Carl wrote

@IrvSp 

 

You should be able to pick and choose which files you want to share and which ones you don't.  However if you want to have a mix of protect and not protected files than you may want to look at seperate partitions.  Doing this you should be able to protect one partition and leave another unencrypted.

@Carl 

 

I was thinking right now about different parts of the drive having a different share. For instance the drive has:

 

- Root (let us call it G:)

 

- Folders A through R

 

- Folder E has sub-Folder Z

 

I'd like to have the Root be TP-Share and Folder E sub-Folder Z be TP-Share2

 

Of course I might want to have TP-Share protected and TP-Share2 open. This is how I had it on the R8000.

 

Now are you saying I can create a NEW partition on the drive and then copy/move Folder E sub-Folder Z's contents to it, and then on the same drive have 2 shares? I've not seen that documented? I ask as Netgear doesn't allow more than one partition on a USB drive.

@Carl 

 

Meanwhile I've tried some things. I am not confident that this is possible? The root problem is 'can' I create more than one share via the USB drive function?

 

I was 'too lazy' to bring the USB drive to my PC and partition it by shrinking the original and creating and formatting a new partition and moving data to it. So I decided to add a USB Flash Drive to the router. Didn't go well. Both drives were shown in the lower 'box', one G: (External Drive), and the other H: (Flash Drive). I could select any combination of the entire drives or combination of drive and folders from both drives. They would be in the SAME network sharename, default of TP-Share.

 

Whe I did a NET VIEW (I'm on Windows) I could see that share (TP-share), like this is what I see with only the External drive connected:

 

========================

C:\>net view
Server Name            Remark

----------------------------------------------
\\IRV8700              Irv's 8700
\\LARAINE-XPS8500      Laraine's XPS8500
\\TP-SHARE             samba server
The command completed successfully.

C:\>net view \\tp-share
Shared resources at \\tp-share

samba server

Share name  Type  Used as  Comment

----------------------------------------------
G           Disk
The command completed successfully.

========================

 

If I do a DIR I see this:

 

=============

C:\>dir \\tp-share\g
 Volume in drive \\tp-share\g is G
 Volume Serial Number is 77A2-373A

 Directory of \\tp-share\g

03/16/2018  02:25 PM    <DIR>          $
09/16/2019  03:56 PM    <DIR>          .
09/18/2019  11:29 AM    <DIR>          .
12/25/2017  12:10 PM    <DIR>          A
11/10/2016  08:23 AM         5,453,003 A
08/16/2016  05:14 PM        50,449,456 d
09/13/2018  02:55 PM                48 N
06/13/2018  07:59 PM    <DIR>          P
05/26/2018  07:28 PM                19 q
03/05/2012  06:44 PM         1,644,118 S
01/13/2016  10:00 PM           611,096 s
05/12/2018  11:25 AM    <DIR>          s
05/12/2018  01:37 PM    <DIR>          S
09/16/2019  03:55 PM                 5 t
01/14/2016  11:47 AM    <DIR>          V
               7 File(s)     58,157,745
               8 Dir(s)  1,208,244,121,6

(only copied partial folder names, but you should get the idea as I set the entire G: to be shared).

 

Now I put the USB Flash drive in, selected a few folders on each to show you how 2 devices are shared, changing the share name to TP-Share2:

 

========

C:\>net view
Server Name            Remark

-----------------------------------------
\\IRV8700              Irv's 8700
\\LARAINE-XPS8500      Laraine's XPS8500
\\TP-SHARE2            samba server
The command completed successfully.

==========

 

Note that TP-Share is no longer available in NET VIEW, it has been replaced by TP-SHARE2:

 

=================

C:\>net view
Server Name            Remark

------------------------------------------
\\IRV8700              Irv's 8700
\\LARAINE-XPS8500      Laraine's XPS8500
\\TP-SHARE2            samba server
The command completed successfully.

C:\>net view \\tp-share
System error 53 has occurred.

The network path was not found.

