Cat Drive was established in 2017 and is focused on providing intelligent storage products and services for individuals, families, and small businesses. In simple terms, it is a private network storage service. However, many people use Cat Drive for mining, so there are many second-hand Cat Drives available on the market. Recently, I also learned about Cat Drive and bought one from a second-hand marketplace to tinker with.

About the Purchase

Currently, the only Cat Drive available for sale on the official website is the Cat Drive Plus, priced at 399 yuan. The official website is http://www.maopan.io/index.html.

But personally, I don't think it's necessary to buy from the official website. You can search on second-hand marketplaces like Xianyu. When I bought it from Xianyu, the price was 100 yuan. It was a standard version without a hard drive and packaging. It looked old, but it was still functioning properly.

About the Hard Drive

Most of the Cat Drives sold on Xianyu do not come with a hard drive, as they have been removed. So you need to prepare a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive yourself. If you don't have one, you can also buy a second-hand hard drive on Xianyu for around 60 yuan, usually a 512GB hard drive. Alternatively, you can use a hard drive removed from a laptop. The total cost of a second-hand Cat Drive and a second-hand hard drive is less than 200 yuan, allowing you to start tinkering.

Firmware Selection

Currently, there are several available firmwares for Cat Drive: Official, X3P (Onespace), and Black Synology. Personally, I recommend flashing X3P or Black Synology.

Flashing X3P

The first step after receiving the Cat Drive is to prepare for flashing. Connect it to the network and power it on, and then prepare to flash X3P and later Black Synology on top of X3P.

Flashing tool: https://cloud.189.cn/t/zeaINrJZrIbe (Access code: 0gxz)

1. First, find the internal IP of the Cat Drive through the router.
2. Disable the Windows Firewall (important) and antivirus software firewall.
3. Extract the "CatDrive_flasher.exe" from the "猫盘一键刷机V2.0" file and run it as an administrator.
4. Fill in the corresponding IP address, with the first six digits of the MAC address fixed as "78C2C0," and fill in the last six digits of the MAC address found on your Cat Drive. For example, if the last six digits of your MAC address are "A1B2C3," then the complete MAC address would be "78C2C0A1B2C3." Also, fill in the serial number, making sure both the MAC and SN are in uppercase. See the image below:

Once you see the success message, you can close the software. At this point, the indicator light on the Cat Drive will be solid red.

Unplug the Cat Drive's power cable, but leave the network cable connected. While holding down the reset button, plug in the power cable. Once you see the indicator light turn blue and start flashing, you can release the reset button. The X3P system installation will start automatically. Wait patiently for about 5-10 minutes. Once the indicator light turns solid red again, it means the flashing is successful.

Check the Cat Drive's IP address again through the router, and enter the IP in a browser to access the Onespace interface. The default username is "admin" and the password is "123456."

The X3P firmware has plenty of features and is perfectly suitable for daily use. If you want to flash Black Synology, please continue reading.

Flashing Black Synology

Connect to the Cat Drive using an SFTP tool with the username "root" and password "Etech12." Upload the "full.bin" file from the flashing package to the "/tmp" directory.

Connect to the Cat Drive using an SSH tool with the username "root" and password "Etech12." Navigate to the "cd" directory and execute the following "dd" commands to write the firmware:

# Go to the tmp directory
cd /tmp
# Execute the following commands one by one, press enter after each command, and wait for a response before copying the next one
dd if="full.bin" of=/dev/mtdblock0 bs=1 skip=0 count=$((0xc8000)) 
dd if="full.bin" of=/dev/mtdblock1 bs=1 skip=$((0x000c8000)) count=$((0x00004000))
dd if="full.bin" of=/dev/mtdblock2 bs=1 skip=$((0x000cc000)) count=$((0x00434000)) 
dd if="full.bin" of=/dev/mtdblock3 bs=1 skip=$((0x00500000)) count=$((0x00300000)) 

After executing the four commands, enter "reboot" to restart the Cat Drive. Then, open find.synology.com/ in a browser and click on "Search for devices." You should see that the Cat Drive is recognized as a DS119J and displays the device's IP and other information. Click on "Connect" and follow the prompts to complete the system installation.

At this point, the flashing of Black Synology is complete. We first flashed X3P and then Black Synology on top of it. This method is simpler than the TTL flashing tutorial found online. However, please note that after flashing Black Synology, the hard drive will be reformatted. Therefore, please backup the data on the hard drive first and follow the prompts to complete the Synology setup. Attached is a screenshot of my Cat Drive successfully flashed with Black Synology.

Indicator Light Status

If you cannot detect the IP when you receive the Cat Drive or if the flashing fails, pay attention to the indicator light on the Cat Drive. There are generally four states:

1. Red: Normal
2. Pale yellow: Possibly writing firmware, please continue to wait for 10-20 minutes.
3. Blue: This situation is more complicated and requires a reset. To reset, observe the color of the LED light. If it is blue, check if the network port light is solid green or solid orange. If it is solid orange, you need to reset the device. (Without powering on the device, press and hold the reset button, then power it on. After 15 seconds, release the reset button. At this point, the LED light should start flashing, and the network port light should be solid green. This indicates that the reset process has begun and you need to wait for about 20 minutes. When the LED light turns red and both the green and orange lights on the network port are on, the reset is successful.)
4. White: Reason unknown, possibly damaged.

Notes

• When making a purchase, be sure to ask the seller if they have the screws to secure the hard drive. In my case, the screws were missing, and the hard drive was loose and shaking. I had to use screws from a laptop to secure it.
• Before purchasing, ask the seller if it is possible to flash Black Synology. It is said that certain versions of Cat Drive cannot be flashed with Black Synology and can only be flashed with X3P (Onespace).
• The firmware mentioned above may not be the latest. After flashing, Synology may prompt for an upgrade. I tested it and it can be upgraded normally.

Conclusion

• The advantages of Cat Drive are its low price, costing less than 200 yuan to complete a simple NAS solution, low power consumption, and quiet operation.
• The disadvantages are also apparent. The performance of the ARM CPU is not great, and it can only accommodate one hard drive. It is not recommended to store important data on it, as a hard drive failure would result in data loss.

This article references the following sources:

• 猫盘刷 ONE SPACE 及群晖固件教程
• 刚买的猫盘获取不到IP的应对方案及重置指南。