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How to rescan media server attached to DIR-827 via USB3

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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.

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