C:\>net view \\tp-share2
Shared resources at \\tp-share2

samba server

Share name  Type  Used as  Comment

------------------------------------------
G           Disk
H           Disk
The command completed successfully.
==========

 

Of course now I have 2 'drives' I can work with folders on via one share:

 

==================

C:\>dir \\tp-share2\g
 Volume in drive \\tp-share2\g is G
 Volume Serial Number is 061B-373A

 Directory of \\tp-share2\g

09/18/2019  06:56 PM    <DIR>          .
09/18/2019  06:56 PM    <DIR>          ..
06/13/2018  07:59 PM    <DIR>          Pictures
05/12/2018  11:25 AM    <DIR>          share
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               4 Dir(s)  1,208,235,716,608 bytes free

C:\>dir \\tp-share2\h
 Volume in drive \\tp-share2\h is H
 Volume Serial Number is 3E4D-90F6

 Directory of \\tp-share2\h

09/18/2019  06:56 PM    <DIR>          .
09/18/2019  06:56 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/17/2017  02:02 PM    <DIR>          boot
04/17/2017  02:02 PM    <DIR>          sources
               0 File(s)              0 bytes
               4 Dir(s)  23,334,027,264 bytes free

=============

 

Again, I selected a few folders on  the root of each of those, the external drive and the flash drive (G: and H:).

 

So, I'll assume multiple partitions would work the same way?

 

I've also found some other bugs in this process. If I try to share a sub-folder, I can only do that if multiple sub-folders are in the folder in the root. If ONLY 1 sub-folder exists, then automatically both the root folder and sub-folder are marked to be shared. Difference being if there is 2 or more sub-folders and I select on to be shared, that sub-folder would be the one shared. If only one sub-folder existed, both being shared would mean I had to see the top root folder and click on that to get to the sub-folder, two clicks instead of one to open the sub-folder I wanted.

 

Hopefully I am wrong about this and I missed a simple step.

 

Awaiting your response.

@Carl 

 

Thanks for checking for me and the effort it took. Far and above the help I ever got on the NG forum's when I had problems there. Very glad I switched routers.

 

Although the answers I got was what I discovered, I'll have to live with it. Not the way I wanted to use my USB drive. I need unprotected vidoe files as the DLNA Clients I have can't handle passwords (iPad's and Smart TV's).

 

At the same time, the USB drive has backup files and other data on it that I don't want anybody who could connect to my LAN access to, so I protected the whole drive and had a share unprotected to the video sub-folder.

 

I'll have to either live with what I got or possible attach another USB drive and protect that and use it for those purposes.

 

Thanks again for checking, I appreciate it.

 

Carl wrote

@IrvSp 

 

Not a problem,  Glad to have you as a customer.  Please let us know if you have any further questions or find potential bugs.  We try to be responsive and as active as possible.  

 

 

 

Best Regards 

@Carl 

 

I am very glad to be here, trust me. After 5 or 6 years using 2 Netgear routers and basically 'fighting' with them from day one, it is really great to buy a router, and a new one at that with original f/w installed work out of the box!

 

I was sort of looking to see what I could replace my Tri-band R8000 with. I had it only for 18 months, but it had problems from day 1. Support was unresponsive to the problems. New f/w if it fixed something, usually broke somthing. You should take a look at the forum AND the number of similar threads and the length of some of them (https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/bd-p/home-wifi-routers-nighthawk, Netgear Router forum). I was quite active in that forum helping others as the moderators were of little help.

 

My older R7000 basically died after 5 or so years after an update, it would just power off after a few days. Probably the new f/w, but rather than go back in f/w I upgraded. Worked OK, had some minor issues, but when NG pulled DLNA support from the router in f/w that was the last straw. I bolted.

 

Now you might be sorry about asking me for 'bugs'. I've located a few already

 

Might want to check this thread if you've not seen it here : https://community.tp-link.com/us/home/forum/edit/reply?sourceId=358402&sourceType=REPLY&fromReplyId=358402

 

It has 2 problems actually, Traffic Meter is off by a day, Sun. data shows as Mon. Also the time server default (at least on my WAN) is not reliable. URL time.nist.gov times out many times.

