Matthew Smerdon

Q: Change permissions on external HD connected via Seagate Central NAS device

Hi

 

I have recently bought a 2TB Seagate Central NAS device (model SRN01C), which is connected to our home network wirelessly via an AirPort Express base station (via Ethernet).  We are using it as a media server so everyone in the family can access movies, photos and music.  It also doubles as our Time Machine backup disk.  I am using a MacBook Air running 10.9.5.

 

As a precaution for when the Seagate drive eventually fails, I want to manually create second backup of the files on a Western Digital MyBook external HD.

 

The Seagate Central has a USB 2 port, which allows the WD HD to be directly connected to it.

 

When I mount the Seagate Central (SC), I can see the WD HD in the Finder, but I cannot copy anything from the SC to the WD HD.  I get an error message saying that I do not have permission.  If I use Get Info on the WD HD to try and change permissions, it says I do not have permission to change them to read/write.

 

Some detail...

 

When I mount the WD HD, although it only has one partition (seen in Disk Utility) it appears as 2 shares: "usb - share 1" and "usb - share 2" (or something like that).

 

"usb - share 1" looks to be a volume that is required by the system for some reason.  It is only 5kb in size.

 

If I click on "usb - share 1", it has full R/W permissions (777), but of course nothing can be copied there because it is too small.

 

"usb - share 2" is the main "partition" (999GB), but the permissions for this are Read Only for all users (555).

 

I have tried reformatting the WD HD using different formats (Mac OS Journaled; ExFAT) and partitions (2 instead of 1), etc, but to no avail.

 

I would be grateful if anyone could provide instructions as to how I can change permissions on the WD HD so that I can copy the files on the SC to it.  I have used Macs for years, but I am very unfamiliar with changing permissions, so I would appreciate it if you could explain it to me as you would to a 4-year-old.

 

Thanks for your help.

MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014), OS X Mavericks (10.9.5)

Posted on May 26, 2016 7:09 AM

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Q: Change permissions on external HD connected via Seagate Central NAS device

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  • by JimmyCMPIT,

    JimmyCMPIT JimmyCMPIT May 26, 2016 8:24 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon
    Level 5 (6,973 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 26, 2016 8:24 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon

    my approach would be reformat the WD drive (Mac Extended Journaled) which is connected directly to the computer and use as primary backup, it's newer, and it's directly connected. the Network backup is a lot of network overhead and potentially has more points of failure. I would also dedicate a backup drive as a backup and not share it for user data. Also the NAS has more proprietary things going on with it than just connecting an external to the network and using it as a network drive, or connect the NAS outside of the Airport, it seems like a lot of overhead and I would try to limit that.

    Otherwise my personal feeling is you're going to run into issues which could be simplified.

    Again not telling you what to do, just what I would do.

  • by Matthew Smerdon,

    Matthew Smerdon Matthew Smerdon May 26, 2016 9:20 PM in response to JimmyCMPIT
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 26, 2016 9:20 PM in response to JimmyCMPIT

    Hi,

     

    Thanks for your reply. 

     

    Having a NAS device as a Time Machine destination makes sense to me because all 4 family members’ Macs are incrementally backed up to the device without them even knowing it is happening, without me having to configure anything - it works with Time Machine straight out of the box. 

     

    This eliminates a number of problems:

     

    1. no need to continually remind family members to back up/tell wife/kids not to ignore Time Machine’s own reminders

    2. no need to physically attach 4 Macs one-by-one, manually start backup, etc., etc.

    3. users can be anywhere in the house - don’t need to sit at desk, connect, make sure battery is charged/power adaptor is connected, etc

    4. no need for device to be physically accessible - can be up on a shelf in study - not on the desk where they spill their drink on it, etc.

     

    In essence, this feature of the NAS device is really what Apple’s Time Capsule is all about except that it is MUCH cheaper (AU $160 vs AU $449.00 for 2TB) AND has A LOT more useful features.  So cost is another reason why I decided to go with this option. 

     

    I realise there are risks involved in having the additional “overhead” as you call it, but that’s why I want to do a weekly manual backup of the NAS device to an external hard disk, as I know the day will come when it fails, just as all machines do.

     

    I don’t want to have to directly connect the external HD to our Macs, as that defeats the purpose of having a networked device.

     

    Yes, I could connect it directly to my MacBook and do a manual weekly backup over Wi-Fi from the NAS.  However, transferring large amounts of data over Wi-Fi is incredibly slow (not that USB 2 is all that fast).  Wi-Fi is great for incremental backups, but it just takes too long otherwise.  An external HD, connected to the NAS device via USB 2, always ready to power-up when it is mounted, for a weekly backup makes sense to me.

     

    There are a number of other things I really like about the NAS device, which I don’t want to get into here as they are not relevant to the problem I’m trying to solve.  But I just want to be able to do a quick, drag and drop backup of the Time Machine backup files onto a connected external HD once a week as “insurance” for when it inevitably fails.

     

    So, that’s why I would really be grateful it if someone could tell me how to change the permissions to allow me to Read/Write to the HD via the NAS device.  

     

    I appreciate your sharing what you would do, but that simply doesn’t take into account what I want to do or why.

     

    Having explained the reasons for using this setup, I really don’t want to get into a discussion about the rationale for/merits of a particular course of action, so, if you can help me with my problem (change permissions), that would be really great.  If you cannot accept my explanation, then let’s just leave it there.

