Question Weird LAN Operation

[CFWebster]

I have a wired home network for the four computers in my office, the entertainment center, and the guest house. The guest house is a metal building about 150 feet from my office, and until I wired the Internet to that building there wasn't much capability to connect--the wifi couldn't get through the metal walls. After running Ethernet wiring to the guest house and installing a router, connection was great (in almost all cases). I also have a Seagate 3TB SSD that I used to use for backup. It has an Ethernet connection, and I had put it in the guest house so that if our house burned, that hard drive would preserve my data (my private cloud even before the cloud revolution). Now, here's the weird part. If I put the Seagate SSD on my desk and wire it to the network switch in my office, I can read from and write to the SSD. That same network switch has a connection going to the guest house, but if I connect to the Ethernet in the guest house, my Dell Windows 10 Home computer can't access the SSD. However, I also have an old HP desktop computer running Windows 7 that I use for anything I consider risky, and it's wired to the same network switch as the guest house line, and with it I can read from and write to the SSD. I connected a spare Dell laptop to the guest house Ethernet line, and it was able to access the Internet with no problem.

So, is there anyone out there who can suggest why the SSD is accessible in my office but not in the guest house even though both connections are Ethernet wiring connected to exactly the same network switch?

 

[JackMDS]

Can you put a link that technically describes in details the Seagate SDD box and how it connects to the network.

 

[ch33zw1z]

What are the model numbers of the switch(es) or routers. Draw a diagram and post it if you like.

 

[mxnerd]

OP used a router in the guest house, not a switch. OP needs to to run the router in guest house in AP mode and uplink one of its LAN port, not the WAN port.

Put the router LAN IP in guest house in the same IP range as main router in the main house. If main house's router has a LAN IP 192.168.1.1, then set router in guest house 192.168.1.2, gateway 192.168.1.1. Do not connect any ethernet cable on guest router's WAN port. Connect the ethernet cable from main house to one of the guest router's LAN port instead.

 

[CFWebster]

I've attached an image showing the two connection configurations and the specifics of what hardware is involved. I think this answers most of the questions. What this doesn't show is that the Dell laptop is running Windows 10 Home and there's also an eMachines desktop running Windows 7 Home Premium connected to that same network switch and it can access the SSD in the guest house. On the Dell laptop, Windows Explorer sees the SSD and shows an icon for it, but trying to access the SSD results in an error message that the drive is not accessible and the network path was not found.

 

[mxnerd]

Couldn't find Seagate 3TB SDD 43F79A info. Is it an NAS?

Pls provide the product link.

And there is no router in guest house? Only an Ethernet cable?

 

[CFWebster]

Here's a link to the User Guide:

https://www.seagate.com/files/www-content/support-content/external-products/seagate-central/en-us/seagate-central-user-guide-us.pdf

The particular Seagate Central SSD is S/N NA6SGHV2

 

[mxnerd]

So it's an NAS. It doesn't matter if it's an 2.5" SSD/HDD or 3.5" HDD inside the enclosure. It also doesn't matter what serial number it has. We want the exact model number on the back of the product.

But you still didn't give the exact setup in the guest house.

You said "After running Ethernet wiring to the guest house and installing a router, connection was great." in the first post. But there is nothing in the attached picture in post #5.

So is there a router / switch / AP (access point) in the guest house or not? If yes, how did you configure it?

 

[CFWebster]

The setup in the guest house right now bypasses the router and just goes straight to the SSD. We have no one in the guest house at this time, so we don't need the wireless access. The router is sitting next to the SSD with no Ethernet connection. There's nothing but the wired Ethernet connection directly to the SSD as shown in the drawing.

When I researched this on the Seagate, they seemed to use "Central" as their model identification and made no reference to the model number on the bottom, but that model number is SRN01C. There's also a part number on the bottom: 1EN2P3-500.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Does the router in the main house show an IP leased to the Seagate? If so, what is it? What's the IP address layout?

 

[CFWebster]

In the main house there's a Netgear D6200 modem/router. The SSD IP address is 192.168.0.28. When I attempt to access that IP address, it brings up a log-in window, and so far I haven't been able to figure out how to get past that. I've logged two different ID/Password combinations for Seagate--neither one works, and so far I can't find a way to recover or update my ID/Password combination.

As I've said, I can read from and write to the drive on my Windows 7 desktop computer (which is actually under the desk) without a password, I just can't seem to get to the guts of the SSD without that, and I can't access either read or write with my Windows 10 computers.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Ok, so its available on the network, you just don't remember the user/password for it.

Maybe you can recover the credentials from the windows 7 machine, but I'm not sure, never had the pleasure of trying to do that lol

 

[mxnerd]

Apparently your Seagate Central from 2014 only support SMB 1.0

Seagate Central NAS device not recognized since upgrade to Windows 10

social.technet.microsoft.com

You have to enable SMB 1.0 on your Windows 10 machine.

==

And please don't call your Seagate Central device an SSD any more. It's an NAS (Network Attached Storage ), not an SSD (Solid State Drive).

 

[SamirD]

I was suspecting this was an smb version issue from the getgo when the win7 would work but win10 wouldn't. Hopefully the fix works.

 

[CFWebster]

SMB1 works fine. I would never have found this on my own. Of course the problem with SMB1 is that it isn't as secure as what I'd like to have, and for a routine backup to this drive, it wouldn't work as I'd want it to work to have to turn SMB1 on and off daily.

Is there a way to upgrade the Seagate NAS so it would work with Windows 10 without requiring SMB1? Since the Seagate device has no moving parts (except electrons), and since the newer units in my price range all seem to have physical hard drives (and most wouldn't work for me because they use USB connections only), my experience is that the solid state hardware is more likely to last longer than a physical hard drive.

 

[mxnerd]

There's no 3TB SSD 5 years ago, not even sure if there's 3TB SSD now.

The drive inside your Seagate Central is definitely a 3.5" HDD, not 2.5" SSD.

Seagate might provide firmware update after it's release, but I don't think it will add SMB 2.0 protocol, since vendor always wants to sell new hardware.

 

[CFWebster]

I decided to order a wireless 3TB hard drive. Interestingly, when writing to or reading from the Seagate drive, there's no feel or sound of a hard drive spinning up. When I bought this, I also bought a 3TB Seagate Central external unit advertised as an HDD. It looked exactly like the unit I'm working with now, but whenever I'd read or write I could hear the hard drive spin up and feel the slight hum in the case. However, that unit failed after a few years.

 

[SamirD]

Definitely a hard drive in that unit, and it must be a nice one.

I wouldn't worry about the smb1 'security' issue. As long as your network is secured from the Internet and your wireless is secured, you won't have any problems. People sometimes forget that they're not 1000 seat enterprises that have malicious employees or corporate competitors trying to hack into their systems--smb1.0 is less of an issue at home than the dog peeing on the router, lol.

 

[CFWebster]

Thanks to all who contributed!