My backup conks out after about 30 seconds

[Tom Dolgenos]

Hi everybody, I'm new here.  I just bought a B2, and I've loaded about 300 cds so far.  I decided I should back it up, so I attached an external drive into the USB C and followed the instructions on the website.  For a few seconds it looks like it's working - a few random songs appear on the display, I guess that means they're being exported - and then it stops.  

I thought the problem might be my external drive, so I bought another one and the same thing happened.  I saw someone mention that sometimes the external drive demands too much power, so I connected it to USB slot A, and the same thing happened again.

When I look at the contents of the external drive on the web UI window, it seems like only a small handful of tracks have actually been exported.

Any thoughts?  Has this happened to anyone else?

-Tom D.

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Tom,

What type of USB drives are you using?  HDD or memory stick for example.  If HDD, can you tell us make and model?  2.5 or 3.5 drive units?

Regards,

Peter.

[Tom Dolgenos]

Peter, thanks for the followup!  I'm using an HDD.  The first HDD was a Seagate Game Drive PS4 Media, 4TB.  I understand that's primarily for gaming, although I don't know what difference it could make.  (I'm not a gamer - my son is.)  I erased it before using it with the B2.  When that petered out after 30 seconds or so, I switched to a Sandisk G Drive SSD 55B7.  I'm certainly no expert, but my impression was that these were pretty serious HDDs, at least relatively so, and I thought they'd be up to the task.  Was I wrong?  -Tom D.

[fred.w....@gmail.com]

Hi Tom,

Did you format your external USB HDD using the B2 to do this first?

The USB HDD needs to be FAT32 and the best way of doing that is to use the B2 to achieve this.

Fred.

[Daniel Taylor]

It could be that those drives require more power than the B2 can provide through its USB port.  One thing to try would be to put a powered USB hub between the B2 and the drive.  But also, I wonder if either of those drives have the capability to plug into the wall to get their power from the main A/C.

One thing about the 4TB drive:  Since the drive has to be formatted as FAT32, only 2TB can be used.  So you could be looking at wasting half of the disk space.

[Tom Dolgenos]

Hi Fred, I did format the HDD via the B2.  Although now that I think about it, it’s possible I formatted the second one via my laptop.  But both HDDs have the same problem.  I suppose I could reformat.  

Thanks for your help!

Tom

On Thursday, April 7, 2022 at 7:54:28 PM UTC-4 fred.w....@gmail.com wrote:

[Tom Dolgenos]

Hi, thanks for the help.  I haven’t tried a powered usb hub, I’ll give that a go.  And you’re right, the first hdd I tried is too big, that’s part of the reason I was fine with buying another (instead of using the huge one lying around the house).  

-Tom

[PMB]

Hi Tom,

Try formatting the SanDisk SSD using the B2 - plug it into USB C (or A) on the B2 and power on. Use the front control to go to Settings >> Maintenance >> Format USB C (or A). The display should show 'Partitioning' briefly followed by 'Formatting' which should stay on screen for a while (probably around 30s or so for a 500GB drive), if all is working as it should.

When finished the display goes back to the clock.

You can then run Export to C (or A) - collective wisdom says it is a good idea to run Scan Disk before the Export.

Paul

Brennan Support.

[Tom Dolgenos]

Thanks Paul!  That seems to have done the trick.  I formatted the San disk using the b2 rather than my computer.  All is well.  -Tom D.

[PMB]

Hi Tom D,

Great news, thanks for letting us know.

Paul

Brennan Support.