• Registered: 2007-10-20
  • Posts: 69

Topic: external hard disk?

could I plug in an external hard disk to my chumby instead of a usb, but still have the hard disk function as a usb (for my alarm, debugchumby file and whatnot)?


thanks!

sevc's Website

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
  • Offline
  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,199

Re: external hard disk?

You should be able to hook up a hard drive over USB.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2007-10-20
  • Posts: 69

Re: external hard disk?

ok, I just went out and bought a simpletech signature mini 250gb external hard disk and hooked it up to my chumby.

I moved all of the files that had been on my usb onto the hard disk.  the hard disk is formatted as ext3.

The chumby is not showing the files on the file browser, and the commands in the debugchumby file are not being carried out.


what am I doing wrong?



ps.  I would appreciate it if someone would help me quickly because I'm running a web site off the chumby, and my site will be down until I can fix this.

sevc's Website

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
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  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,199

Re: external hard disk?

Well, the file browser in the Control Panel isn't designed to handle tons of files per directory - I think it maxes out at about 100 or so before it runs out of memory.  It's basically a hack.

The question is - if you ssh into the chumby, can you see the drive mounted at /mnt/usb?  If not, how is the drive formatted?  We don't for instance, support NTFS, although some enterprising member of the community could probably add the support.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2007-10-20
  • Posts: 69

Re: external hard disk?

When I ssh in, It shows /mnt/usb as an empty directory, so it isn't seeing my disk.

the external hard disk is formatted as ext3

should I format it as something else?

sevc's Website

  • From: Washington DC
  • Registered: 2007-10-23
  • Posts: 88

Re: external hard disk?

I could be wrong, but I belief one of the thumbdrives I use on my chumby is formated FAT16. Maybe you could try that?

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Ganson's Website

  • From: Washington DC
  • Registered: 2007-10-23
  • Posts: 88

Re: external hard disk?

Scratch my last comment, FAT16 is limited to 2 Gb.

By the way, a 250gb HD seems like it would be a big strain on your poor little chumby.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Ganson's Website

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
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  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,199

Re: external hard disk?

I'm pretty sure the chumby kernel doesn't include support for ext3, but it could be added as a kernel module.  ext3 isn't all that common in embedded devices.

It should work with FAT32 (read/write) or HFS+ (read only).

I don't think the hard drive size should matter if you're careful about spreading the files around in directories.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2008-02-21
  • Posts: 526

Re: external hard disk?

Well with a hard disk i could see a Chumby Jukebox or a larger Web Server...

  • Registered: 2007-10-20
  • Posts: 69

Re: external hard disk?

ok, but how do I do that (the formatting)?

I tried:
mkfs.msdos -F32/dev/sdc

but it didn't work.  I get this:
mkfs.msdos 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
Bad FAT type : 32/dev/sdc
Usage: mkdosfs [-A] [-c] [-C] [-v] [-I] [-l bad-block-file] [-b backup-boot-sector]
       [-m boot-msg-file] [-n volume-name] [-i volume-id]
       [-s sectors-per-cluster] [-S logical-sector-size] [-f number-of-FATs]
       [-h hidden-sectors] [-F fat-size] [-r root-dir-entries] [-R reserved-sectors]
       /dev/name [blocks]

sevc's Website

  • mdkail
  • Administrator
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  • From: san diego
  • Registered: 2007-08-11
  • Posts: 146

Re: external hard disk?

sevc wrote:

ok, but how do I do that (the formatting)?

I tried:
mkfs.msdos -F32/dev/sdc

but it didn't work.  I get this:
mkfs.msdos 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
Bad FAT type : 32/dev/sdc

you need a space between the '-F32' and '/dev/sdc'

e.g.

mkfs.msdos -F 32 /dev/sdc

/mdkail

mdkail's Website

  • Registered: 2007-10-20
  • Posts: 69

Re: external hard disk?

I had the following conversation with my computer:

sev@sev-desktop:~$ mkfs.msdos -F32 /dev/sdc
mkfs.msdos 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
/dev/sdc: Permission denied
sev@sev-desktop:~$ su
Password:
root@sev-desktop:/home/sev# mkfs.msdos -F 32 /dev/sdc
mkfs.msdos 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
mkfs.msdos: /dev/sdc contains a mounted file system.
root@sev-desktop:/home/sev# mkfs.msdos -F32 /dev/sdc
mkfs.msdos 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
mkfs.msdos: /dev/sdc contains a mounted file system.
root@sev-desktop:/home/sev#


what am I doing wrong?

sevc's Website

  • mdkail
  • Administrator
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  • From: san diego
  • Registered: 2007-08-11
  • Posts: 146

Re: external hard disk?

sevc wrote:

I had the following conversation with my computer:


root@sev-desktop:/home/sev# mkfs.msdos -F 32 /dev/sdc
mkfs.msdos 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
mkfs.msdos: /dev/sdc contains a mounted file system.

what am I doing wrong?

first, see what it's mounted as via the 'mount' command

e.g.

# mount

and you will probably see something like:

/dev/sdc1 /mnt/usb ...

so, whatever is in the 2nd column is what you should 'umount'

e.g.

# umount /mnt/usb

then, re-run the 'mkfs.msdos -F 32 /dev/sdc' command


/mdkail

mdkail's Website

  • Registered: 2007-10-20
  • Posts: 69

Re: external hard disk?

I formatted the disk again and haven't tried it on the chumby yet, but I have another question.


the external hard disk uses both of teh chumby's USB ports to get sufficient power.  would it still work if I used one of the multi-usb things so I could still have extra ports?  (like will the thing get enough power, and will the chumby recognize the drives)

sevc's Website

  • From: Bethesda, MD USA
  • Registered: 2007-11-15
  • Posts: 124

Re: external hard disk?

Ok, this is begging the question, why?  What are you expecting to use via the external drive?  Given that you can use network storage, or USB flash drives, it seems a bit odd to go through all the trouble of using a large drive stuck onto a chumby.

16 Reply by sevc (edited by sevc 2008-06-19 05:42:34)

  • Registered: 2007-10-20
  • Posts: 69

Re: external hard disk?

I was planing to get a drive to back up my files, and I thought that while I was at it I could add some more space to my chumby server (I'm quickly filling up the 1GB USB).


If by large you meant physical size, the drive is less than a third of the size of the chumby.

sevc's Website

  • From: Oceanside, CA
  • Registered: 2008-04-17
  • Posts: 650

Re: external hard disk?

sevc wrote:

I formatted the disk again and haven't tried it on the chumby yet, but I have another question.


the external hard disk uses both of teh chumby's USB ports to get sufficient power.  would it still work if I used one of the multi-usb things so I could still have extra ports?  (like will the thing get enough power, and will the chumby recognize the drives)

Probably not.  The reason your drive uses more power than the USB spec allows (500mAh I think).  This means if you put a USB hub on the port, you will only be allowed 500 mAh (or whatever the spec is) combined from all USB devices on the hub.  This is of course unless you have a powered USB hub.  Then you could definitely run a USB hub to your external drive, and still have a free USB port on the Chumby.

Linux Guy - Occasional Chumby Hacker

Materdaddy's Website