DSM-G600, DNS-3xx and NSA-220 Hack Forum

sjmac wrote:

Looks like a nice piece of kit. My comments aren't all strictly related to your question, but I can't resist!

The review doesn't rule out command line/fun_plug style access on the ZyXEL (it's not clear the author knows about fun_plug on the DNS323), but does say it seems to be locked down :-(

My comments would be
1/ I hope the nice web UI raises the bar for DLink, and that the DLink team are up to the challenge. Maybe they should contract HaydnH to replicate his Optware UI ;-)
2/ I think that ZyXEL will eventually disable jumbo frames support from the web UI because it will cause obscure problems on their customers networks when it is enabled, and lots of calls to tech support. (Just like DLink did - DNS323 has jumbo frame support too, but it can only be enabled on the command line).
3/ It has very similar read/write speeds to the DNS323 that appear to be limited by the network interface like in the DNS323.
4/ DLink have hinted at bittorrent support in the next firmware for the DNS323.
5/ The "broadcast" application looks interesting - how does that work? If it's more convenient than the BBC iPlayer, I'd love to try that. That's the one app that I'd like to try, but looking in the FTP directory, I couldn't see what package it might be. Maybe ZyXEL wrote it themselves, and it's not open source?
6/ DNS323 has very good UPnP and iTunes support available via fonz fun_plug, or optware packages. The commercial UPnP server Twonky also has a build for the DNS323 which works very well.

To chose between them: do want your NAS in black or white?

First off, my choice is the d-link unit (even though I've had mine a week and am on #2 due to a bad power supply.. )

The idea was that since Zyxel uses a linux base as well, we may be able to fairly easily rebuild their packages for use on our d-link, thereby saving time and effort -- and get the 'better' software at the same time.  Other than that:

1. Yeah, one of the main marketing snafu's that d-link has done with this unit is it's web interface (well, that and itunes/upnp support built in).  A little more time with really 1-2 knowledgeable folks could mean a totally rewritten UI, and much more stable upnp and itunes clients - as evidenced by the fact the community has already replace them for people in the know.  If d-link were to just integrate those into their firmware sources, they'd save time and non-skilled users would have the nice things too.

2. As I've just gotten mine and half the time it was dead in the water, its good to hear there's a CLI to enable jumbo frame support.. I'll search it before asking 'hey- how do you do it!'.

3. Yeah, none of these little sub-$200 units should really saturate your gigabit network.  The horsepower needed to do that should cost significantly more... Hardware raid implementation, faster processors, more ram, etc. Zyxel and D-link are in the same playing field hardware wise, Zyxel has a slight advantage in the fact it's got 128mb vs. dlinks 64, and the processor is a revision newer; I'll leave that up to the processor people to determine the worth on that.

4. Unfortunately, even if d-link puts in torrent support I'm not sure if I have the greatest of outlooks on it.  It is clear to me that they have dev's that aren't really linux gurus. What d-link really should do it to take the GPL nature of their code and use it to their advantage:  write back into their sources some of the better 'ideas' from the community.  Lets face it, between Fonz and a lot of the other people around here there is a fairly nice amount of STABLE software to be had.. Much more stable than what came on the unit.  I'll cross my fingers that if they do decide to add support for it they'll get it right.

5. Yeah, I took a precursory look at their source list and didn't see an obvious broad catching client in there either.  My guess is that they may have built it on top of their bit torrent client; soft of what the "RSS FEED SCANNER" plug in does for Azereus.  I've got it running on one of my machines here, and it works great.  Subscribe to the RSS feed of your choice (for me, it's "Underwater basketweaving news", but if someone wanted to go to tvrss or another site and subscribe to a TV show they liked, well, I guess that could work too) and it auto downloads anything on the RSS feed as it comes out.  Great way to subscribe to something you like, and a fire-and-forget method to make sure you always have the latest version of... whatever it is you like.

6.  Yeah, for those that are comfortable with installing things via telnet server those work great.  I'm more than fine with that, as I generally throw out whatever the manufacturer recommends and load what I please; however, many people aren't comfortable on the CLI, which is why I wish d-link would take a look over at Zyxel and get to that level of code coming from there.

All in all, in the week or so I've had the d-link, it's a great piece of hardware, just trying to learn as much as I can about it and give back any work I may do that could benefit others. So, if someone has looked into the zyxel packages for use on our boxes, let me know!


--Diamond187