     

    Thanks again for your input so far.

  • by JimmyCMPIT,

    JimmyCMPIT JimmyCMPIT May 27, 2016 5:37 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon
    Level 5 (6,973 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 27, 2016 5:37 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon
  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root May 27, 2016 8:30 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon
    Level 9 (69,991 points)
    iTunes
    May 27, 2016 8:30 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon

    If you do a Get Info (command - I) on the drive is there an Ignore Ownership box you can check? Try formatting the drive as OS X Extended (Journaled).

  • by Matthew Smerdon,

    Matthew Smerdon Matthew Smerdon May 27, 2016 4:54 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 27, 2016 4:54 PM in response to Eric Root

    Hi.

     

    Thanks for your reply.

     

    Yes, the drive is formatted as OS X Extended (Journaled).

     

    When the HD is mounted via the NAS device, and I do a Get Info on either share ("usb1 - 1share1" or "usb1 - 1share2"), the "Ignore ownership on this volume" check box is visible, but it is greyed out (and unchecked).  The permissions for "usb1 - 1share1" say "777" (full R/W), but for "usb1 - 1share2" it says "555" (Read only).

     

    If I connect the HD directly to my Mac, the HD appears as one volume, and the "Ignore ownership on this volume" box is visible and checked (not greyed out).

     

    Thanks again of any help you can offer.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root May 28, 2016 8:04 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon
    Level 9 (69,991 points)
    iTunes
    May 28, 2016 8:04 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon

    If you attach the WD drive to your computer and do a Get Info, can you then change Everyone to read/write?

     

    User File Ownership - Reset   see post by Linc Davis

     

    You may need to rebuild permissions on your user account. To do this,boot to your Recovery partition (holding down the Command and R keys while booting) and open Terminal from the Utilities menu. In Terminal, type:  ‘resetpassword’ (without the ’s), hit return, and select the admin user. You are not going to reset your password. Click on the icon for your Macs hard drive at the top. From the drop down below it select the user account which is having issues. At the bottom of the window, you'll see an area labeled Restore Home Directory Permissions and ACLs. Click the reset button there. The process takes a few minutes. When complete, restart.   

     

    Repair User Permissions

  • by Matthew Smerdon,

    Matthew Smerdon Matthew Smerdon May 29, 2016 5:54 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 29, 2016 5:54 PM in response to Eric Root

    Yes, if I connect the HD directly to my Mac, I can check/uncheck the permissions as I like.

     

    I will go ahead and rebuild the permissions on my user account as you have suggested and get back to you.

     

    Thanks again.  I do appreciate it.

  • by Matthew Smerdon,

    Matthew Smerdon Matthew Smerdon May 29, 2016 8:07 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 29, 2016 8:07 PM in response to Eric Root

    Hi again.

     

    I followed the instructions for rebuilding permissions.

     

    Your question about whether I could change Everyone to R/W made me realise that I hand't bothered to change the permissions for "Everyone" when I had it connected to my Mac previously because I assumed that if my user account was the owner, I would't need to give everyone R/W permissions.  Anyway, I changed everything to R/W. 

     

    The permissions that I changed remain the same when connected to the NAS device.  However, I cannot change any permissions when the HD is connected to the NAS device; only when connected directly to my Mac.

     

    If I now try to copy a file from the NAS to the WD HD, it (sort of) lets me.  That is, it no longer says I don't have permissions, which is great news.

     

    However, there are still some problems.  Here's what happened with a range of files I tried to copy over from the NAS device to the HD.

     

    1.  mp3 file (5.8MB) - starts copying; then I get a message saying, "An error occurred.  The operation could not be completed. (OSStatus error -43.)".  I then have the option of clicking "Skip", in which case, the file actually completes copying and is playable from the external HD; the other option is to click "Stop", in which case, the operation stops an nothing is copied over at all.

     

    2.  a folder (Artist name) containing another folder (Album name) with the above mp3 file in it.  Same as above.  I get the above error message, but actually the operation was successful as far as I can see.

     

    3.  a movie file (591MB) - as above.

     

    BTW, all these error messages appear right at the very end of the operation; that is, in the case of the movie file, for example, the error message appears just as the operation completes and the progress bar is at 591MB.  Same for the smaller files.  The transfers were quick apart from the error messages.

     

    4.  Time Machine backup file (76GB) - operation fails at 500bytes - same with another TM backup file (from wife's Mac).  Same error message, a file appears (500bytes) in the destination volume (HD), but copy operation does not complete.  The operation took a VERY long time to get to the point where it failed.

     

    Anyway, I'm really grateful that you've put me on the right track - just that one simple question and the rebuild seem to have solved the permissions problem.  Any ideas as to what to do next?

     

    Thanks again.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root May 30, 2016 8:54 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon
    Level 9 (69,991 points)
    iTunes
    May 30, 2016 8:54 AM in response to Matthew Smerdon

    The only thing I could find on the -43 error was an example where a drive was formatted as OS X Extended (Case Sensitive) instead of (Journaled). Not much to go on, but something you could check.

     

    Start with C2 in the 1st linked article.

     

    Time Machine Troubleshooting

     

    Time Machine Troubleshooting Problems