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[PasserBy]

I have DIR-827 (firmware 1.05 hardware A1) with attached USB3 network storage (WD MyBook Essential 3Tb). The router is set up with media server functionality turned on. However, not all files and not all folders are visible to the media player connected to the router (WD TV Live Plus). From discussion on WD support forum I know that a media player can not request/force rescan of the network storage - this is up to the media router to do.

I was unable to get the folders rescanned. Tried turning off media server on the router (with subsequent soft reboot of the server), and then turned that back on. It looked like the media router does request some sort of rescan of the storage - status lights of the router were both OK, while the status light of the network drive showed activity for quite a while (5-10 minutes?). During this, the router was not accessible from the desktop. Only after that activity finished, it became accessible again. However, the files and folders I see did not change.

There is no difference in security rights of those files and folders - I did make sure that "Everyone" has all rights and that all nested folders and files inherited the access rights from the top level folders.

My other theory was that I have too many files and the player or the routers are not able to keep all of them in the media library. In particular, I had many thousand photos on that drive. I zipped most of those, bu there was no impact on availability of video files that I needed to the media player.

I also thought that the media server is somehow unable to keep the media library/database. I am not sure where that database would be located. Logically, it should be on the same network drive, but I don't see any hidden files or folders. And after all, if "EVERYONE" has all rights to the network drive, wouldn't media router be able to right anything it needs to right on it?

Please help, I am running out of ideas.

[FurryNutz]

Please understand that D-Link only officially supports drive sizes of 500Gb.

Also please think about using a smaller drive size, reason being that even if these routers could handle 3TB, Can you imaging how long it would take to re-scan the entire drive for content? 
USB is not the fastest when it comes to things like this.

It was mentioned earlier to get the router to re-scan USB drives, it does need to be re-booted in order for this to happen.

If your really wanting to use the 3Tb drive as a media file storage, I would recommend putting it on a dedicated online PC and sharing it out there or using a USB to LAN network converter that would better suite your needs for this size of drive.

[PasserBy]

@ FurryNutz

I disagree in parts (respectfully). The content I need is simply a collection of movies and cartoons, no more than a 100 in total, ranging from 1 to 8Gb each. Total volume of those is under 400Gb. It shouldn't take long to scan that. Also, USB 3 is very fast - it is fast enough to stream the movies, I know that from experience. This was one of the reasons I bought DIR-827. I don't have a spare computer to dedicate as a media server, and the one I have has only USB2 connections, which is too slow for streaming content from the WD drive. The drive only has a USB3 connection, no LAN ports. You can argue that I should have bought a drive with a LAN interface, but that's not something I can easily do.

I can remove photos and music to make scanning easier for the router, but questions remain:
1) Is there a limit on the number of media files/folders scanned by the router?
2) Is there a limit on the size of the attached network storage, or it is simply a matter of losing reliability of scanning for sizes over 500Gb?
3) Where does the router store the media library database? I don't want to damage those files by accident.
4) Will the router update the database when content is added to or removed from attached storage?

Thank you.

[FurryNutz]

I fully understand that USB drives do not have LAN interfaces. The reason for mentioning the USB to LAN converter is for an alternative solution to this issue that has been seen many times again with using large size drives.

I would presume D-Link may have set a limit to the drive sizes and also this database as these routers have only a limited memory storage and is pooled with other resources that the router has.

Other than this, we don't have detailed information on the behavior of the media server when USB drives are attached. Only that the router needs to be rebooted to let it re-fresh the USB drive. Even if the entire drive was fully scanned, any changes would still constitute and re-scan of the drive, even if the data base was up to date as the placement of the data on the drive varies and depends on what was added or removed as well. Many factors contribute to this performance and handling that D-Link may or may not implement on these routers.

I recommend that you phone contact your regional D-Link support office and ask them about this and get more information that you need.

Good Luck.

[PasserBy]

Thank  you, FurryNutz.

Can I take it from your answer that the 'database' of scanned media is kept by the router in its operating memory (RAM)? That would be different from situations, where the drive is attached to a computer or to a media player, both of which keep a writen copy and manage additions/deletions.

The reason I am asking this is that in that case I will not need "write" permissions on the drive. I found that an accidental deletion from USB-attached drive is bad - there is no recycle bin and no easy way to restore files.

I plan to remove all files, other than the video that I need, from the USB3-attached storage, and see if rebooting and rescanning improves availability of files to the media player.

[FurryNutz]

I can presume there is some form of database information that might be kept on the router short term and probably very limited. I would guess that mainly the router just provides access operations to the drive from the network perspective and thats its.

A good test would be to start out with say 1 of each file type as a test to see what your devices can see. Then add your main video files from there. Just not sure what the quantity will be once you start adding them. And again, the more you add, the longer the scan will take I presume. 

