File Sharing / Samba questions - GL-MT3000 / Beryl AX

Technical Support for Routers
1

Hi everyone,
so I was trying to set up shares on the router.
The UI is quite ok for basic setup and I guess it's good enough for the most cases.

Tho I have 2 issues that I wanted to discuss.
I went through the documentation but haven't really found anything regarding that File Sharing - GL.iNet Router Docs 3

  1. Is there a way to make the router "auto discoverable" ?
    None of my devices (Android Phone & X-plore File Manager , Win 10 Laptop, Android TV + Kodi) are able to automatically find the router shares, I always had to enter the model hostname manually on PC, which is kinda annoying tbh, bc I never had to do that with other routers before.

Also while the UI is very easy I didnt see any related settings regarding that.

  1. What speeds can I expect with external HDDs connected to the GL-MT3000 / Beryl AX ?
    When I bought it, initial tests were rather slow with 22MB/s. Now that I am only a few m away from the router (and wifi) it went up to ~ 33MB/s.
    The cpu is only around 60% so I'm relatively sure the device should be able to handle more than that. (And the wifi is connected with 1Gbit, so that shouldn't be the bottleneck in this case)
2
  1. As soon as a device is connected to a router its discovered. When you open an app lets say VLC player is should see the samba server automatically, it does for me. But you still have to point to shared folder in some cases, because it doesn't know that it supposed to look for it.

After looking at the doc you linked to, its quite outdated for windows and for macOS.

  1. USB speeds will always be unpredictable on this device, even on the newer Slate AX, especially if you are connected to the router over wifi, due to interference from USB and with wifi radios. The best ive gotten over wifi was about 45MB/s.
3

Yes that I know, ofc I have to point it then later.
But what I mean is, it should at least appear in Network like this
https://www.tenforums.com/network-sharing/169181-router-network-infrastructure-right-click-menu-gone-after-kb4586781.html

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But it's just not appearing. It finds my Android TV there, and the local windows pc itself is appearing there, but router is missing, very weird.
Network set to private and discovery is obviously enabled (otherwise it wouldn't find the TV either).
(The router has basically stock settings, too, and as I mentioned I didn't even see many options in the SMB dialog anyway).

Yes I agree, I definitely could use some update ...
Tho I went by it, as it seemed like the official source to go by.

Ok, that's a bit disappointing. Esp as the partition is ext3, so there should be really minimal overhead of the filesystem. Still not bad ofc, but I was kinda expecting more, as I saw higher numbers on some other screenshots.
Maybe I'll try nfs instead or something, tho that's a whole other can of worms ...

4

It should automatically show up on your network map, even on my 10 year old MacBook it shows up once its connected to the router and the shared hard drive attached to the router.

Why windows doesn't see it on your end, I honestly don't know, perhaps something needs to be enabled in the windows settings? I don't have a windows computer at this time so I have no way of testing it.

If you need faster transfer speeds from USB and a router will stay at home permanently, then get Flint 2 ( MT6000 ). Ive been using it for almost a week now and its miles ahead of Beryl AX and Slate AX.
With Flint 2, im seeing 65 MB/s from USB drive over wifi. Over lan its around 95 MB/s. Tests were performed using a 2014 MacBook Air.

5

Indeed, usually I know it's enabled in this dialogue.

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And well, it should be working, as other devices like my phone and TV are finding the windoze laptop, so I don't think that's the issue.

But the router is still not detected by any of these other 2 devices, so I still think it's some issue with the router settings, though I just don't know which.
At the end of the day I can just enter it manually and call it a day, still I am a bit annoyed why it's not working out of the box.

I did the recent update for the Beryl, which seemed to contain only a fix for some wifi issue, but now the router seems to be in a good mood.
Reading from the connected HDD is now 80+MB/s, and writing 60+MB/s (both over 1.2gbit wifi - setting to 2.4gbit wifi doesn't change these values.)
While it'd be nice if the writing performance could be improved a bit, those are already pretty good speeds. Basically good enough and what I was hoping to get at least.

I just hope it will stay that way and not randomly get lower again ...

Also a bit odd, that the packages I installed seem to be gone now. Not that those were too important, but it seems a bit odd. Do I have to reinstall them with every update ?
I'll do some more research on that ...
edit/update: I went on the package manager page, it seems it took quite a long while to load this time, and I sorta suspect everything got reinstalled again, bc after I opened it, all the things were installed again, and the shell commands worked again.
(Maybe the task gets triggered after the update is done, but bc of my tethering that I have to enable on the phone again after a router reboot, it couldn't download it again ...)

6

Samba seems to be broken on these routers and need highest attention with all their latest firmwares. I switched to exFAT because I use a MacBook and im just pulling my hair trying to get it to work correctly.

Have you tried firmware 4.6.6 op24?

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7

Same problems here. Plus: once external USB HDD connected, WIFI connection drops in speed or disappear entirely!

8

What exactly is not working tho ?
My speeds seem to be getting closers to yours now, but your 95MB/s sounded really good.

I don't know what the other file systems were on the USB drives I tested with it, I'll check later when I have time.
I think if you designate the HDD to be used for the NAS, you should use ext3 or 4 (I guess this will be the least friction and most optimized for (embedded) linux).

Or is the issue samba on the mac side ?
Maybe you look into nfs instead, or whatever the macs prefer, I have no clue about the Apple ecosystem.

Idk, I'll check later, but in general I currently stick to whatever the latest official FW is. No betas, and no WRT for now ...

Woa ... that sounds bad, but just to check, you also having the Beryl or some other model ?

Also, the USB cable is ok / high quality ?
Otherwise either try a usb2 cable just for testing, if that wifi issue still continues,
or a better shielded/quality usb3 cable.

