How to format a WD NAS drive??

Question

Level 2

230 points

How to format a WD NAS drive??

I had ( have) one of the Time Capsules that went sideways on the power supply issue.

So I bought a 2 TB WD NAS drive since I didn't need the router built into the drive.

I cannot get the darn thing to work properly with Time Machine. We have 4 macbooks in the house and I would like them all to back up ( as they did with the time capsule) but they won't.

Two of the machines will simply fail.

One tries and then fails.

The other is hit and miss.

I would like to simply re-format the NAS drive and start clean to see if that will work, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to format the darn thing.

It has an ethernet connection, a USB connection for daisy-chaining and of course the over the air connection.

I cannot get the darn thing to show up in disk utility.

Is connecting with Terminal and formatting that way the answer?

If so, can someone give me some UNIX tips.

I'm about ready to drop kick this unit.

G5 1.8 GHZ 17 inch iMac; green MiniPod ; Palm T5

Posted on Aug 12, 2010 2:19 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Niel

Level 10

741,845 points

Aug 12, 2010 2:22 PM in response to Jim Gilchrist

If possible, connect the drive to the computer via USB and use the Disk Utility.

If that isn't possible or doesn't work, use the manufacturer's software to format the drive. The Disk Utility doesn't operate on network drives.

(53300)

Reply

Answer 2

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Aug 12, 2010 2:23 PM in response to Jim Gilchrist

WD HD? Have you checked at WD's site? Most of their stuff is problematic with Macs, either because they don't support booting or because of their proprietary SmartWare that can't be disabled. I'd look to Hitachi, Seagate, or LaCie for a viable solution.

Reply

Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Aug 12, 2010 2:25 PM in response to Jim Gilchrist

Usually you must format a NAS using software provided with the device. You cannot use a NAS with TM unless it supports AFP protocol or can be partitioned APM or GUID and formatted Mac OS Extended, Journaled. This will not be the case for most devices, and even if it is the case a hack may be needed to get it to work with TM. See the following:

Requirements to use Time Machine

Time Machine is only available with Leopard (10.5.x) or greater

1. External FireWire or USB 2.0 drive
2. Time Capsule
3. Drive shared by a Mac running 10.5 or later using File Sharing
4. Drive shared by a Mac running 10.5 Server
5. SAN volume managed by Apple's Xsan file system

A TM drive must be partitioned with either APM (PPC) or GUID (Intel) and formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled.)

Message was edited by: Kappy

Reply

Answer 4

Jim Gilchrist Author

Level 2

230 points

Aug 12, 2010 2:30 PM in response to Kappy

The silly on-line documentation for the drive has specific instructions for setting it up to work with TM. So far it doesn't work very well.

I guess I'll have to phone them.

Reply