License to use USB drives?

Discussion on setting up QNAP NAS products.
sleepy_panda
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License to use USB drives?

Post by sleepy_panda »

I just bought a TVS-672XT and am currently setting it up. I went to use the usb port and got this message:

“To access devices that use the exFAT file system, you must purchase an exFAT driver license in License Center”.

Am I missing something or do I really need to pay an extra $3.99 to be able to use this NAS with USB drives? Just seems a little bit odd as I've never come across this using PC, Mac or Linux and given that the NAS has a usb port on the front and button designed to be specifically used with usb drives I would have assumed it should have been included. :S
TVS-672XT (8Gb)
Firmware: Version 5.0.0.1850
Seagate Iron Wolf drives (raid 5)
Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe™ M.2 SSD (raid 1) [for system + vms]
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dolbyman
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by dolbyman »

only for exFAT..if you use ext,NTFS,etc. no license is needed
sleepy_panda
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by sleepy_panda »

dolbyman wrote: Sun Nov 08, 2020 1:26 am only for exFAT..if you use ext,NTFS,etc. no license is needed
Thanks for the reply - shame about the answer, feels like I just got caught out by an old fashioned sales technique. Seems rather petty it wasn't included :roll:
TVS-672XT (8Gb)
Firmware: Version 5.0.0.1850
Seagate Iron Wolf drives (raid 5)
Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe™ M.2 SSD (raid 1) [for system + vms]
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dolbyman
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by dolbyman »

exFAT was released to open source last year..so sooner or later it might be included free
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

https://www.paragon-software.com/exfat-license/

until then, either pay for a license or use another format
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jaysona
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by jaysona »

dolbyman wrote: Sun Nov 08, 2020 3:17 am exFAT was released to open source last year..so sooner or later it might be included free
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT

https://www.paragon-software.com/exfat-license/

until then, either pay for a license or use another format
Public release != open source. exFAT is not open source. Micro$oft patents on the technology are still valid and require a license. M$ has made the technology available to OIN members and supports the addition of an exFAT driver in version 5.7 of the Linux kernel, as long as the OIN requirements for defensive patent protection is maintained.
RAID is not a Back-up!

H/W: QNAP TVS-871 (i7-4790. 16GB) (Plex server) / TVS-EC1080 (32Gig ECC) - VM host & seedbox
H/W: Asustor AS6604T (8GB) / Asustor AS7010T (16GB) (media storage)
H/W: TS-219 Pro / TS-509 Pro
O/S: Slackware 14.2 / MS Windows 7-64 (x5)
Router1: Asus RT-AC86U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router2: Asus RT-AC68U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router3: Linksys WRT1900AC - DD-WRT v3.0-r46816 std
Router4: Asus RT-AC66U - FreshTomato v2021.10.15

Misc: Popcorn Hour A-110/WN-100, Pinnacle Show Center 250HD, Roku SoundBridge Radio (all retired)
Ditched QNAP units: TS-269 Pro / TS-253 Pro (8GB) / TS-509 Pro / TS-569 Pro / TS-853 Pro (8GB)
TS-670 Pro x2 (i7-3770s 16GB) / TS-870 Pro (i7-3770 16GB) / TVS-871 (i7-4790s 16GB)
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dolbyman
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by dolbyman »

ok..I stand corrected...but the effect is the same (depending if/when qnap implements that kernel)..or not ? (just for non commercial use?)
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jaysona
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by jaysona »

Well, as I understand it (my patent experience is limited to the last 10 years, and I have performed only ~300 patent dispositions), the effect "could" effectively be the same, depending on the company.

If/when QNAP updates to kernel 5.7, exFAT can be included without paying M$ for a license. However, being able to properly make exFAT usable would require trial/error on the part of QNAP, unless QNAP pays the one-time license fee in order to receive all the relevant documentation required to make xFAT usable, reverse engineering exFAT would be a patent violation.
RAID is not a Back-up!