 

============

C:\>tracert time.nist.gov

Tracing route to ntp1.glb.nist.gov [132.163.97.3]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  TP-SHARE2 [192.168.0.1]
  2     9 ms     8 ms     9 ms  10.120.0.1
  3    21 ms    12 ms    27 ms  ten-0-5-0-9.orld35-ser1.bhn.net [72.31.223.46]
  4    15 ms    17 ms    17 ms  bundle-ether33.orld71-car1.bhn.net [72.31.195.146]
  5    16 ms    16 ms    18 ms  72-31-188-170.net.bhntampa.com [72.31.188.170]
  6    20 ms    14 ms    23 ms  10.bu-ether15.orldfljo00w-bcr00.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.98]
  7    23 ms    18 ms    19 ms  66.109.5.131
  8    23 ms    24 ms    23 ms  ix-ae-48-0.tcore1.mln-miami.as6453.net [66.110.9.246]
  9    22 ms    21 ms    24 ms  if-ae-1-2.tcore2.mln-miami.as6453.net [63.243.152.62]
 10    36 ms    29 ms    28 ms  nap-brdr-01.inet.qwest.net [63.146.26.201]
 11     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 12    75 ms    72 ms    70 ms 
 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.

 16     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 17     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 18     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 20     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 21  65.154.0.170  reports: Destination net unreachable.

Trace complete.

===============

 

65.154.0.170 is Century Link by the way,

 

Using time.windows.com always works as does UP PC time selection.

 

Another small problem...

 

The GUI login page. Doesn't work with RoboForm. RoboForm works on EVERY other web page without fail. On the A20 GUI it picks up the wrong fields for some reason. Because of that, auto-fill puts the PASSWORD in plain text where the USER should be entered. I did edit the data in RoboForm so 'FILL' works, but 'FILL and SUBMIT' doesn't submit, I have to do it manually. Worse, is the fields are different when I do that, RoboForm wants to same it. I have to cancel everytime so it doesn't and keeps the correct data.

 

Another problem, and it is SMB 1 is needed. MS has gone so far as removed this from W10. If you were using it it was not removed. SMB 1 is a Security risk (https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Storage-at-Microsoft/Stop-using-SMB1/ba-p/425858). Unfortunately, SMB 1 IS required here to see the share. Yes, there are ways to see the SAMBA share, but that is a partial fix as unless SMB 1 is used, I can't see other PC's on my LAN to move data.

 

With SMB 1 disabled:

 

===========

C:\>net view
System error 1231 has occurred.

The network location cannot be reached. For information about network troubleshooting, see Windows H
elp.

C:\>net view \\tp-share2
Shared resources at \\tp-share2

samba server

Share name  Type  Used as  Comment

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G           Disk
The command completed successfully.

=============

 

Since I know the SHARE NAME I can access the USB drive... but I can't see the other PC as SMB 1 is needed to see that due to the Router using NETBIOS as the discovery method, NOT WSD.

 

With SMB 1 on:

 

=========

C:\>net view
Server Name            Remark

--------------------------------------------
\\IRV8700              Irv's 8700
\\LARAINE-XPS8500      Laraine's XPS8500
\\TP-SHARE2            samba server
The command completed successfully.

==========

 

Proof that NETBIOS is used by the router for Discovery, NOT WSD...

 

 

As you can see above, Windows uses WSD and SMB 3, but to see NetBIOS, you have to use SMB1.

 

That is the problem. If the f/w were to use WSD for sharing I'd be able to stop using SMB 1 which is a security rish. Bug? Maybe?

 

Also, see the Workgroup name above? I was using a different one. On Netgear routers you can ENTER the name you want for the Workgroup. A20 is using the Windows default name and it can't be changed... caused me some grief as I couldn't see the share until I figured out it was on a different network workgroup. Think there should be a choice of providing the name with the default appearing as Workgroup.

 

Another 'annoyance' to me at least? I see I can reset the Traffic Meter manually, but it also appears to me that it gets reset as well without me doing anything? The LOG shows that, but the times are odd?

 

2019-09-23 14:34:32 traffic-stats[4850]: <6> 269004 stats reset

2019-09-23 14:34:04 traffic-stats[4850]: <6> 269004 stats reset

 

Why that time? Why can't I set it to say Midnight? Is seems to be a very odd time to reset it? Might have been because that might have been the time I manually did it last? Still, it is an odd time, and if it was because I manually did it at that time, I can't think of any time that I'd be up that would be reasonable? Is there an option for this I missed or should one be implemented?

 

Sorry to dump on you...