Network Storage Problem

cirx08

I have a 2TB external hard drive plugged into my router using USB and I have multiple PC's and a Raspberry Pi set up using XBMC to steam movies across the network. I use FileZilla to transfer new DVD-Rips to the hard drive and this works great.

After about a half an hour or so the network drive seems to act in a strange way. FTP connects but returns no directories or files, the drive disappears from the networks searches but if I type in the address manually I can see all the files and folders. I can only read these files though and get errors when I try add or delete files. These errors go along the lines of "There was a problem accessing the drive...".

I have also tried connecting the drive to a Windows PC and mapping it to the network but this gives the same results. I'm not sure what's causing this or if it's just my router or hard drive. I'm using a Seagate 2TB external drive connected to a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND router with Gargoyle 1.6.1 custom firmware and all PC's and Raspberry Pi connected using CAT 6 Ethernet. upnp is on and firewalls have been turned off for testing.

I have been thinking of buying a real NAS that connects using Ethernet and has a static IP but I'm not sure now if it's gonna end up having the same problems?

gctest50

Can you play a file that is on the Windows PC itself without any problems ?

cirx08

gctest50 wrote: »

Can you play a file that is on the Windows PC itself without any problems ?

When the hard drive is connected to the router and it disappears from the network I can still play the files if I know the files path (As It won't show up in a network search) but I cannot write or delete these files.

gctest50

You could plug it into the Pi directly - you can get USB Y-cables (see pic attached) so the disk is not pulling power from the usb socket on the Pi

cirx08

gctest50 wrote: »

You could plug it into the Pi directly - you can get USB Y-cables (see pic attached) so the disk is not pulling power from the usb socket on the Pi

Sorry but that's not gonna work, I also have my fathers smart TV streaming over the network on the other side of the house so it's not just for me.

degsie

I suspect this might be a 'browser service' problem. I'd recommend making the router the master browser and ensure the rPi has the flags for master browser service net to 'no' (in samba.conf). I've had the rPi do something like this for me before. Also make sure everything is in the same workgroup.

Cuddlesworth

If the PC's and the Pie are all having the same problem, sounds like its the drive. Could be a power saving feature like the drive spinning down after x number of minutes.