TerraMaster Forum

Hello, have to say I am not a specialist if it comes to these things.
In order to backup data from a F5-422 bought a D5-300C and equipped it with 5 8T Barracudas that I had previously in an older NAS.
When I connect the D5 to my laptop I can see all drives. All are formated using the windows explorer to NTFS. When I connect the D5 to the F5 it only see*s 3 of the five in the file manager. In the settings and external drive settings I can see all but not all are mounted.
What do I do wrong here. Is there a special way the drives need to be formated to see them reliably on my laptop AND the F5.
I am using TOS 4.x as I the main usage is Plex.
Can someone please help in what do I need to do to see the drives reliably on the F5-422

Best regards

Bernhard

Hello,
thanks for replying. Let me try to be more precise.
I would like to use the D5-300C with 5 8TB Hard discs by connecting them to a F5-422.
After the first post which was sort of unclear I read a bit and figured that using NFTS as formating is not good.
So I put 2 discs in, Slot 1 and 2. The dial on the back is on single disc, turn the D5 on and formated the hard discs using the function under the external discs option using exFat as I thought with this I can read and write contents with both the F5 and my laptop. If I connect the D5 to my laptop I can see both discs and can use them. Connecting them to the F5 I get the following: So I see disc1 but NOT disc2 in the file manager. If I add more discs in is not clear to me when a exfat disc, all formated the same way is attached or not. Also not clear is the order as this is important the USB-Copy program.
If I do not switch and swap the discs an reconnect them with the idea that the external stack is only switched on for the back every now and then, the order in which they appear in the F5 if sort of random and the USB-copy program will show "USB device has been removed".

What is the correct way to set it up, format the discs so I can read and write on both my Windows 11 PC and the F5-422?
About TOS 5. I am reading a lot of problems about it and it seems Plex isnt officially supported. My idea was with a proper backup of my data I would give it a try but at the moment risking loosing data, trying is not an option I am afraid.

I would appreciate any answer feedback that helps sorting my backup problem. I mean I can connect the D5 to my laptop and do the backup through the network but my idea it should be faster when connected directly.
If there is another or different way to use what I have doing backups of the F5 please I am open to any suggestions as well.

Best regards

Bernhard

Is the unmounted condition occurring after plugging or after copying the file?
Have you ever tried to change the order of the hard disk? Is the unmounted hard disk the same or the second identified hard disk each time?
Maybe you can try to format your hard disk into ext4 format after backing up data. Exfat can only store files smaller than 4GB.
Of course, you can also try to install TOS5: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=3358

I connected the D5 this morning with 5 exFat discs, My understanding is that exfat4 doesnt work on Windows, correct?, and after 2 hours waiting.
the connection with looks like this: Pic1
Before I checked and copies files on my laptop. All discs been readable and 2 of them contain data.
On the F5 I can now see only 2 of them and 3 of them are called USBShare1
In addition the one called USB Share 1 is the disc in the bay 4 of the D5 and the second one is the disc in Bay 1.
USB3 is connected but I cant see it.
I then disconnected all discs properly in the system settings and waited for the system telling all are disconnected.
I then removed discs 3,4 and 5 and started the D5 with only 2 discs. I then get them both connected as 1 and two but again the wrong way around. 1 is 2 and 2 is 1. As next step I inserted disc3 and disc 2 got connected properly.
Same with 4 and 5. So it seems the discs are all fine but I cant simply disconnect the stack of course using the proper disconnect disc function and connect it the same as the F5 gets sort of confused and takes the discs as first comes first and does not remember the order as Windows does.

About TOS 5. Is this better in TOS 5? I am having TOS 4.2.39-2203011626. Would the upgrade been working so I can use Plex the same way as before. I thought I been reading that Plex is not yet supported under TOS 5 officially? is that correct.
Is this disc handling improved in 5 and is Plex working is the important question here. At the moment the D5 as backup solution for an F5 is certainly not really working to my understanding.
Again appreciate any help in this to get to a good working system that runs Plex and handles the backup correctly.