RT-AX86U - Seagate 5TB USB disk not recognised

[handsy]

Just received my new RT-AX86U and gutted to find that the Seagate 5TB USB3 drive I also bought isn't being recognised!
I'm running latest ASUS firmware 3.0.0.4.386_41535, should I try beta4 of AsusWRT-Merlin instead?
I've read a few articles about dropping down to USB2 in config but that did not help.
I've also reformatted the drive as NTFS, no luck.

Any advice please?

 

[L&LD]

Other than suggesting the best answer first, to 'buy a NAS' instead, and not using your limited resources router as a NAS, try the suggestions below.

My personal suggestion: I would not use anything other than RMerlin firmware.

New M&M 2020

Fully Reset Router and Network

The first link above is suggested after flashing the firmware you want to use.

If the router still isn't stable or working as expected, the second link may help determine if it is a configuration or hardware issue.


You may also want to test different USB cables, a different USB drive/model, and even checking the (pertinent) basics wouldn't hurt either, as outlined in the link below.

Troubleshooting 101 Asus/RMerlin Routers 2020

Top 10 Simple Asus/RMerlin firmware powered Router Troubleshooting steps to try first: NOTE: Although this is for Asus/RMerlin-firmware powered routers, the steps below may be relevant to all routers, to get to a quick fix for common symptoms. Check that the router’s System Time is accurate on...

www.snbforums.com

 

[handsy]

Other than suggesting the best answer first, to 'buy a NAS' instead, and not using your limited resources router as a NAS, try the suggestions below.

My personal suggestion: I would not use anything other than RMerlin firmware.

Thanks for the reply.
I purposely bought this, rather expensive, router to behave like a NAS as that is what it is advertised of being able to do. That's false advertising if it can't do it then!
I'm not happy to install another firmware (beta version as well!) on a 1 day old router just yet ...........should I raise a support ticket with Asus or is that just going to get me nowhere?

 

[ColinTaylor]

Just received my new RT-AX86U and gutted to find that the Seagate 5TB USB3 drive I also bought isn't being recognised!

Just to be clear, when you say it's not recognised do you mean that it doesn't show up at all as a connected device on the router's Network Map page?



Have you tried plugging it into the other USB socket?

If you plug in a regular USB flash drive does that appear on the Network Map page?

 

[L&LD]

This isn't false advertising. It's creative advertising. They may point you to an external HDD model that will work. Nobody guarantees that all features will work with all, external/varied and non-Asus products. How can they?

What you're asking the router to do, I and a hundred others will tell you not to.

Use the router as a router if it meets or exceeds your expectations there. But return the external USB drive and buy a NAS instead if you want network attached storage that is reliable, fast, and doesn't put unnecessary strain on your router's limited resources (CPU and RAM) too.

 

[handsy]

Just to be clear, when you say it's not recognised do you mean that it doesn't show up at all as a connected device on the router's Network Map page?

View attachment 29311

Have you tried plugging it into the other USB socket?

If you plug in a regular USB flash drive does that appear on the Network Map page?

Correct - my 5TB Seagate USB drive does not appear on the Network Map page at all.
An old, 512GB USB2.0 drive does appear just fine.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Correct - my 5TB Seagate USB drive does not appear on the Network Map page at all.
An old, 512GB USB2.0 drive does appear just fine.

I'm guessing that your device is this one: https://www.storagereview.com/review/seagate-backup-plus-portable-5tb-drive-review

There doesn't seem to be anything you can do with it other than plugging it in. It doesn't appear to have a sleep/on/off button or an input for a separate power supply. The system requirements say Windows or Mac but I'm assuming that's for the bundled software and not a requirement for the drive itself.

You could try a different USB cable. But at the end of the day it looks like the router and the drive just don't work with each other. Obviously they ought to work. Which one of them is to blame is hard to say (given that the router can see another USB device). You could return the router and get a replacement to try, or replace the drive. Difficult decision.

 

[HWDan]

Are we thinking that a 5TB drive will at least connect and show 4tb usable?

Because the max supported drive size is still only 4TB.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Are we thinking that a 5TB drive will at least connect and show 4tb usable?

Because the max supported drive size is still only 4TB.

The Network Map page should show 5TB as that page indicates the raw device size not it's partitioned or formatted capacity. The router should have no problem detecting devices larger than 4TB.

 

[BreakingDad]

I have a seagate central (excuse for a nas, about as cheap a nas you can get and some would say isnt really a nas) 2tb connected to a network port, and a WD 2tb USB drive connected by USB, both can be seen over my network. This doesn't help you however. My first question is this. Does Windows pick up your seagate ok when plugged directly into USB ? I am assuming it does as you say you have reformatted it. This leads me to believe that it is a size issue as the above poster is suggesting..

I have had a look around the net, and someone is suggesting you partition the drive into two x 2.5gb using GPT partition format style under NTFS file system. Try this, i'm thinking it will work. Let me know.

 

[L&LD]

With the slightly higher performance, this drive offers, it may be choking on lack of power from the USB ports.

You may want to try it with a cable similar to the image below (a Y cable that uses two ports for Power and one for Data).

 

[arias]

Correct - my 5TB Seagate USB drive does not appear on the Network Map page at all.
An old, 512GB USB2.0 drive does appear just fine.

That's because that Seagate is formatted in fat32 isn't it? That's the stock filesystem on those drives so I'm assuming yes.

That means the router isn't going to recognize anything higher than 2TB for that fat32 formatted drive. I'd rec reformatting in ext4.

 

[L&LD]

@arias, see first post (NTFS).

 

[ColinTaylor]

That's because that Seagate is formatted in fat32 isn't it? That's the stock filesystem on those drives so I'm assuming yes.

That means the router isn't going to recognize anything higher than 2TB for that fat32 formatted drive. I'd rec reformatting in ext4.

No (see post #9), and he already said he formatted it with NTFS.

 

[arias]

No (see post #9), and he already said he formatted it with NTFS.

Ah. Sorry I missed that. But are you using GPT?

I ask because you said you've got an old 512MB drive working.

That appears to indicate its using the old antiquated mbr instead of gpt. I'd use gdisk and convert to UEFI/GPT with bios boot partition. That way router will for sure see it.

 

[ColinTaylor]

He cannot be using MBR as that only supports disk sizes up to 2TiB.

 

[arias]

He cannot be using MBR as that only supports disk sizes up to 2TiB.

You mean primary partition sizes up to 2TB? Yeah I just wasn't sure the layout of drive. MBR could have primary partition of 2TB and extended partition with the rest. I always seem to get these weird 3 partition layouts on those preformatted drives with fat32 on them.

 

[ColinTaylor]

You mean primary partition sizes up to 2TB? Yeah I just wasn't sure the layout of drive. MBR could have primary partition of 2TB and extended partition with the rest. I always seem to get these weird 3 partition layouts on those preformatted drives with fat32 on them.

No, the maximum addressable disk size is 2TiB.

 

[arias]

No, the maximum addressable disk size is 2TiB.

Oh you didn't know? MBR partition limitation is 2.2 TiB. But you can create additional extended partitions with logical partitions in them.

Regardless I have come across the larger than 2.2 TiB limitation before as well. The limit comes from MBR having a 32 bits wide field for a partition's sector count. With 512 byte sectors (the usual size), you can address only up to 512 × 232 bytes, or exactly 2 TiB. Some disks have larger physical sectors of 4 KiB (called "Advanced Format" in various places); however, but they almost always report each physical sector as eight logical 512-byte sectors, in order to remain compatible with all existing software (which might make incorrect assumptions about sector size always being 512 b). So they are still affected by MBR's limitations.

You'd have to look at the bytes per sector to get a better idea with those types of drives.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Oh you didn't know? MBR partition limitation is 2.2 TiB. But you can create additional extended partitions with logical partitions in them.

I'm well aware of logical partitions and how they work. As I said the 2TiB limit is on the disk size not the partition size.

Here's some more information for you: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/tr...storage/support-for-hard-disks-exceeding-2-tb