[PasserBy]

Well, it didn't work. I removed everything but the video files I needed. All that was left on the 3Tb USB3 drive was 6 folders containing 117 files totalling 281Gb. Media player only sees 2 files after rebooting and presumed rescanning of the media server. I would think this is some kind of addressing problem - i.e. DIR-827 does not know how to reach into those large external drives. However, what is really weird is that I now see fewer files than before. Physical location of 14 other files that were visible before did not change, their addressing did not change, yet for some reason DIR-827 does not scan them.

This is very sad. Why bother with USB3 connection if you can't scan a pity 100 files and 300Gb of content.

[FurryNutz]

Are the files in folders?
Try placing some of the files at the root of the USB drive and see with out using any folders.
Do you have a smaller size drive to test with these files? 

[PasserBy]

Yes the files are in folders. I would follow your suggestions, but wanted to use a weaker test first. I deleted 2 files and then re-recorded them to the same folder. These files are now visible to the media player. I will try to re-record all other video files as well, which will take some time as my other backup copy is on a USB2 drive.

Keeping all files in the root folder is not practical, as media player can only show 8 items at a time, so traversing a drive with 100 items in the root is a bit tedious.

I do have a 500Gb USB2 drive, but it is too slow to stream video.

[FurryNutz]

What do you mean by re-recorded? Doing a fresh copy from a source drive?

Sounds like you found a process. Keep us posted.

[PasserBy]

Not sure how many people experience the same issue,  but here is what I tried.

I had 1 top-level folder (Video) plus $RECYCLE.BIN and System Volume Information. Within the Video, I had 2 folders - Cartoons (25 files, 66Gb) and Movies (49 files, 200Gb). Total volume of data is not excessive, as you see.

On the initial scan (when the router is rebooted, or when the storage is ejected and then connected again), only a handful of files were visible in the Cartoons folder, but the Movies was not visible at all.

When I move (drag and drop) the invisible files from the Cartoons folder into its parent folder (Videos), they become visible to the media player. I tried in groups of 6 without any problem, but when I moved a larger group of files, occassionally the media database of the router becomes corrupted and the media player shows that there is no media in the folder (and all folders become inaccessible). When I moved those files in small groups back to the Cartoons folder, they stayed visible, but again, when I tried moving a larger group (20+), the media database becomes corrupted, and the drives has to be ejected. What it interesting, is that when I move the files up to the parent folder, the storage drive indicates activity similar to scanning, but then I move the files down (to the nested folder), the storage drive shows no activity.

My next test was moving all cartoons to the root folder. Same results - only the first 6 files are visible to the media player, and moving larger groups crashes the media database.

I have now two theories of what is going on.

1) It looks like the router's interface with the attached storage is just too slow, and any fast or sizeable change on the drive crashes the router's media database.
2) It is also possible that on scanning the storage, the router doesn't wait long enough (as in the case where only 6 of the 25 files in the root folder are visible).

[FurryNutz]

Seems like there could be a problem here. I would recommend that you phone contact D-Link support and ask for level 2 or higher support. I'll pass this along to my contact for review as well.

Let us know how it goes...

[PasserBy]

Spoke to L2 support. After a long wait, the conversation was short. This router does not support 3Tb drive, but - and this is different from what I've read here - it is supposed to support 2Tb drives.

Frankly, I don't think this is a valid response. Remember that this is a USB drive, and addressing is supported by the drive itself, not by the router. The router does not need to know the size of the drive or its internal mechanics, as long as the requests sent via USB are responded correctly. We are talking about 200Gb of data in 80 files in 3 folders. It doesn't take much to keep this in a ROM media database. I still think this is the issue of relative speed and timing: either the drive does not allow enough time for the drive to respond, or it is too slow to process fast responses, or both.

[FurryNutz]

Officially D-Link only supports 500Gb drives. The reason of seeing 2Tb is that some users have been lucky to get those sized to work. It's even less with 3Tb sizes.

I would try a 500Gb drive and see if you exhibit the same thing. If so then you would have more ground to stand on with support.

Honestly, having 2 or 3Tb sizes, even if it worked and you had the drive full, it would take a long while to scan every time you changed something on the drive. This process isn't realistic for using large size drives and routers and I presume that is why D-Link only supports up to 500Gb. They probably drew the line there and figured that if you need larger support, users need to use LAN wired storage like NAS or file server. I use a file server and have 3Tb installed in it. I used my external USB drives as shared out drives connected to the file server when needed or in testing of routers.

Good Luck.

[PasserBy]

@FurryNutz - I agree with you there. It is not practical to have thousands of files in the media library - the task of choosing the one you want from the TV with your media player remote control becomes non-trivial. So 500G is probably not a bad line to draw. Also, using a router-plugged drive for backup is not working - not for me at least. The bundled WD backup software only works for drives plugged into a computer.

What I want to say is there is a very real need for people like myself, who want a simple solution. I thought I would kill two at once if I use a large drive both to store my media and as a place for backups, and that it looked like a perfect shot when I saw that that both the 3Tb drive and the HD Media Router had USB3 connection.