I have a crappy Centurylink Router but need another router to add NAS to external drive

[buanobas]

So, I am not sure how to do this. I was thinking of getting a Synology Router (RT1900ac) and plug it into the crappy ZyXel Q1000Z router. Disable the wireless on the Zyxel router and just use the Synology? I do have a camera system in the house that uses port forwarding to a static DNS service. So, can I leave the settings in the Zyxel, or do I need to add the settings to the Synology?

Unless someone has a better option, and not too expensive, I basically am trying to hook up an external HD to a network within my house where I can save files without having to plug and unplug the external 8TB USB external HD. Thoughts? The Zyxel router has a USB port in the rear, but the provider says it is disabled and only for use for techs... thanks!!!

 

[BFG-9000]

If you are adding a 2nd router then may as well configure it into a separate AP some distance away and use Wifi on both (with the same SSID and key for both, your devices will simply connect to the closer/stronger signal). You would have to use the ZyXel as the main router (unless you wish to disable it entirely and place the modem part into bridge mode) which should be fine unless you want to use some exotic QoS mode.

Yes, the USB storage still works fine when it's configured in AP mode. That's not exactly the fastest port though as benchmarks show 38.5MB/s which is as if you'd plugged it into only USB 2.0. A real NAS could be much faster.

 

[buanobas]

If you are adding a 2nd router then may as well configure it into a separate AP some distance away and use Wifi on both (with the same SSID and key for both, your devices will simply connect to the closer/stronger signal). You would have to use the ZyXel as the main router (unless you wish to disable it entirely and place the modem part into bridge mode) which should be fine unless you want to use some exotic QoS mode.

Yes, the USB storage still works fine when it's configured in AP mode. That's not exactly the fastest port though as benchmarks show 38.5MB/s which is as if you'd plugged it into only USB 2.0. A real NAS could be much faster.

Well, I bought a Linksys AC1200+ router, and basically I am using the Q1000Z as the modem, while the new wireless router should handle the wifi and the NAS, as it has a port. Well, the router is fast, that old Q1000Z was turtle slow compared to this. However, the software for the new router is not detecting the external 8TB drive. I called Linksys, and they basically sorry, looks like it has not been tested with their product. This SUCKS!!!! I'm pretty sure I will not be able to return the drive or the router as I am using them.

Any other way to get the software to recognize the drive? Is it a size issue? What if I broke the drive down into partitions at 2TB each? Would that make a difference? Thanks.

 

[BFG-9000]

Did you safe disconnect the USB drive from Windows? And plug in the power brick?

Large external drives are usually NTFS which should work, whereas exFAT generally doesn't. Formatting as linux native ext3/ext4 would be most likely to work but then you wouldn't be able to plug it into a Windows PC without installing filesystem drivers. GPT has long been supported in linux so it's not likely a MBR/GPT issue.

The Linksys EA6350 does apparently have beta DD-WRT support for v1 and v2 if you want to try different software. Hardware rev. v3 however is a Qualcomm device with no 3rd party firmware available.

I would not buy a router that has no 3rd party firmware because I'd want to continue using it long after the manufacturer has stopped releasing security updates. And different ones may be better for certain things: Tomato's Paragon ntfs driver is reportedly faster than the default NTFS-3g one in DD-WRT or LEDE or the stock Linksys firmware.

 

[buanobas]

Thanks. Sooooo, what would be your personal advise, and how do I go about accomplishing it? Thanks again!!

 

[buanobas]

So, should I be tweaking the router or the external drive? Thanks. Here is the beta for the router, cannot find where the download is...

https://www.dd-wrt.com/site/support/router-database