Can hard drives be hot swapped and used on PC?

I'm considering buying an NSLU2 so I can put my existing
external hard
drive on the network, but I have a few questions for which I
can't
seem to find any definitive answers.

I've heard that hard drives must be formatted to work with
the NSLU2
on first use.  I assume this refers to the fact that
originally the
NSLU2 supported only EXT3 and most people had FAT/NTFS
drives so of
course they would have to reformat.  I know that FAT/NTFS
support was
added with later firmware updates.  Does that mean that I
can now plug
in a FAT/NTFS drive with existing data and use it without
formatting?
 Can I also unplug the drive later and plug it back into my
PC?

One other thing...  Is it possible to use a USB hub to plug
in more
than 2 drives?  Or do I need some kind of unofficial
firmware and/or
hardware hack?

Thanks in advance,
Tom




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On Sat, 2007-02-24 at 21:30 +0000, tom_voros wrote:

> 
> I've heard that hard drives must be formatted to work
with the NSLU2
> on first use. I assume this refers to the fact that
originally the
> NSLU2 supported only EXT3 and most people had FAT/NTFS
drives so of
> course they would have to reformat. I know that
FAT/NTFS support was
> added with later firmware updates. Does that mean that
I can now plug
> in a FAT/NTFS drive with existing data and use it
without formatting?
> 

This al really depends on a lot of factors what will work.

1) You have a choice what to install on your nslu2
   - The linksys firmware
   - Unslung
   - Openslug
   - debian slug
   - ...
2) The configuration
   - Is it the only disk or is it a second disk

For unslung you need a native disk (this is a disk
with a swap partions and 2 ext3 partitions. These
partitions
need to have some files on them. You can use a flash driver
bigger then 256 mb for this.

After that you could use your normal disks as secondary
disks.
For secondary disks you can use fat, ext3 or ntfs.
But:
  ext3: is not really supported so you have to tweak
	the configuration to mount them
  ntfs:	Is not stable and your slug will hang (stop
	working) under heavy io.
So i would recommend fat.
	

> Can I also unplug the drive later and plug it back into
my PC?

That is always possible.
  - You could use linux on your pc (e.g. knoppix)
  - There are ext3 drivers for windows.

> One other thing... Is it possible to use a USB hub to
plug in more
> than 2 drives? Or do I need some kind of unofficial
firmware and/or
> hardware hack?

It is supported for unslung and as far as i know also for
the official
linksys firmware.
	http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Unslung/WhichUSBP
ortforUnslung6

-- 
marceln




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Your description below using NTFS/FAT32 is exactly what the
official does.
Except i don't think you can hotswap meaning you'll need to
reboot the NSLU2
every time you add/remove a drive. What you won't have is
the user
security/permissions if attached drives were formatted with
ext3 (the native
NSLU2 format). That means anyone on the LAN can read the
info...

------------------------------

I'm not planning on doing anything fancy, so I would
probably stick to
the official Linksys firmware.  I would like to have two
hard drives
hooked up (possibly more in the future if a hub can be
used).  The
file systems of the drives would be either NTFS or FAT since
I run
mostly Windows.

The drives will be plugged into the slug when I'm at home. 
When I'm
at school I would like to have those drives plugged into my
laptop
instead (the slug would stay at home).  This is why I'd like
to be
able to connect/disconnect drives to the slug without
reformatting.

If this is not possible with the official firmware I would
consider
using Unslung.  


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