TL-WR1043ND, Gargoyle and USB drive

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › TL-WR1043ND, Gargoyle and USB drive

sidefx

3714 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#102765 22-May-2012 08:07

I recently got a TD-W8960N and it's been rock solid, great modem. But I then found an old Dynalink RTA1320 in the garage and am thinking of replacing it with the dynalink in half bridge with a TL-WR1043ND running gargoyle. I know the RTA1320 run hot and don't last long, but I could run it for a while then get a replacement modem...

One of the nice features on the router is the USB port. Is anyone running the TL-WR1043ND with Gargoyle? How does it run in general and how does the USB port work with gargoyle? I would want to just plug a WD usb harddrive into it... though is it possible to get a USB hub and put multiple HDs on there?

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

sidkumar

84 posts

Master Geek

#628769 22-May-2012 09:57

Gargoyle is just the web interface and is simialr to original OpenWRT LuCI interface. The USB function is controlled by the firmware from OpenWrt (even though the router was installed with an image from Gargoyle).

The USB can be used for hosting external drive or printers, which will appear as shared drive/printer on the network. You may need to install additional packages. Check out www.openwrt.org for further details.

sidefx

3714 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#628773 22-May-2012 10:02

I haven't got the router yet - trying to decide if I should.

According to this what I want should be supported "out of the box"? (after flash with gargoyle image) http://www.gargoyle-router.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=904

but I'd really like to hear from anybody who is already using it like this day to day :)

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

sidkumar

84 posts

Master Geek

#628800 22-May-2012 10:32

Yes it shouyld be supported out of the box. Not sure about the USB hub as that presents its own challenges. Have you considered just buying the 1043 on its own and then applying OpenwWRT and Gargoyle. May work out to be way cheaper. Also, what you want to achieve is possible with the original 1043 image by TPlink.

Check out http://pbtech.co.nz/index.php?z=p&p=NETTPL1043&name=TP-Link-TL-WR1043ND-300M-Ultimate-Wireless-N-Gigab

sidefx

3714 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#628818 22-May-2012 10:49

Well I am basically planning to buy the 1043 on its own, essentially to replace the TD-W8960N - if I went this route I would try sell the TD-W8960N secondhand. For 2 reasons:

1) That USB port would be handy
2) Getting gargoyle running on it would be a fun little project, and also useful as my kids get older and inevitablty start sucking up more bandwidth! :)
EDIT: 3) Oh and built in gigE

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

sidefx

3714 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#629010 22-May-2012 15:16

Alright, a couple more general questions:

1) Is anybody using Gargoyle with any device and how do you find it?

2) Is anybody using Gargoyle with a device that has a USB port and is sharing an HDD on their network using said USB port? If so, does it work ok?

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

sidefx

3714 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#630757 26-May-2012 15:48

wow, I guess no-one actually runs Gargoyle? Ok, last question then: Is anyone running the TL-WR1043ND with the propriety firmware and using the USB port with USB HDD?

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

sidkumar

84 posts

Master Geek

#630777 26-May-2012 17:14

I have a 1043ND router. I was on LucI with OpenWRT, got the Gargoyle image now (on same OpenWRT version). Interface is much nicer and friendly. The stats are cool, and also it allows for USB storage. I shared my 160GB network drive as CIFS and my Windows devices were able to read and write to the share. It also allows to share as NFS.

Go for it, if yo do not like it, you can always change to a different firmware or revert to stock. I ad huge stability issue with the stock firmware, required reset every morning if I left my PC switched on overnight. Gargoyle/OpenWRT sice a week or more, no reboots at all.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Ragnor

8223 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#630832 26-May-2012 19:53

sidefx: wow, I guess no-one actually runs Gargoyle? Ok, last question then: Is anyone running the TL-WR1043ND with the propriety firmware and using the USB port with USB HDD?

I tried the default firmware for a week didn't have any major issues with it but I flashed Gargoyle for better monitoring and QoS features.

sidefx

3714 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#631190 27-May-2012 20:47

Thanks for the replies! I decided to take the plunge... in the process of getting it all setup now. So far the Dynalink is running fine in half-bridge mode and the TL-WR1043ND is running fine with the stock firmware. I decided to test with a usb hub too just to see if it will work - tested it with a 1 TB USB HDD and a thumb flash drive, and the tp-link picked them both up and shared them on network as Volume1 and Volume2. Though I then added a 2nd thumb drive and it seemed to get a bit confused; looks a bit hit and miss, sometimes it picks up 2 of them sometimes just one... I haven't got it to successfully pick up all 3. Not essential, but would be nice if I can get all 2 or 3 working consistently.

Time to try OpenWRT\Gargoyle; maybe it will handle multiple devices better. Though I really only need one at the moment, would be good to have the option in the future :)

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman

Virgil

Dangerous Chocolate
206 posts

Master Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#631216 27-May-2012 21:52

sidefx: wow, I guess no-one actually runs Gargoyle? Ok, last question then: Is anyone running the TL-WR1043ND with the propriety firmware and using the USB port with USB HDD?

Sorry, must have missed this earlier ...

Yes I use that exact setup, Gargoyle on a WR1043ND, and it works a treat.

I use it for the quotas ... apportioning our limited data allowance evenly amongst the teenagers .. when one of them has used their share, they get individually throttled to dial-up speed for the rest of the month :-)

The later versions also include support for the TOR network, if that appeals to you... not something I've dabbled with yet.

Cheers

Lurking ...

sidefx

3714 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#631358 28-May-2012 10:53

@virgil: thanks, good to know.

I must say I'm impressed with gargoyle\openWRT so far. I haven't yet delved into the quotas and QoS side of things but it was very easy to get up and running but looks very powerful, with plenty of options. Some of the charts\stats it produces are very cool; I have a number of devices on home network so very nice to see all the usage.

It also handled my USB hub with more than one USB HDD a lot better than the stock firmware - still not perfect, but I suspect with more tinkering it'll do what I want ok (at least until I setup a proper NAS or home server of some kind) Quite impressed that it handled a NTFS formatted 1TB drive for read\write with no problems, albiet a bit slow; around 3MB/s write and 9MB/s read.

I decided to test ext4 as it should be faster than ntfs and hit a bit of snag - the gargoyle interface allows you to unmount and format a drive through the web interface to ext4... but after doing this I had no write access to it. Dropping to ssh and poking around it looks like once formatted and mounted it sets root as the owner of the mounted volume; changing that to nobody gives me write access. And ext4 seems a decent bit faster, though still pretty slow: 5MB/s write and around 15MB/s read.

Either seem to be ok for what I want: host a bunch of media files for use from an XBMC HTPC. I may try to get xfs support going on it though. I think it should give slightly better read which is the most important thing for this I guess.

"I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there." | Octopus Energy | Sharesies
- Richard Feynman