The USB Support menu is divided into sections, including USB Support and Attached Devices. These sections include settings to enable or disable USB port support, configure USB-related printers and configure settings for USB-attached storage. There are also settings to support 3G/4G/5G USB modems.

Core USB Support: Checking this enables the USB driver/services for USB-equipped hardware. When enabled,
a series of specific options appear for configuration. These will depend on your router hardware.

• USB 3.0 Support - Checking this enables USB 3.x (xHCI) operation on USB 3.0 (or higher) ports. (Default: )
• USB 2.0 Support - Checking this enables USB 2.0 (EHCI) operation. (Default: )
• USB 1.1 Support: Checking an option enables support for that mode of USB 1.1 operation. (Default: Disabled).
  • (OHCI) - enables operation on USB 1.x (or higher) USB ports.
  • (UHCI) - enables operation on USB 2.x (or higher) USB ports.

USB Printer Support: Checking this loads the driver for USB printing support. (Default: ).

• Bidirectional copying: This enables bidirectional communications on the USB printer connection.
  
  Modern USB printers can communicate in two directions: The printer receives a print job/metadata from the PC/client
  and the printer transmits status messages back to the print driver about job status, ink or toner levels.
  Disabling Bidirectional copying may make some printers work better when connected to a FreshTomato device.
  (Default: Enabled).

USB Storage Support: Checking this enables driver/service support for USB storage. (Default: ).

• File Systems Support: Checking any option loads drivers/support for the corresponding filesystem:
  
  
  • Ext2 / Ext3 - Enabling this loads support for accessing media with Ext2 and Ext3 filesystems.
    These partitions are usually created in Linux/Unix/BSD and similar operating systems. (Default: ).
    
    
  • NTFS - Enabling this loads support for media formatted with Microsoft's NTFS filesystem.
    Generally, this provides compatibility with media formatted within Windows (since NT/2000). (Default: ).
    
    
  • FAT - Checking this enables support for the FAT filesystem, mostly for compatibility with flash drives.
    This filesystem is also used on SD, CompactFlash, MMC and other flash memory cards.
    FAT doesn't support symbolic links and limits your ability to use programs like Entware or TTB.
    It should not not be your first choice. (Default: ).
    
    
  • Automount - This makes FreshTomato automatically mount partitions detected when a USB drive is inserted
    or during bootup to mount points in subdirectories of “/mnt”. (Default: Enabled).
    
    
  • Run after mounting - Here, enter a script/series of shell commands to run when a USB storage device is mounted.
    
    
  • Run before unmounting - Here, enter a script/series of commands to run before a USB storage device is unmounted.
    
    

Hotplug script: Here, enter shell commands to execute when a USB device is attached or removed.

HDD Spindown: Enabling this makes FreshTomato spin down mechanical drives when idle. There's no need for this
on solid state drives, such as SSDs or flash drives, as they have no moving parts. (Default: Enabled).

3G/4G/(5G) Modem Support: Checking this enables support for 3G/4G/(5G) USB modem dongles.
This allows you to use a cellular carrier as an Internet provider. For more details on 3G/4G modem settings, see the WAN Settings
section on the Network page. Supported USB modems are listed in the 4G/5G compatibility page.

The Attached Devices section contains a table of devices FreshTomato detects are attached to its USB ports.

The table has columns describing the device Type and the Host controller number where the device was detected. There is also a column heading with a plain English Description of the media found and its status of mounted or unmounted.

If a drive is not mounted, clicking the [Mount] option beside it mounts the drive to a mount point.

If a drive is mounted, clicking the [Unmount] button will unmount the drive, so it's ready to remove/disconnect.

Some USB storage settings require unloading/reloading of the USB storage drivers. Changing those settings may affect the contents of your system log (syslog) file. For example, enabling or disabling filesystems, or unmounting the drive where the system log is stored may cause storage errors and possibly loss of log content.

Therefore, before changing any USB filesystem settings, you should first reconfigure syslog to be stored (temporarily) in RAM. Only then should you adjust filesystem settings or unmount the drive. Afterwards, you can configure syslog to again be permanently stored on USB storage, where it shouldn't be interrupted.

USB filesystem corruption is a very common cause of system instability. You could experience a VPN connectivity issue, WiFi instability or any other seemingly “random” problem directly or indirectly caused by USB filesystem issues. When troubleshooting, you are advised to add USB filesystem checks to your troubleshooting checklist.