H/W: QNAP TVS-871 (i7-4790. 16GB) (Plex server) / TVS-EC1080 (32Gig ECC) - VM host & seedbox
H/W: Asustor AS6604T (8GB) / Asustor AS7010T (16GB) (media storage)
H/W: TS-219 Pro / TS-509 Pro
O/S: Slackware 14.2 / MS Windows 7-64 (x5)
Router1: Asus RT-AC86U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router2: Asus RT-AC68U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router3: Linksys WRT1900AC - DD-WRT v3.0-r46816 std
Router4: Asus RT-AC66U - FreshTomato v2021.10.15

Misc: Popcorn Hour A-110/WN-100, Pinnacle Show Center 250HD, Roku SoundBridge Radio (all retired)
Ditched QNAP units: TS-269 Pro / TS-253 Pro (8GB) / TS-509 Pro / TS-569 Pro / TS-853 Pro (8GB)
TS-670 Pro x2 (i7-3770s 16GB) / TS-870 Pro (i7-3770 16GB) / TVS-871 (i7-4790s 16GB)
sleepy_panda
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by sleepy_panda »

jaysona wrote: Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:55 pm Well, as I understand it (my patent experience is limited to the last 10 years, and I have performed only ~300 patent dispositions), the effect "could" effectively be the same, depending on the company.

If/when QNAP updates to kernel 5.7, exFAT can be included without paying M$ for a license. However, being able to properly make exFAT usable would require trial/error on the part of QNAP, unless QNAP pays the one-time license fee in order to receive all the relevant documentation required to make xFAT usable, reverse engineering exFAT would be a patent violation.
That's interesting. Thanks for the background info from you and dolbyman, I know nothing about licensing so assumed and felt that QNAP should implement exFAT for users without additional cost to the consumer but now
can at least appreciate there can be technological development and licence issues.

Out of curiosity, is QTS opensource?
TVS-672XT (8Gb)
Firmware: Version 5.0.0.1850
Seagate Iron Wolf drives (raid 5)
Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe™ M.2 SSD (raid 1) [for system + vms]
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jaysona
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by jaysona »

Portions of QTS use open source code, therefore those portions of QTS need to be published.

QNAP is not very diligent at adhering to the license requirements, technically someone could launch legal action against QNAP via the Linux foundation, does anyone want to? Who knows.

QNAP has made nothing more than (barely) token efforts at publishing their GPL code.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/qosgpl/
RAID is not a Back-up!

H/W: QNAP TVS-871 (i7-4790. 16GB) (Plex server) / TVS-EC1080 (32Gig ECC) - VM host & seedbox
H/W: Asustor AS6604T (8GB) / Asustor AS7010T (16GB) (media storage)
H/W: TS-219 Pro / TS-509 Pro
O/S: Slackware 14.2 / MS Windows 7-64 (x5)
Router1: Asus RT-AC86U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router2: Asus RT-AC68U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router3: Linksys WRT1900AC - DD-WRT v3.0-r46816 std
Router4: Asus RT-AC66U - FreshTomato v2021.10.15

Misc: Popcorn Hour A-110/WN-100, Pinnacle Show Center 250HD, Roku SoundBridge Radio (all retired)
Ditched QNAP units: TS-269 Pro / TS-253 Pro (8GB) / TS-509 Pro / TS-569 Pro / TS-853 Pro (8GB)
TS-670 Pro x2 (i7-3770s 16GB) / TS-870 Pro (i7-3770 16GB) / TVS-871 (i7-4790s 16GB)
netwho
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by netwho »

That topic doesn't leave a good taste regarding QNAP's business model....

I got multiple TS-673 with lots of ram and SSD modules for caching, hence not really cheap on spending for tech....
However I wouldn't pay a single dollar for a filesystem driver to qnap. I'll probably try the exFat-fuse driver and if that isn't working I'll go back to ext4 fs.

And if Qnap decides to more and more towards a "in app purchase" thing, my next nas will be a FreeNAS based unit ;-)
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jaysona
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by jaysona »

netwho wrote: Wed Dec 23, 2020 5:35 pm That topic doesn't leave a good taste regarding QNAP's business model....

