Posted: Sun Jun 18, 2017 23:53 Post subject: WNDR4500 v2 USB attached drives
My WNDR4500 v2 has two USB ports which I have been using to attach some network drives. When I plug something in, it shows up on my network under a folder called Readyshare, which is a built-in feature of the router, and which can be seen in the router's home page.
Something about these connections is really iffy, such that if I reboot the router, or there's a power outage, or one or both of them is unplugged, it's a tedious process getting the network to "see" these drives again. Involves lots of unplugging and re-attaching and powering on and off, until it finally works and then I don't want to touch it again.
I've flashed DD-WRT on an older router and it was a tremendous improvement but my question about the WNDR4500 v2 is whether I could expect to see a more reliable connection with the attached USB drives. I don't know a whole lot about networking but the Readyshare thing is built in (I think I remember disabling a bunch of parent-ready "share your photos!" type of crap) and I don't know to what degree the unreliability of the connection is because of the firmware.
Does anyone know? I'm on the verge of just creating a Raspberry Pi NAS so it's more reliable but I thought I would ask here first.
Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 15:36 Post subject: Re: WNDR4500 v2 USB attached drives
I started using DD years ago on a WNDR4000 for this exact reason, and later for the 4500v2, and yes they both work (correctly) with USB drives. _________________ #NAT/SFE/CTF: limited speed w/ DD#Repeater issues#DD-WRT info: FAQ, Builds, Types, Modes, Changes, Demo#
OPNsense x64 5050e ITX|DD: DIR-810L, 2*EA6900@1GHz, R6300v1, RT-N66U@663, WNDR4000@533, E1500@353,
WRT54G{Lv1.1,Sv6}@250|FreshTomato: F7D8302@532|OpenWRT: F9K1119v1, RT-ACRH13, R6220, WNDR3700v4
Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 16:07 Post subject: Re: WNDR4500 v2 USB attached drives
jwh7 wrote:
I started using DD years ago on a WNDR4000 for this exact reason, and later for the 4500v2, and yes they both work (correctly) with USB drives.
Thank you very much. Is the configuration difficult for someone who knows nothing about networking? For instance, one of the computers reading from the attached drives is a raspberry pi with a music player program (it's working now, when the drives are recognized). Also several other computers running OSX and Windows.
Will I have to mess with SAMBA or other protocol installations that I won't understand?
Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 20:22 Post subject: Re: WNDR4500 v2 USB attached drives
itstooloud wrote:
Is the configuration difficult for someone who knows nothing about networking? [...]
Will I have to mess with SAMBA or other protocol installations that I won't understand?
I use Samba for my USB shares, but it's easy...not necessarily as intuitive as it could be. Looking at an old post of mine:
Posted: Mon Jun 19, 2017 22:54 Post subject: Re: WNDR4500 v2 USB attached drives
Thanks!
jwh7 wrote:
itstooloud wrote:
Is the configuration difficult for someone who knows nothing about networking? [...]
Will I have to mess with SAMBA or other protocol installations that I won't understand?
I use Samba for my USB shares, but it's easy...not necessarily as intuitive as it could be. Looking at an old post of mine:
Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 19:56 Post subject: Re: WNDR4500 v2 USB attached drives
OK, I'm sorry, one more question. I'm about to flash this and it occurs to me that the printer sharing is also currently being handled by the router's preinstalled firmware protocol called Readyshare. Am I going to have to do a lot of finagling to get the printer to work?
Maybe I'm out of my depth? It's just really annoying that those drives aren't recognized, and it seems every other day it freezes when I try to go the router's home page.
jwh7 wrote:
itstooloud wrote:
Is the configuration difficult for someone who knows nothing about networking? [...]
Will I have to mess with SAMBA or other protocol installations that I won't understand?
I use Samba for my USB shares, but it's easy...not necessarily as intuitive as it could be. Looking at an old post of mine:
