The Onn boxes from Walmart are fantastic and cheap.
If all you really need is SMB, then try Tailscale so you can access your computers as if you were local, from anywhere.
I had the same problem with USB docks. The filesystem didn't matter. Without going into much detail, the solution is to use the usb-storage driver with quirks enabled instead of the uas driver. I blacklisted uas to force usb-storage on the affected devices. Some googling should turn up decent instructions.
Erana's Peace - Heroes Quest (Quest for Glory)