Access to USB HD extremely slow

[bibi-phoque]

Good afternoon,
I just got this router because I wanted to be able to share some GB on my network (and probably start an ftp server).
However, even if I seem to be able to access the HD (using windows), it is extremely slow (40s to go in a folder). playing mp3 or video is not even a question.

the external drive is a Western Digital 400GB, I created 2 FAT32 partitions (about 180GB each) because I heard that NTFS prevent writting.

If I navigate through the network, I can see /part0 and /part1, but reading/writting from there is no possible (just too slow).

Any idea why? Am I missing something? I am using the latest firmware from the Asus website, and followed the Manual to setup this HD.

And it is not a problem with the HD, if I plug it direct to the PC, I have no problem reading/writting to it, and it is fast.

Thanks in advance,
Yann

[avberk]

FAT32 is slow under linux. Use linux partitions (ext3)
You can use 'samba' to make shares.

[al37919]

What is too slow for you?
With Oleg's firmware (this is the fastest option between FWs) you will get maximum 2.6 Mbyte/s (real transfer rate will be 1-2 Mbyte/s).

[bibi-phoque]

Hello all,
Thanks for the replies.

I am not using Linux but XP SP2 (sorry!), and I access this network drive through windows explorer.

I put all my videos/mp3/pictures on this drive and I want to be able to access it from one of my 2PCs and my laptop, but so far I am able to see the file structure, but no way to play any of the files (WMP will open though, but will not be able to play them, just too slow, even for small mp3).

What is the theorical transfer rate from network to HD with the Asus?
Would Oleg's firmware increase this speed? I am a little bit worried about it because I know nothing about Linux and the only reason I bought this router was to share data on a Windows XP network...

Would it be faster if I just plugged my HD on one of the computer, and share it on the network?

Thanks,
Yann

[Kunairu]

The Router is using Linux, it is no problem to Use it with windows xp over the Router. But if you sometimes need to transport files on one of these partitions you should be use fat32 and try to create a share on an PC it should be much faster

sorry for my bad english

[al37919]

What is the theorical transfer rate from network to HD with the Asus?

The theoretical transfer rates are:
USB2: 480 Mbit/s = 60 Mbytes/s
fast ethernet: 100 Mbit/s = 12.5 Mbyte/s
802.11g: 54 Mbit/s = 6.75 Mbyte/s

Real measured rates I wrote in my post above. The limiting stage is usb access to hdd and not the network. Oleg claims that such low usb2 access rates are specific problem of the broadcom chipset which the router is based on.

but so far I am able to see the file structure, but no way to play any of the files (WMP will open though, but will not be able to play them, just too slow, even for small mp3)

That's strange. My son is watching animation movies from usb-hdd attached to router. They are divx and not of very high quality, but certainly they produce much higher bandwidth than mp3-soundtracks. mp3 have to work fine. There is something wrong with your configuration.

Would Oleg's firmware increase this speed?

Yes, but not very much (may be extra 10-20%)

[bibi-phoque]

al37919,
Thanks for your reply.
It looks like I have something wrong in my setup, because yesterday I was able to play a divx (from USB HD plugged on the router) from one PC, but not the other one.
I will investigate this further...

Thanks again,
Yann

[modelamark]

I have ext3 partition on usb2 hdd and only get 900 kbyte/s on a large copy from PC to hdd. It takes ages to copy

[none]

and which firmware are you using?

[modelamark]

Oleg 1.9.2.7-7g
But now the disk is completely gone. I tried to push eject in the web interface. Then my harddisk was gone, and I can not recover. It even disappeared from /dev/
I will try to reload the firmware and see if my data is not lost

[zzzpt]

I'm having the same problem, not too serious, i'm able to play eved HD movies via wireless.

The transfers rates are about 1.29MB/s (this is what vista tells me), with the laptop right next to the router

Any suggestion to improve this.

Im using the latest oleg firm (7g)

[zzzpt]

Found this:

As a side note, I get about 22 Mbit/s on wlan (about 2.75 MB/s), paired with a wl-107g (11g protection off, burst enabled, no other wireless devices, using 128-bit wep), when transfering to another pc via the router (tested w/ Ixia Qcheck).

Will try it later