I got multiple TS-673 with lots of ram and SSD modules for caching, hence not really cheap on spending for tech....
However I wouldn't pay a single dollar for a filesystem driver to qnap. I'll probably try the exFat-fuse driver and if that isn't working I'll go back to ext4 fs.

And if Qnap decides to more and more towards a "in app purchase" thing, my next nas will be a FreeNAS based unit ;-)
You'll have to pay for the exFAT license, one way or another. QNAP could just bury the license costs in the price of the NAS, or they could charge the license fee to those that want to use exFAT. Personally I prefer the latter option, I do not like having to pay for something I am not using and help subsidize the costs for someone else that does use it.
RAID is not a Back-up!

H/W: QNAP TVS-871 (i7-4790. 16GB) (Plex server) / TVS-EC1080 (32Gig ECC) - VM host & seedbox
H/W: Asustor AS6604T (8GB) / Asustor AS7010T (16GB) (media storage)
H/W: TS-219 Pro / TS-509 Pro
O/S: Slackware 14.2 / MS Windows 7-64 (x5)
Router1: Asus RT-AC86U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router2: Asus RT-AC68U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router3: Linksys WRT1900AC - DD-WRT v3.0-r46816 std
Router4: Asus RT-AC66U - FreshTomato v2021.10.15

Misc: Popcorn Hour A-110/WN-100, Pinnacle Show Center 250HD, Roku SoundBridge Radio (all retired)
Ditched QNAP units: TS-269 Pro / TS-253 Pro (8GB) / TS-509 Pro / TS-569 Pro / TS-853 Pro (8GB)
TS-670 Pro x2 (i7-3770s 16GB) / TS-870 Pro (i7-3770 16GB) / TVS-871 (i7-4790s 16GB)
netwho
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by netwho »

I see you point, than I'm wondering how that works for Apple - They include exFAT support with macOS, which is free....
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OneCD
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by OneCD »

netwho wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:48 pm I see you point, than I'm wondering how that works for Apple - They include exFAT support with macOS, which is free....
But you need to buy Apple hardware to run macOS ... correct? (Virtual machine hacks aside: I’ve run various copies of macOS in VirtualBox for years. ;) )

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jaysona
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by jaysona »

netwho wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 9:48 pm I see you point, than I'm wondering how that works for Apple - They include exFAT support with macOS, which is free....
Heh! you have an interesting notion of the concept of "free"

Apple has paid for the exFAT license, Apple in turn buries (hides) that cost in the consumer cost of their product, the consumer does pay for the license.

Not all version of MacOS have the exFAT license, which is why companies like Paragon sell applications for MacOS. My version of High Sierra does not natively read/write exFAT and I use Paragon in order to read/write to my exFAT drives.
RAID is not a Back-up!

H/W: QNAP TVS-871 (i7-4790. 16GB) (Plex server) / TVS-EC1080 (32Gig ECC) - VM host & seedbox
H/W: Asustor AS6604T (8GB) / Asustor AS7010T (16GB) (media storage)
H/W: TS-219 Pro / TS-509 Pro
O/S: Slackware 14.2 / MS Windows 7-64 (x5)
Router1: Asus RT-AC86U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router2: Asus RT-AC68U - Asuswrt-Merlin - 386.7_2
Router3: Linksys WRT1900AC - DD-WRT v3.0-r46816 std
Router4: Asus RT-AC66U - FreshTomato v2021.10.15

Misc: Popcorn Hour A-110/WN-100, Pinnacle Show Center 250HD, Roku SoundBridge Radio (all retired)
Ditched QNAP units: TS-269 Pro / TS-253 Pro (8GB) / TS-509 Pro / TS-569 Pro / TS-853 Pro (8GB)
TS-670 Pro x2 (i7-3770s 16GB) / TS-870 Pro (i7-3770 16GB) / TVS-871 (i7-4790s 16GB)
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OneCD
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Re: License to use USB drives?

Post by OneCD »

Just spotted this in the release notes for QTS 5 RC (5.0.0.1785 #20210908):
QNAP wrote:Storage
- Users can now use exFAT on x86 NAS models without purchasing an exFAT license.
I guess it had to happen eventually: viewtopic.php?f=45&t=150255

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