FreeAgent Products

[haole-Hal]

Subject says it pretty well. Anybody know how to disconnect (from a DockStar) a usb stick or a FreeAgent drive w/o risking corrupting the drive?

[AlanM · Accepted solution]

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=211755&NewLang=en

[haole-Hal]

Well I suppose I wasn't completely clear. I'm looking for a way to safely remove a usb drive w/o the popgoplug software OR the pogoplug website. I have no intention of using the software or paying $30 pyr for pogoplug access. The best advice from pogoplug and seagate on using a dockstar locally on your own network is; don't!So, I'm looking for an acceptable way to use this thing as I intended when I bought it. Marketing obviously fails to mention that the device apparently isn't useful as a local NAS. Of course, now that I think of it, why would Seagate produce something so much cheaper (with supposedly more flexability) than it's other more expensive NAS solutions. Clearly the Dockstar was designed as a crippled NAS, to be sold in a niche market.

Aloha

[AlanM]

Ah, I see.

OK, you know, it probably won't hurt it just to close down all running applications and then just unplug the drive.  If you have a backup, it won't cost you anything to experiment with it, and of course you should always have a backup.

I'll tell you a little secret that was discovered by some forum users - see here.  Maybe that's a good option for you?

[haole-Hal]

Thanks, I already saw that work around for access. That's what got me to the "0K how do I safely pull the device w/o command line or GUI to eject same?" Oh And, the workaround does work fine. It appears one must use a different identifier for each USB device used on the DockStar. Not a big prob. My concern about pulling a USB drive w/o  a proper remove/eject routine is raised by an experience I had w/ OpenSuse. Apparently, at least with that Linux variant, once the Linux system mounts the drive, the drive can be corrupted when removed even if no applications are accessing the drive. Backups are of course great, but a large part of the panache of USB sticks and cards is ultimate portability and convenience. I'm hoping that someday the USB spec will get around to supplying a switch at the device that will force a dismount w/o data corruption/loss. I will do a lot of testing before relying on your suggestion. I does strike me that one would have to remember to close out any explorer windows that might find and show the DockStar on the network.

Mahalo,

                Hal

[Cantbecanit]

Hotswap freeware is your friend.

[dipsoman]

Is your "Hotswap freeware is your friend" message a joke or how do you use hotswap to remove safely the network drive?

Regards

[kebhen]

Has anyone solved this? The Hotswap program does not detect the HDD in the dockstar. So I guess the only ways are pogo site or a re-flashed plugapps system. Is that right?   Thats to bad. That is a feature I could really use...

[haole-Hal]

Apparently not. it does seem posible to control the Dockstar from a console like cygwin, But, you would have to learn the command language and syntax. Too much trouble.  I have tried, with some success, to map the Dockstar drive in explorer and then disconnect the mapped drive when I am done. Seems to work, but If the Dockstar OS is accessing the drive......... you may end up with corruption. I've hooked up my Freeagent drive directly to my computer via usb, after removing it from the Dockstar (this is after disconnecting the mapped drive in explorer) and I  consistantly get a popup that tells me the filesystem has problems. SO, I run CheckDisk /f /v /r and it finds no problems, no orphan files or corruption. So, as I said, this may work but I wouldn't trust it with data I didn't have somewhere else and and that I would need to depend on that data on the FreeAgent immediately after removing it from the DockStar. As I posted long ago Seagate has no financial incentive  in producing a cheap product that actually works that would compete with it's more expensive items that do the same job. Albeit those products don't do it well. Seems the standard business model is invest as little as you can in product development (perhaps next to nothing) and maximise investment in marketing  to garner profits.

ALOHA

[jea101]

I wish the Dockstar had a web interface to safely remove, but unfortunately it does not.

The correct way is to SSH into the dockstar and umount the drive. 

If you can be sure that no one is accessing the drive then waiting two minutes and unplugging it is unlikely to cause a problem.

FYI

If the data on the drive(s) is important then the Dockstar should be on a UPS - my Dockstars are