10TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN

 

[biggzsizzle]

My RT-AC86U has a 4TB drive on it and I've had zero problems--I stream to my TV from it, run backups to drive, copy large files, etc. No glitches. Transfer rates are pretty decent as well. I have an 8TB drive I'm gunna test on it soon.

A NAS is a great idea and may end up going that way but, for now, I'm completely happy with my setup, especially if the 8TB drive works out well. I'll report back on that...

My Seagate 4TB was working fine until the latest updates for both merlin and AsusWrt,... seems the router now is maybe running out of memory trying to scan the NTFS drive,...gui reboot and as soon as the drive is connected, cores peg out at 100%, my wifi and lan connections shirt the bed,..all I can do is pull the plug, and remove the drive to get my network back online,...it's really frustrating to the average end-user like myself

 

[magus]

ok, so WD Elements 8T works fine for now. I just plugged it and copied few 4k movies and it works. cpu goes to almost 100% but only on copying files. Ram is always ~95% even without this hdd connected.
We will see how it will perform after few days.
This hdd comes with NTFS, should I format it to ext4 or NTFS will do just fine for my use?

 

[biggzsizzle]

ok, so WD Elements 8T works fine for now. I just plugged it and copied few 4k movies and it works. cpu goes to almost 100% but only on copying files. Ram is always ~95% even without this hdd connected.
We will see how it will perform after few days.
This hdd comes with NTFS, should I format it to ext4 or NTFS will do just fine for my use?

You're still using AsusWrt 3.0.0.4.384_81351-gcb63868 correct?

 

[magus]

You're still using AsusWrt 3.0.0.4.384_81351-gcb63868 correct?

nope, now it's 3.0.0.4.384_81351.