Intermittent HH3000 connectivity due to attached USB HDD

[J222]

I was intermittently loosing all internet connectivity.  Contacted Bell support and they saw the loss.  Suggested Modem change which I did.  It did not fix the problem.  Contacted support again and after testing they saw the issue and again suggested replacing the modem.  I was skeptical of this.  To be fair the tech was also skeptical but couldn't think of anything else.  Then I realized that the attached HDD sounded like it was working (transferring data) and thought there wasn't a reason for this.  So I disconnected the ext HDD and low and behold the problem resolved.

I thought "defective ext HDD".  But I connected it to my computer and it seems fine.  This drive had been working reasonably well connected the HH3000 for several years.  I say reasonably because I used to use it for nightly back ups and a couple of times a year the back ups would start to fail and I would reboot the HH3000 to resolve the issue.  Never before had I lost internet connectivity - just the back ups wouldn't run.  Now I just use it as a server for pictures and video to play on the TV via a Blu-ray player.  The TV is too old to support network connectivity.  The Blu-ray is almost as old but was able to assess the HDD on theHH3000 ok.

Since the Ext HDD seems OK I am loath to buy another just to try it. 

Any thoughts?  

[Vanadiel]

What is the error code on the modem display when this happens?

[J222]

Nothing.  The modem seemed frozen.  Would not reboot using button.  I had to pull the battery backup and power to get it to reboot.  Problem re-occurred within an hour.   

[J222]

I tried a different USB Ext HDD that tested OK connected to my PC.  This 2nd HDD was connected via a USB2 connection with the thought that there might be something related to the speed of the connection.  The previous test was with a USB3 connected device.  Same issue.  Within a few minutes the modem locked up.  The display was non-functional.  Reset button was non-functional.  I disconnected the external HDD and pulled the plug waited.  I have a battery back up so was starting to disconnect it when the display became active.  It did not recover internet connectivity after 5 mins or so, so I pressed reset and it did respond as expected and eventually did return to normal operation.  At this point I am wondering if this ext HDD feature which worked for years has been damaged with a software update to the modem. Not sure what else to try.  Any suggestions?

[dks]

To be honest, I never had much luck with external hard drives connected to the modem. Often what does work may not one day. It may be the feature that is pooched. Not what you want to hear, but perhaps it's time to move on to a more update media server. 

[J222]

At this point I suspect there is an issue with the number of files or folders on the HD.  There were 340,000 files in 51,000 folders.  I took the original drive and eliminated most as I no longer use the HH3000 drive as a back up - only streaming to the TV and it has not crashed in a day.  I do however have issues with the menu being in French and it is not showing file names in many cases.  For example the folder with home video has no files names - a pain.  As I mentioned initially I was using this drive on the HH3000 with this large number of files/folders for years.  Then the crashing started a month or so ago.  So I suspect Bell pushed a firmware update that has an issue with large numbers of files/folders....