250GB LaCie HDD

[BugBoy]

I am considering to buy a 250GB LaCie HDD (USB 2.0, 250GB, FAT32). I use Oleg's firmware and want to use it as a "fileserver" for media files (MP3, AVI) and backup for my laptop. The drive is already formatted as FAT32, so it should be easy to hook it up to the Asus WL-500g deluxe, but I do have some questions.

FAT32 efficiency with 250GB partition
What is the blocksize with a 250GB FAT32 partition? I don't like the idea of very large blocks, because it is a waste of diskspace. Using EXT2/3 is not an option, because I want to be able to take the drive with me and hook it up to an ordinary Windows XP box.

Transmission speed using Samba
I think Samba would be the best way to access the harddisk, because it is easy to configure and is easy to use (compared to FTP server). What kind of datarate can I expect on the wired 100Mbit network or wireless 54Mbit network (without afterburner)?

HDD Powersafe
I will only use the HDD 1-2 hours per day, so it is idle the rest of the time. Is it possible to spin down the HDD and put it in some kind of powersafe mode when it is idle for a while and let it spin up when it is being used again?

[TheEagle]

talking bout speed ... you have wl500g or wl500gX (deluxe) ? Cause the bottle neck is NOT your LAN or WLAN, it's the USB port. People with wl500g (which has USB 1.1 only) reported speeds below 1MByte/sec. With my wl500g deluxe and a 512MB USB stick (USB 2.0) I reached 1,3MByte/sec using samba. FTP was much slower, around 800-900kByte/sec. Still I hope that with a real hard disk connected I will get a lil more speed out of it.

[lolli78]

Using EXT2/3 is not an option, because I want to be able to take the drive with me and hook it up to an ordinary Windows XP box.

Why not? Just install a Windows Ext2/3 filesystem driver (http://www.fs-driver.org/ or explore2fs) on your Windows box and be happy. I don't understand why all USB sticks and SD cards have to be formatted with fat, one could also use ext3 and stop paying fees to Microsoft.

[BugBoy]

Why not? Just install a Windows Ext2/3 filesystem driver (http://www.fs-driver.org/ or explore2fs) on your Windows box and be happy. I don't understand why all USB sticks and SD cards have to be formatted with fat, one could also use ext3 and stop paying fees to Microsoft.

The main disadvantage is that if you take the disk to another PC it needs to install the FS driver. To make sure you always have it wiith you, it's best to create a small FAT partition that includes these tools. But still this is annoying. You need administrator rights

[WiziPok]

I use a 160G disk with my ASUS 500GX, but found the problem with large partition size. The maximum partition size, which 500GX could format with EXT-3 was 120G. No more !!!
At the formatting larger partition with 500GX, the FDISK crashed.

When I used 160G with FAT32 partition and with FTP, 500GX wes absolutly SLOW, and the CPU usage was 100%.

WiZI

[BugBoy]

I use a 160G disk with my ASUS 500GX, but found the problem with large partition size. The maximum partition size, which 500GX could format with EXT-3 was 120G. No more !!!
At the formatting larger partition with 500GX, the FDISK crashed.

When I used 160G with FAT32 partition and with FTP, 500GX wes absolutly SLOW, and the CPU usage was 100%.

I have heard that formatting large disks requires more memory, so maybe the Asus lacks the amount of memory to perform this task. Try to format the disk from a Linux box and then hook it up to the Asus. It's definitely worth to try. A 160GB FAT32 partition is not something that I would recommend. It would be nice that NTFS was supported...

[Fenix_999]

Hi,

Correct me i I'm wrong, but if you serving the files with samba windows doesn't care if it is FAT, NTFS, EXT3 or what ever, it will be using the NFS (network File System) to comunicate.

Thanks,
Ricardo

[MMCM]

FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit. That may be not enough to store large video files or backups.
If you want to format large ext3 partitions, you should create and enable a small swap partition first.
USB 2.0 on the gx is not the limiting factor, but the CPU is.

Samba and NFS are different protocols!