A NAS (network attached storage) interface is used, right within the router's firmware, to access a mass storage device connected to th USB port of WNR3500L.  This is an easy and inexpensive way to share files over your network and across the Internet, without the need for any additional devices - and is called ReadyShare.  Read on to learn how to set up and configure this for your home setup

Step 1:  Attach a mass storage device to the USB port of WNR3500L.  You can use a USB hard drive or flash drive, if you like.

Step 2:  Open the GUI of board and click at “Basic Settings” under “USB Storage." This shows where the USB device is mounted as a network folder.  In my case, it is readyshare/USB_Storage as shown below:

Fig 3: Mass storage device is mounted at /readyshare/USB_Storage

Step 3: This step is optional, and is needed only if one wants to access the NAS via an FTP or HTTP connection.  To enable FTP or HTTP access click at Advanced Settings under USB Storage and select corresponding options and click apply as shown below:

In the host PC, the default gateway and DNS server should be set to 192.168.1.1 - which is the IP address of WNR3500L.

The ReadyShare drive can be accessed using SAMBA, FTP or HTTP protocols.

Accessing ReadyShare using SAMBA:

Note: the manual steps below may not be necessary, as the ReadyShare drive may show up on a Windows PC in the "My Network Places" menu, or on a Mac in the sidebar of the Finder.

At the host PC, give the command:
mount.cifs  <>/USB_Storage  /mnt (or an alternative directory.)

Accessing ReadyShare using FTP:

1. from host PC run the following command:  ftp  HYPERLINK "ftp://readyshare.routerlogin.net" ftp://readyshare.routerlogin.net 
2. Then: cd USB_Storage
3. Now, you can read or write from host PC as per your requirement

Accessing ReadyShare using HTTP:

Step 1:  Click on Advanced Settings under the USB Storage section of the router's firmware GUI.

Step 2:  Click on the link that is shown against http.  It will show the NAS folder that you want to access:

Step 3: Click on  the USB_Storage link and enter username and password to access your ReadyShare drive.

SAMBA File Transfer Performance

Given below is the summary of ReadyShare performance over 802.11n and 802.11g that I was able to achieve using the SAMBA protocol: