Adding WD My Book Studio Edition II to MediaSmart EX475

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Posted by byronomo 1 month ago. There are 13 posts. The latest reply is from byronomo.

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byronomo

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Posted 1 month ago #

As will soon become apparent by the below experience/questions, I'm a relative novice. Any help would be appreciated.

I decided to add more storage to my EX475 (all internal bays are full). I bought a 4TB WD My Book Studio Edition II (formatted for Mac by default).
1. I brought it home, plugged it into my EX475 via eSATA, and it brought the EX475 down (no connectivity). The light on the front with the zig-zag line kept flashing on/off, and sometimes would flash from blue to purple. All the while this drive was plugged in, my EX475 was offline (couldn't remote desktop to it, or access via console. The connector icon was grey on all my PCs)
2. I plugged the drive into another PC via USB and formatted it (aside from the "ESI" partition) to NTFS, leaving me w/ 3.8TB free. I was able to see the drive and it had a letter assigned (D:, in case it matters)
3. Thinking it was because of a lack of NTFS, I re-plugged the now NTFS-formatted drive into my EX475 via eSATA and got the same result as in #1 above.
4. I connected the drive to the EX475 via USB 2.0 and my EX475 seemed to welcome it with open arms and has allowed me to Add it to my existing storage (the way that I'd like to use it).

Now for my ultimate question:
I think I'd still like to connect this drive via eSATA (from what I read, it should be faster data transfer speed). Can I unplug the USB connection and re-connect it via eSATA cable without damaging my system or having #1 above happen again?

Any help, thoughts, guidance, or clues would be greatly appreciated!
AlexF

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Posted 1 month ago #

FYI, eSATA hot-plug functionality is only supported when the machine's BIOS is set to SATA modes AHCI or RAID. If SATA mode is IDE, then hot-plug won't work - you'll need to power-up/-down the machine.
byronomo

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Posted 1 month ago #

Thank you VERY much!!...so to confirm: it "should" work if I:
1. Power down the EX475
2. Power down the drive
3. Unplug the USB cable from EX475 and Drive
4. Connect the EX475 and drive via eSATA
5. Power up drive and then EX475

In this way, the settings that WHS made to add this drive to storage will be preserved, correct?
byronomo

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Posted 1 month ago #

Unfortunately the above didn't work (for me). Any other thoughts on what might get this setup running?
AlexF

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Posted 1 month ago #

Is My Book seen in WHS's Device Manager?

If no, the logical step is to verify My Book's eSATA on another computer.
byronomo

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Posted 1 month ago #

Well when I plug in the My Book using the eSATA cable, the EX475 "freaks out" (as in #1 of my initial post), so I am not even able to see the EX475. Unfortunately, none of my other PCs have eSATA ports to test it on another computer. I guess I can only return it to the store and perhaps try another storage unit...perhaps its better to basically get an enclosure with an eSATA port along with off-the shelf drives.

Thanks again for your replies!
Octavean

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Posted 1 month ago #

I wonder how many HDDs are in the 4TB WD My Book? How many drives are supported by the EX475 eSATA port?
byronomo

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Posted 1 month ago #

I believe that there are 2 drives in the enclosure.
AlexF

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Posted 1 month ago #

> Well when I plug in the My Book using the eSATA cable, the EX475 "freaks out" (as in #1 of my initial post), so I am not even able to see the EX475

In previous step, the power-down,insert eSATA, power-up - you didn't say that gave berserked EX475. You just said "... didn't work."

OK, one more thing... Look here - WD says specifically that they don't support Marvell's eSATA controller for WD My Book Premium ES or WD My Book Studio and it seems that EX475 uses Marvell 88SE6111. Perhaps it's worth investigating.
byronomo

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Posted 1 month ago #

Thank you very much again! Time to return this one and buy another drive.
byronomo

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Posted 1 month ago #

Thanks again!!...it worked...Kinda. I took back the WD My Book and exchanged it for a:
SanDigital 4-bay Enclosure
I then populated this enclosure with 2 Hitachi 2TB Drives.
Everything powered up and installed fine.
I then added a shared folder using WHS Console. However, when I try to access the folder from another machine on the network (even when logged in as myself, an Administrator), I get the following error:
"\\machinename\Share Name is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. Access is denied."

Any thoughts on this?
usacomp2k3

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Posted 1 month ago #

Have you set up all the users on the client computers as users on the WHS?

EX470 / 2GB Ram / 500gb + 250gb + 1.5TB
byronomo

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Posted 1 month ago #

***SOLVED***
I'm all set with this issue. Thanks again for all who contributed to this solution.
Regarding the most recent permissioning-related error message, it seems to have solved itself by re-establishing the connection with the client computer by using the XP "Log Off" function (rebooting presumably would've worked as well) on the remote XP Machine. Ordinarily I'd feel embarassed by such a simple solution, but I disclaimed this possibility in my initial post. It appears that when adding the new drives to the WHS via external enclosure, something happens with the way XP passes permissioning info to WHS (as only the newly added share was inaccessible) which necessitates the connection between the 2 machines to be reset. (again, realizing that my explanation is sorely lacking with technical accuracy)

Thanks again to all who posted as you were infinitely helpful!