Mounting USB drive on DNS323

by rp

As a followup from my previous post, documenting how to get the NAS box to mount an external drive. It has its own advantages, primarily that it allows you to transfer your old backed-up data quickly and also in case you need to get data out of there (in case of one of the drive fails etc).
So simple steps:
Step 1:
ssh into the box and download the module from here.

# wget http://www.domaigne.com/download/dns-323/usb-storage.ko
# mkdir /mnt/HD_a2/mod
# cp usb-storage.ko /mnt/HD_a2/mod

Step 2:
Load the module and verify in the memory

# insmod usb-storage.ko
# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted
usb_storage            29956  1
usblp                  10976  0
sd_mod                 14484  10

That confirms that the module is loaded.Now connect your external hard drive and double confirm everything by checking the system log messages:

# dmesg
#######################################
#              HD0 awake now !        #
#######################################
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 2
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
  Vendor: SAMSUNG   Model: HD500LJ           Rev:
  Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
SCSI device sdc: 976773168 512-byte hdwr sectors (500108 MB)
sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sdc: 976773168 512-byte hdwr sectors (500108 MB)
sdc: assuming drive cache: write through
 sdc: sdc1
Attached scsi disk sdc at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi generic sg2 at scsi2, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete

That shows that my drive HD500LJ is now connected.

Now mount the hdd

# mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 /mnt/HD_a2/ext/

Now when you mount your volume on your windows/mac, you would be able to see ext folder which is basically the external hdd mounted.

Now, you can ssh into the box and move/copy files around to your hearts content, however make sure you remember to unmount it before you disconnect it, to avoid the risk of loosing data.

#umount /mnt/HD_a2/ext