Linksys EA9500 Router - What is the fastest USB drive to connect?

[stuman74]

I'd like to use one of the USB3 ports to connect an external drive to my Linksys EA9500 router. I had an old drive and the throughput stinks. I was looking at a USB3 WD Passport and WD My Book. Is one really better than the other for this purpose? I'd like to have reasonably fast read/write access from a couple of laptops in the house. I tried a WD My Cloud and the lack of customization stunk. I'd rather have a "normal" drive. Thanks!

 

[razel]

For simplicity, smallnetbuilder benches the EA9500 USB performance at 60MB/s reads 30MB/s writes. It's wireless appears to (50-57MB) 400-460mb/s with 866AC (2 stream). Just about any USB 3.0 HDD from the past few years is at least 120MB/s max at the beginning of the disk. Half that toward the end.

It's 30/60MB/s USB performance limit will be the speed you'll get over wired and a strong wireless signal (inches away or a few feet with line of sight) so it won't really matter which drive to get.

 

[VirtualLarry]

How old is "old" as far as the drive that you tried? According to the specs, (from @razel , thanks), that may be as fast as you can go, with any nearly modern drive. The only thing is, make sure that you use a USB3.0 drive, rather than a USB2.0 drive.

 

[mxnerd]

WD Passport is 2.5" HDD and WD My Book is 3.5" HDD, both can transfer a lot faster than your router can handle.

I would choose 2.5" Passport that can be directly powered by USB 3.0 port over the desktop version My Book that requires power adapter.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would choose 2.5" Passport that can be directly powered by USB 3.0 port over the desktop version My Book that requires power adapter.

Why would you do that? I would do the opposite, if this was going to be a semi-permanent installation, plugged into a stationary router, then I would choose the HDD with the separate power adapter, so that I wouldn't be putting all of that additional stress and wear and tear on the router's power adapter, they fail as it is within maybe 3-5 years, and then your router starts to lose wireless range and get flaky. Better that happen after 3 years, rather than 3 months.

 

[mxnerd]

Why would you do that?

Well, I wouldn't do that myself.

Router is just router and shouldn't act as NAS or file/media server. Router always use underpowered processor that can't match any x86 CPU.

I'll use any PC (prefer 35W and under) for sharing files /streaming media.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Router is just router and shouldn't act as NAS or file/media server.

I agree. I'm kind of disappointed that router mfgs are even focusing on NAS functionality. Want a NAS? Buy a NAS. Don't burden your router.

 

[stuman74]

Thanks for the replies. The drive I have is an old 500GB 2.5" drive pulled from a Mac Mini housed within a USB3 caddy. When I tested the througput wirelessly via my 2017 MacBook and using AJA benchmark, that 500GB drive had a write/read of 9MB/s and 12MB/s (respectively).

Now, I also have a 2014 Mac Mini which is my main media machine with a USB3 2TB WD Passport attached to it. Running that same AJA benchmark from the same MacBook immediately after yielded w/r scores of 27MB/s and 34MB/s.

Maybe the best bet is to keep the setup as-is, but I'd like to not depend on a PC or Mac with that attached shared storage if possible. An ethernet NAS just seems pricey to me vs a low-power computer like the Mac Mini. But I do see many who say good things about those as well.

 

[mxnerd]

Don't know your Mac Mini Spec, but I tested my HP laptop (Intel i3 4000M 2.4G CPU) using the AJA benchmark, with 750GB USB 3.0 drive, I got about 70MB/s for read/write. Don't know why your 2TB drive speed was so slow.

 

[stuman74]

Are you saying you tested your HP laptop over the network with the 750GB USB drive connected directly to the EA9500 router? Or is that the speed you get with the USB drive connected to you laptop?

My scores were when I was testing AJA from my MacBook but the drive was attached to a different computer (Mac Mini) and tested across my network.

When I test the USB drive with AJA from the Mac Mini and have that drive directly connected, I got w/r scores of 90MB/s and 89 MB/s.

 

[mxnerd]

Mine is directly attached. So your slow performance is caused by Wi-Fi network, not your HDD's fault.

 

[stuman74]

What about the drive format? Should I go with NTFS or ExFAT? If possible, I would like to be able to disconnect it if I have a massive data transfer or need to connect it directly to a computer. I have both Mac and PC in the house.