How to add a ntfs 8TB HD to Ubuntu 18.04 without needing to format?

0

I'm quite new to Ubuntu or Linux world. I spent few weeks struggling to find a way to access my media files over the internet.

After trying many systems which all failed to work, I managed to set a NetCloud/Snap server in my Odroid XU4 and successfully connect to the server using Kodi devices.

My problem is that I have 5TiB+ of media sitting on an NTFS external HD which I was using with JRiver Media Centre. My media files are split in few folders according to their nature, ie. DTS, DSD, ALAC, Blu-ray, Video.

I tried to connect my hard drive and to automatically mount it, but Ubuntu doesn't like it as it is larger than 2TiB.

My questions are:

  1. Can I add my HD without needing to format it?
  2. If yes, can I also share it with a Windows machine that I use to add more media on the drive?
  3. Also, can I mount each folder individually or I can only mount the HD as a whole?

I am kindly asking you to be patient with me and try to accompany me step by step if there are solutions to my problems.

There is no /var/log/messages file that I can show. Here is the part of the syslog showing the problem:

Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3302.634596] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 1953506645 4096-byte logical blocks: (8.00 TB/7.28 TiB)
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3302.634602] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 16384-byte physical blocks
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3302.646951] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3302.646958] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 4f 00 00 00
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3302.647191] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3302.677810]  sda: sda1
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3302.679384] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid systemd[1]: Mounting /media/samsung...
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3303.015676] ntfs: (device sda1): parse_ntfs_boot_sector(): Volume size (7TiB) is too large for this architecture.  Maximum supported is 2TiB.  Sorry.
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3303.027704] ntfs: (device sda1): ntfs_fill_super(): Unsupported NTFS filesystem.
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid mount[5464]: mount: /media/samsung: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid systemd[1]: media-samsung.mount: Mount process exited, code=exited status=32
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid systemd[1]: media-samsung.mount: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid systemd[1]: Failed to mount /media/samsung.

Naass

Posted 2018-12-30T18:01:40.393

Reputation: 1

You should have no issues connecting the drive and it should just work. Are you getting an error? – Keltari – 2018-12-30T18:35:55.960

You say that Ubuntu does not like it because it's larger then 2 gigs. While this is possible, it could be a red herring. (It could be a driver issue or filesystem support issue for a start) Why do you say that? Can you monitor /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog and provide the output when you plug the drive in please. – davidgo – 2018-12-31T05:51:27.213

Sorry, I tried to add the syslog in the "add commentsd" box, but it wasn't accepted as the comments pasted from the syslog seem to be too long or too many characters! Is there another way to show the syslog? – Naass – 2018-12-31T10:22:04.000

Is the OS 32bit or 64bit? You can tell by the output of uname -i, I think it would be i386 for 32, x86_64 for 64. – Kamil Maciorowski – 2018-12-31T10:33:41.793

The uname i is returning armv7l I am using Odroid XU4. – Naass – 2018-12-31T10:47:10.117

Answers

1

As this is not a PC/server, and you are using Odroid, you can see a message:

Dec 31 08:43:48 odroid kernel: [ 3303.015676] ntfs: (device sda1): parse_ntfs_boot_sector(): Volume size (7TiB) is too large for this architecture.  Maximum supported is 2TiB.  Sorry.

Which says that for this CPU architecture (ARM) the size of the disk is too big to support for the CPU and it's operating system.

While this disk will work on any modern PC/server, the ARM architecture and provided operating systems will not accept such size of the disk.

That's all I can tell from the provided syslog.

Answering your questions:

It is possible that formatting the disk for partitions less than 2TiB each and then trying to mount them could be possible there is no such guarantee. Please always backup your data first!

It is possible to share mounted volumes with Windows - via Samba or FTP.

You are always allowed to mount each partition at one folder in Linux distributions. Whole disk cannot be mounted if it is partitioned (pendrives differ about their format).

EDIT:

As from comments, user needed to install ntfs-3g packet to support NTFS filesystems on this board.

pbies

Posted 2018-12-30T18:01:40.393

Reputation: 1 633

Thanks for the reply. Prior to this tentative of installing a solution to stream media over the internet from home to Kodi clients, I tried Openmediavault with MiniDLNA and Plex. Openmediavault which is based on Linux had no problem at all dealing with my 8tb disk! – Naass – 2018-12-31T11:54:27.697

Solution on other hardware is possible to work, but in Odroid case you have simply kernel that does not support such a big volumes. Your comment is a case for another question. – pbies – 2018-12-31T11:58:51.960

I would be happy to mount each partition at one folder. Though I may face a problem as my iTunes folder is around 4tb on itself. I understood that Windows Samba aren't accessible over the internet! Are they? FTP solution was my previoys tentative which I couldn't get to make it work. I would revisit the FTP over TLS/SSL if I have no luck with Ubuntu/NextCloud/Snap. – Naass – 2018-12-31T12:00:16.413

I meant, Openmediavault, a Linux based OS, which I installed on the Odroid XU4 had no problem dealing with my large disk! I have a Rock64 from Pine64.org that I can use. Do you know whether it could handle it? – Naass – 2018-12-31T12:04:58.243

I am not sure if samba is accessible over the Internet (this is a case I am working on now currently). It should be. FTP and SFTP are working flawlessly over the Internet, I am sure. Well, seems that the support for large media is operating system dependant - which tells that there will be newer kernel with such support. I don't know that hardware which you are using. – pbies – 2018-12-31T12:13:38.047

Odroid XU4 is a single board computer, similar to the Raspberry Pi but more powerful. I will wait to see if there is more feedback about this problem before I turn back again to FTPS solution. Thanks for your help and Happy 2019. – Naass – 2018-12-31T12:43:19.267

1Could you just install ntfs-3g on the Odroid instead of using the kernel-based ntfs driver? – user1686 – 2018-12-31T14:41:52.200

Thanks grawty for your suggestion. I have tried installing ntfs-3g before and failed. I don't remember the error! But now I retiried it and it worked. I have my 8TB attched with no error. Though having mounted it /dev/sda1 /media/Samsung (it has only one partition) I see nothing in the /media/Samsung folder when typing dir or ll. I don't know what is the procedure here about the question I opened which is answered by you. Does need to be considered solved and I have to creat another thread for the las problem I am facing or can I continue on this one? – Naass – 2019-01-01T10:25:55.190

Asked: 2018-12-30T18:01:40.393

Viewed: 649 times

Active: 2019-01-12T18:44:21.733