Connect Ext Hard Drive to Fios Router MI424WR
bergerd
Newbie

Can I connect an external USB hard drive to my existing Fios Router or do I need to buy a new router that has a USB port? 

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Re: Connect Ext Hard Drive to Fios Router MI424WR
prisaz
Legend

@bergerd wrote:

My router doesn't have a USB port to begin with.  Is there a router I could get that would work with FIOS and support a USB connected hard drive?

What is a NAS box?  Sorry, I'm not a wiz at this stuff.


Only Verizon supplied routers are supported, but if you have Ethernet from your ONT box, you could use a different configuration. But you would not be able to get support from Verizon regarding your configuration and you would also still need to have the coax connected to the network through the Verizon supplied router or an adapter. But doing this you would lose some features. Such as remote DVR access and remote support for your set top boxes. If you are network challenged it would not be a good idea.

NAS Network attached storage. It is a box with hard drives that sits on your network. If you have a PC that stays on all the time, it could do the same thing.

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Re: Connect Ext Hard Drive to Fios Router MI424WR
prisaz
Legend

No the USB port is not active.

I have only seen a couple of routers with USB that actually supports NAS. So you would be better off getting a NAS box with a drives that will plug into your ethernet.

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Re: Connect Ext Hard Drive to Fios Router MI424WR
bergerd
Newbie

My router doesn't have a USB port to begin with.  Is there a router I could get that would work with FIOS and support a USB connected hard drive?

What is a NAS box?  Sorry, I'm not a wiz at this stuff.

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Re: Connect Ext Hard Drive to Fios Router MI424WR
prisaz
Legend

@bergerd wrote:

My router doesn't have a USB port to begin with.  Is there a router I could get that would work with FIOS and support a USB connected hard drive?

What is a NAS box?  Sorry, I'm not a wiz at this stuff.


Only Verizon supplied routers are supported, but if you have Ethernet from your ONT box, you could use a different configuration. But you would not be able to get support from Verizon regarding your configuration and you would also still need to have the coax connected to the network through the Verizon supplied router or an adapter. But doing this you would lose some features. Such as remote DVR access and remote support for your set top boxes. If you are network challenged it would not be a good idea.

NAS Network attached storage. It is a box with hard drives that sits on your network. If you have a PC that stays on all the time, it could do the same thing.

Re: Connect Ext Hard Drive to Fios Router MI424WR
csnuz
Enthusiast - Level 2

 If you look at the only computer parts stores like egghead.com, tigerdirect.com and others and search on Google you can find a USB to ethernet adapter or a USB to Ethernet cable for this application.  Hard to find and sometimes not that inexpensive, but cheaper than buying a new drive our enclosure.  

Re: Connect Ext Hard Drive to Fios Router MI424-WR
Anti-Phish1
Master - Level 1

@bergerd wrote:

do I need to buy a new router that has a USB port? 


Attaching a drive to a router via USB is not a good idea, even if a router supports it.

USB generates an interrupt for every 16 bytes of data.  This causes your router to be constantly handling interrupts transferring data to and from the drive.  Do you really want to slow your router down doing this? 

You can get a 1TB Ethernet attached drive for not much more than the cost of a 1TB external drive.

BTW, the reason usual USB ports exist on routers is to load pre-shared keys (PSK) for wireless encryption.