DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

breasthead · 2009-02-05 20:42:36

Hi,
I'm trying to work out whether the linux on the dlink 323 is able to mount and share some external drives which are in a netgear sc101 toaster. I've found a linux patch to mount the sc101 drives in linux (http://code.google.com/p/sc101-nbd/) but I'm not advanced enough to know how or if this will work for the dlink...but thats not my intended question here.. (unless someone knows/wants to find out for me?? )

Regardless of that hurdle, I'd also be connecting an external USB drive soon so my more important question is what would be the best file system to format external drives so that I can share them from the dlink with both read and write access to windows pc's and mac? From what I gather I'll need a file system that is linux, windows and mac compatible so all systems can communicate? I know there is FAT32, but that has the 4GB file size limit which I'd like to avoid if possible, there is also the EXT2/3 which with some plug-ins will work on windows (but write capability on mac isn't there) and NTFS, which people don't seem to like all that much .... Does the file system of these extra drives even matter in the sense that once they are mounted and (samba?) shared on the dlink they will have read/write capabilities for both windows and mac?

As you can tell I'm a little confused (and clueless)...

Any help would be appreciated...

Cheers,
B

fordem · 2009-02-05 21:14:08

I could be wrong on this ...

First - the SC101 code you link to is compiled for the x86 processors and will not run on these units (which are arm processors) without recompiling and possibly some tweaking - also - that code, if I remember correctly, does not support the ZFS file system format so you would not be able to access the data on the drives.

Out of curiosity - was it your intent to access the DNS-323 and through it, the drives in the SC101, or to remove those drives and use them in an external enclosure directly attached to the DNS-323?

Second - the file system on the external drive is not that critical as long as the linux on the DNS-323 can access it - the SAMBA server in the DNS-323 will present it transparently to any operating system capabale of reading/writing SMB shares.

It is possible to mount external USB drives and read/write them with the ext2 file system, and once those drives are mounted on the D-Link and shared they can be accessed across the network in pretty much the same fashion as the internal drives. I have not done used external drives from anything other than Windows, but I have used the internal drives from Ubuntu and would expect to be able to access an external drive in the same fashion. If that's your primary aim, then use ext2.

It is also possible to mount an NTFS file system drive through the USB port and read it, but I believe there are issues if you write - possibly the commonly available kernal module is read only - it's been awhile and I did this more as a "can I do this" type thing and don't remember the details. The instructions are in the wiki and there is a thread in here that describes my efforts and all the challenges I met and the solutions offered, without which I would not have succeded.

Last edited by fordem (2009-02-05 21:22:07)

breasthead · 2009-02-05 21:39:13

fordem wrote:
Out of curiosity - was it your intent to access the DNS-323 and through it, the drives in the SC101, or to remove those drives and use them in an external enclosure directly attached to the DNS-323?

Yeah my plan was to just have the sc101 plugged onto the network, then mount and share the drives through the Dlink ... but as you say that won't work without some re-compiling and tweaking of the linux sc101 code...which I won't be able to do ... awww and it seemed like a nice way to incorporate some useless hardware into my network!

fordem wrote:
also - that code, if I remember correctly, does not support the ZFS file system format so you would not be able to access the data on the drives.

Even if I managed to find a working copy of the sc101 code, wiped the drives clean and start fresh with (say EXT2) I still wouldn't be able to use them because of the ZFS format?

Anyway thanks for your help on the drive format, I think I'll go with the EXT2/3 with my USB externals (since it doesn't matter) and universally share them from the dlink.

Cheers,
B

fordem · 2009-02-06 02:29:06

If you wiped the drives you should be able to reuse them.

DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

Announcement

#1 2009-02-05 20:42:36

External Drive File System Type

#2 2009-02-05 21:14:08

Re: External Drive File System Type

#3 2009-02-05 21:39:13

Re: External Drive File System Type

fordem wrote:

fordem wrote:

#4 2009-02-06 02:29:06

Re: External Drive File System Type

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