USB external drive question

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USB external drive question

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Sedum

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I have 2 x 3TByte Seagate HDD's mounted in a Hornettek Dual Bay SATA Case. The drives have been formatted to Ext3 RAID 1 using a Ubuntu system. I can copy files to & fro with Ubuntu, but the drives are not recognised when I connect them to my HDR via the USB link, giving me the message to format them in Ext3 or Fat32 on a PC.

Can anyone tell me what the problem is? Is the drive size of 2.7TB too large? Does it not like RAID 1 configurations? Or perhaps because the drives are SATA3?

If there is a solution to this problem, perhaps someone could advise me, thank you.

| Sun 7 Oct 2012 14:14:00 #1 |
grahamlthompson

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Welcome to the forum

The usb port won't support a raid controller I imagine is the answer. If you install the custom firmware I guess you will be able to access the raid drives directly via a PC, either via windows explorer or ftp.

| Sun 7 Oct 2012 14:37:35 #2 |
Sedum

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Thanks for your prompt reply Graham.

I re-formatted & re-configured my drives to 'Normal' (not RAID) which means they should show up as two separate 3TB drives, but the outcome was exactly the same.

I have discovered that 3TB drives are formatted using 64 bit operating systems using GPT (Guid Partition Table). 2TB & under used MBR. I tried formatting these drives on a 32 bit OS & they reverted to 2TB leaving the extra 1TB as un-allocated.

I guess all this is just a bit too much for dear old Hummy. I will re-format to 2TB MBR this evening to see if this works & report back.

| Mon 8 Oct 2012 8:24:37 #3 |
grahamlthompson

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The hdr will only work with FAT32 (max file size 4GB) and EXT3 file systems.

| Mon 8 Oct 2012 8:41:00 #4 |
myhumax

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Sedum - 21 hours ago »
Can anyone tell me what the problem is? Is the drive size of 2.7TB too large? Does it not like RAID 1 configurations? Or perhaps because the drives are SATA3?

It sounds like the HDR does not like the USB controller.

If there is a solution to this problem, perhaps someone could advise me, thank you.

I would suggest setting the enclosure up in its simplest configuration - i.e. single drive, formatted to EXT3 and then see if the HDR can see it. If it can then you can then go onto inserting another drive and looking to see if it can set that too. Then move on to a raid configuration.

If the HDR can see the simple set up, then I wouldn't see why it can't see the raid setup, as everything is presented via the USB 2.0 interface.

| Mon 8 Oct 2012 12:10:26 #5 |
damian

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We could do with knowing exactly which dual bay enclosure you have?
There's the £30 odd basic one which supports drives up to 2TB and sata I/II and the more expensive raid enclosure for £65 odd.

I'm guessing you have the £30 one as you used Ubuntu to create a raid configuration. The Humax is most unlikely to have the necessary drivers to read/write the Ubuntu created raid 1.

If you have the more expensive raid enclosure then you'd be using the built in raid controller on the enclosure to create a disk set and file system suitable to present via USB to the Humax. The specifications are sparse for this model and there maybe the 2TB and sata I/II limitation as well, you'll probable find yourself setting a jumper on the Seagates to make them sata II compatible.

If you have the raid enclosure then I'd advise setting the Seagate jumpers for sata II and using the built in raid utility to create the Ext3 disk set.

If you have the basic 2 drive enclosure then I'd look at setting the jumper on the one Seagate, formatting to Ext3 and just using the one disk similar to son_t's suggestion above.

Which model disks and enclosure do you have?

| Mon 8 Oct 2012 13:39:46 #6 |
Sedum

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Thank you all for your suggestions.

Graham - The drives have always been formatted Ext3. The MBR & GPT I mentioned are ways of formatting. MBR 2TB & below; GPT over 2TB.

son_t - I have never been able to get my Humax HDR to recognise my drives whichever way I have them formatted whilst in the Hornettek case, however when formatted to ext3 2TB (MBR)each individual drive was recognised when seated in a single USB caddy (*). Put those two drives back into the Hornettek in 'Normal' configuration (not Raid), & they were not recognised.

damien - The model I have is the Hornettek HD-3211-URC, the more expensive. I have looked up about jumpers for the 3TB Seagates, but even the manual doesn't tell me how to set them for sata II working. I have found information on sata II to sata I jumpering; i.e. connecting the two right hand pins together. Do you know if it would be the same? But as they worked in the single USB caddy (see above *), I think the Humax can take the sata III speeds.

I feel I am tinkering with too many unknowns here & perhaps in hindsight, should not have been so ambitious. With the same end in mind I wondered if it is possible using the Humax 'custom firmware' to be able to stream to the HDR from another PC?

Thanks again.

| Wed 10 Oct 2012 9:55:33 #7 |
Sedum

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I have somewhat solved my problem by swapping the Hornettek & 3TB Raid 1 system out with an IcyBox IB-RD4320StU3 & 2TB Raid 1 system which I had my PC. The Foxsat HDR works with this configuration.

| Fri 12 Oct 2012 7:51:13 #8 |