SMB used in WD N900 routers

WD Legacy Products My Net Networking Devices
1

Hi everyone,

Well, after several hours spent on it, I think I have managed to solve a lot of problems I bumped in with the N900 router. 

But I still have one issue I can’t fix. 

Here’s the problem. 

I would like to access the files stored on a USB hard drive connected to the N900 to stream them on my Blu-Ray player. 

The BR Player can access the network using Samba. 

Once powered up, it lists my N900 routeur as a file server. 

But if I try to connect to it, it asks for an ID, and whatever setting, I always get an error message “User and/or password unknown”. 

I have set the N900 to share the USB content only to a special account : no go with the L/P i’ve enterde. I tried to let the USB share to “Public” and left the L/P on the Blu-Ray player empty : no go. Tried the latter with “Guest/“blanck”” : no. Tried it with “Guest/guest” : still no go. 

Which leads me to a question. I experienced the exact same problems when I tried to share content on from my Mac. After some research it turned out that this was due to the implementation of the MSB protocol into MacOsX. 

If I reinstall the “genuine” SMB protocok into my OsX 10.8.2 Mac, it works like a charm…

So I was wondering if anyone knows if WD has implemented the “genuine” developped SMB protocol, of it they have loaded an implementation of their own…

Regards. 

NetPenguin

2

Have you tried accesing through the media server?

3

Hi Ragdexx,

Yes, I did try that, and that works. 

But DLNA is not the purpose of the router.

DLNA may convert your files.

And I want to make sure that the file I’m watching or listening is in the correct format and not a .flac converted to .mp3. Thus the need for SMB.

DLNA is not as convenient as SMB.

Some features do not work with DLNA. On my Blu-Ray player, if I rip my Blu-Ray do a hard drive and put the files in a folder called “AVCHD”, then the player recognizes the structure of the Blu-Ray and I can enjoy it with menus, chapters and languge/subs selection. Over DLNA, I can just browse through folders, make sure to get to the “STREAM” forlder, find which contains the main movie (if it’s not split) and pray that it will be in a format that will be recognized by the DLNA server ! 

Besides, DLNA has this sorting based on tags which forces you to give really accurate tags for your files, or you’ll end up finding nothing you’re looking for :frowning:

I experienced that several times with almost all DLNA media servers, the worst being Twonky. 

I don’t even know what media server is used for DLNA in the WD and will probably never know :frowning:

So unless I can find a way to get access to my files through SMB, I fear that this will have to make it’s way to eBay or some other SH ad site :frowning:

So far, I’ve tried several routers and NAS’es from different manufacturers. They all seem to have a glitch. WD obviously uses a self made SMB server. Netgear has boviously a problem handling a mixed-up environment where there are Fast and Giga Ethernet devices. Apple’s Airport Extreme on ly has 3 Gigabit Ethernet ports when I need at least 5 (I have added a switch andthat works, but is inelegant in my room !). Both Netgear and WD do not support my 4 hard-drives bay over USB and recognizes only one of the hard drives. The APple Airport Extreme know how to handle this perfectly.

The best solution I found is the LaCie NAS calle d"Network storage". But that a NAS and no router, but it’s content can be accessed via SMB without a problem and when connected to a switch, streams seamlessly to the Universal player. 

So, based on all this I assume the pefect solution COULD exist : a simple router based on the hardware of the Apple Airpot Extreme but with 4 additionnal Gigabit Ethernet ports and 1 additional USB port. And I would be in heaven. I’ll give the LinkSys routers and D-Link routers a try if I can’t get the WD to work properly and share my USB drive through SMB. 

Regards. 

NetPenguin