WD 8TB Elements Fails to Mount on Asus RT-AC3100 Router

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

I am using the Asus RT-AC3100 Router as the the device for attaching a USB hard drive to hold our home network backup files.

Currently, I have a 2 TB WD My Passport formatted with the EXT4 Linux file system. Works great.

As the 2 TB My Passport is getting a bit full, I decided to get a WD 8TB Elements .

I formatted it to the Linux EXT4 file format. Attached it to a regular desktop system. Everything appeared to work correctly, at that point.

However, when I attached the 8TB Elements to the USB port on the Asus RT-AC3100 Router, it failed to mount. My WD 2TB My Passport does mount automatically, as expected.

Surprisingly, when I formatted the 8TB Elements back to NTFS, it would mount. But that is not the configuration that I am after. Considering that the My Passport works with the router using EXT4, the normal expectation would be that the Elements should also work. Firmware flaw?

Is there a known reason for this failure?

PS: As a quick note, Linux does not even appear on the drop-down lists for this website as an operating system. I hope that WD will recognize that and add support for LINUX. Hardware, such as disk drives, should work under all operating systems.

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Probably … in the Asus Router.

An 8TB drive will have to be GPT (GUID Partition Table) … a 2TB won’t (it can be either MBR which supports up to 2TB, ot GPT. GPT is required for large drives over 2TB)

So, sounds like your Asus Router can handle 8TB GPT Formatted NTFS, but not in EXT4 format.

Probably best to search on Asus forums or contact Asus.

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The 2TB drive does have the MBR partition table. I have already filed a tech support request with ASUS. Posting here to see if anyone else, by chance, was experiencing this type of problem. Thanks for responding.