I currently connected my WD Elements to it, but via a hub. Also phone is connected to the hub.

What I noticed: Once I plugged in a sandisk drive, that reset everything connected to the hub.
I guess too high current draw initially, but after the reset it all worked again.
But if using a hub with many power hungry devices, the hub should be powered externally.

Other than that I haven't experienced any USB issues iirc,
but now that you mention it, I think I had some odd wifi behaviour here and there.
Tho those might be connected to the transmit power issue fixed in the recent update.
I'll monitor and investigate it further.

9

Its a known issue that is related to hardware; interference between USB and wifi radios. Only thing can be done is a complete redesign of the routers.

But its fine on Flint 2 router, because everything is spaced out more and interference is mitigated.

I wonder if Slate 7 will have interference from USB port.

10

Well, sure, but these problems are years/almost a decade ago.

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At this point I strongly hope they have figured it out in new designs how to avoid the issues.
Except the occasional f***up in some current device and a flare up in reports it seems to be resolved for the most part.
Also some people who have these issues seem to have some success by manually applying shielding with tin foil - a valid last resort fix I'd say :rofl:

Though I could imagine that cheap crappy low quality usb cables with improper shielding might still cause some issues.

With the big routers like Flint 2 I agree, they should be spaced out enough to have less issues.
The Beryl is pretty packed, but looking at the design files the shielding seems proper. For now I'd say the transfer rates are fine, so probably no issues with interference there.

Ok, I noticed a few times issues connecting to it, but those times I resolved it by turning my laptop wifi card off and on again, seemed like some intel driver/windoze issue for me.

And I checked my FW, Admin Panel says it's currently the v4.6.9
(and before I was on the 4.6.4 and 4.6.8.)

Is there a specific reason why you're using that one ?

11

I had Slate AX and put 3 layers of copper tape/foil over USB port and that helped a lot , but for some reason after several hours the interference would come back so I returned the router and bought Flint 2.

The 4.6.6 OP24 firmware is running on OpernWRT 24, while other firmwares are still using OpenWRT 21 which was released 3 years ago. It has older kernel and older drivers. With op24 it has many new improvements that you can take a look at openwrt website. The main issue is that GL has to wait for manufactures to release drivers that work with OP24 and wifi. I saw a 10-15MB/s improvement. Its not much but a step in a right direction.

Plus I needed exFat to work while external drive is connected to the router, but since exFat is still being developed by openwrt community, its not fully supported by Glinet. Port forwarding works way better with OP24 as well, while with op21 I couldn't get any ports to work.

The interference issue can be easily solved because many laptop and router manufacturers have solved the interference, but that would raise the price of GL routers. But the price of GL routers is what makes them a really attractive compared to competition, it runs openwrt which has a huge development base that's not tied to a single company, and many customization options that no consumer grade routers offer.

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12

Try the V4 docs GL-MT3000 (Beryl AX) - GL.iNet Router Docs 4

SAMBA working fine here, the share is found automatically in Win 10 explorer.

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13

Oh wow, I didn't notice that there is a newer version of the docs.
This is honestly very confusing having 3 different versions of the docs online.
The old ones should at least show a big warning, that there is a newer version out there and this version might be outdated ...

I haven't had the time to fight more with the router and the network,
but I'll try to check it out on the weekend.

Esp as I encountered now a few times weird wifi / disconnect issues ...

14

Looks like you were really serious about fixing that device :rofl:

but that is suuuuper odd, I guess returning it was the best solution there.

Ok, I am basically sold now. Esp with the mentioned recent wifi/disconnect issues, I think the wrt fw might be worth a try.
Also that'd explain why your transfer speeds are even faster.

Also I noticed that my android phone just totally dislikes the connection with the router/the smb server whatever. I get measly 2-3MB/s !!

Yes, in the meantime I saw your other thread, looks like the solution is, as I mentioned it here, too: If the HDD is supposed to be used for the NAS, you should go with ext3 or 4.
These random issues (and probably slowdowns*) with the other file systems are just not worth it.
(* I remember I had used ntfs with a fritz box and rpi before. That was just abysmally slow ...)

Now I'm definitely sold. I just need a few days to deal with flashing the fw and reconfiguring everything, I just had no nerve and time for it the last weeks ...

15

Well. I have to dig out this thread.
Although it might become slightly offtopic as it's now about the USB + wifi issues.

It seems you were 100% right there.
I was just testing WISP mode with the neighbor for the last 1.5 months.
It works more or less (over 2.4G, 20-50mbit, given theses concrete walls inbetween I guess it's still ok)

Now I connected the USB HDD, and my 2.4G wifi connection instantly dropped.
Occasionally even the TV via the ethernet drops, too.
That's REALLY baaad ...

I don't really know how to proceed now.
@gl inet support:
Should I open a new thread for this specific issue ?

16

Yes, even if I guess that nobody will be able to help you because USB 3.0 can interference with 2.4 GHz, that's a known problem.

17

Buy a Cooper Tape and wrap it.

I 3D Printed a cover to my Flash Drive, added the copper tape on the cover and it fixed the problem.

18

Interesting, so you didn't even open the router and didn't put any of it inside ?
And on the outside of your cover, did you connect it anywhere to the usb shield/ground or not ?

19

Also, I guess I could do an update.
A few days after encountering this issue (so ~24 days ago), I did some random checks and used different cables.
None of the usb 3 cables worked, but well, ironically, the simple usb2 cables do work, bc they obviously put everything in usb2 mode.

While I am not that happy with the speeds, the workaround 33MB/s are still something and better than having 0MB/s and no NAS functionality at all.

Still overall I'm starting to regret the purchase.

20

Just on the outside without any ground.
Here is:

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