Internal IDE Port, RAID and Spindown...

[medsource]

A few questions...

1) Does anyone know if the IDE port in the router supports a two drive setup (eg a master and a slave)? If so has anyone tried this with the RAID feature? Going further, If the two drive setup and RAID work... do they spin-down with the custom firmware?

2) On the custom firmware updates some have gotten spin-down to work on the internal drive. Has anyone tried this with externals? (my understanding is that the external enclosures either came with spin-down out of the box or you are basically S.O.L.).

The answers will largely determine if I get one of these beauties...

Thanx in advance.

[kfurge]

1) Does anyone know if the IDE port in the router supports a two drive setup (eg a master and a slave)? If so has anyone tried this with the RAID feature? Going further, If the two drive setup and RAID work... do they spin-down with the custom firmware?

I'm running RAID to an external HDD and can confirm it works OK. Both of my drives spin down with my custom firmware.

2) On the custom firmware updates some have gotten spin-down to work on the internal drive. Has anyone tried this with externals? (my understanding is that the external enclosures either came with spin-down out of the box or you are basically S.O.L.).

I think if your external drive does not automatically spin down then you are indeed SOL. I tried to manually make my external drive spin down and was unsuccessful. It appears to be a generic Linux limitation in the the USB umass to SCSI translation layer.

My drive automatically spins down so this is not a problem for me.

- K.C.

[medsource]

I'm running RAID to an external HDD and can confirm it works OK. Both of my drives spin down with my custom firmware.

- K.C.

That's true for externals thru the USB ports (the RAID part at least)... My question was if the internal IDE port supports two drives on its bus (hence the master / slave reference). In a sense it would be two internal drives. So, my question was if RAID would work under that condition and secondarily spin down via the custom firmware.

[kfurge]

That's true for externals thru the USB ports (the RAID part at least)... My question was if the internal IDE port supports two drives on its bus (hence the master / slave reference). In a sense it would be two internal drives. So, my question was if RAID would work under that condition and secondarily spin down via the custom firmware.

I see no reason why that would not work. Asus is doing nothing special for RAID support other than enabling the standard md(4) linux RAID module and wrapping a fancy gee-whiz web interface around it.

No question that all internal IDE HDDs could be made to spin down.

- K.C.

[medsource]

So... I guess (since I don't have on of these yet) if anyone has cracked open their 700ge to swap the drive, if they have a couple of spare drives to test the dual IDE idea and see if the unit will run a RAID 1 on them that would be awesome!

[medsource]

I'm running RAID to an external HDD and can confirm it works OK. Both of my drives spin down with my custom firmware.
- K.C.

I just remembered that you posted this! What enclosure are you using that supports auto spindown? I've been looking for one of these as an alternative if the dual ide thing never gets solved/answered.

[kfurge]

I just remembered that you posted this! What enclosure are you using that supports auto spindown? I've been looking for one of these as an alternative if the dual ide thing never gets solved/answered.

It's a 300G seagate external USB. The model # is ST3300601U2-RK. Spins down after about 5 minutes of inactivity.

- K.C.

[chlubb]

I have a post below about what happened to my router but in the worst case, if its toast, I have a WD MyBook USB drive that was connected in raid with the WL700ge.

What format is the data on this drive? Is it the same as the Asus?
Can I plug it into my desktop and access it as a drive by plug and play?

Update: Plugged into Vista desktop, it is seen by WD Diagnostic utility and says its fine but is not in Computer nor seen. However, in Vista Disk Management it is present but vista says it must be intialized with an MBR to be accessed, it is labeled as "unallocated, not initialized and an unknown drive"

Amazingly, I spoke to Asus support and they decided to tell me that the wl700ge doesnt support raid, the i said yes it does, so they said, well its NTFS so there is no prob, just plug the asus drive or your mirror into windows and it will work, so i said, no it doesnt. they didnt have any further answer.
TIA,
Chris