Unfortunately no one can be told what fun_plug is - you have to see it for yourself.
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I have 2 of these devices. If I have the config saved, and if I am using the same firmware, will I be able to put my drive from one DNS-323 into another and have the same setup? I want to do this but I don't want to lose any data. My drive is not a RAID.
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If you are not using RAID or JBOD, you should be able to transfer disks from one unit to another and still have access to your data - based on what D-Link have told me, the disk configuration is stored on the disks, and so you can theoretically transfer the disks from one unit to another, with any configuration and still get access, but I have not tested this personally.
Based on the wording of the subject and the post - I would guess that your interest here is in "disaster planning", so, I'll also add - you can also get access to the data from separate disks and RAID1 by installing the disk in a Windows system and using the ext2ifs installable file system driver - I have tested this with Windows XP, but not with Vista.
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Thanks. This is exactly what I wanted to know. I thought the config contained the needed info (device name, volume, etc.). I didn't realize some of this data is stored on the drive.
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The config does contain that info - but the disk configuration is stored on the disks
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I have a similar problem - my unit died, so I've bought a new one. I was using a RAID 1 configuration.
How do I get my disks back in the new DNS-323 with the data intact?
Do I have to find (buy) a new 250Gb drive, attach it to my PC, plug in one from the DNS-323 to my PC, do something with an ext2ifs driver, copy the data to the new disk, put my original disks back in the 323, format them and set it up, then transfer the data from the copy I made to the disk in the 323? Phew. Seems a lot of effort for something that's supposed to be easy to recover data....
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If you have no backup - you could attach one of the disks to your PC and using ext2ifs to get access to the data, make a backup of the data - and then proceed. If you already have a backup - simply installing the disks in the new unit and powering it up should give you access to the data.
Seems a lot of effort - if you don't already have a backup, then maybe - but if you had been following "accepted data management practices", in other words, backing up your data, and not relying on luck (RAID1 is for disk redundancy, not data backup), then it would be a simple 10 minute job.
By the way - this holds true, irrespective of if we're discussing a $200 SOHO NAS like this or a $20,000 enterprise NAS - we still need to back up our data, and a failure can still occur, causing us to jump through hoops to regain access to it.
Last edited by fordem (2009-02-12 14:43:45)
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Thanks for the response. Dang. I expected a disk to fail before the DNS-323 did. What is the reasoning behind the forced format? I can't see why I can't just plug the drive in and the 323 say "do you want to format?" instead of "I'm going to format your disks whether you want to or not".
This raises the question - is it worth having RAID1 in a home environment, or just have backups? My reasoning with making it RAID1 was that when one of the disks failed, I'd just plug in a new one and my data would be copied back onto the new one from the mirrored volume.
Now I'm thinking there's no point in this, I'll just run backups each night, or every hour or whatever. I probably don't need immediate mirroring since the data is mainly photos, docs and some software.
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OK, bought a SATA cable, plugged the drive in, downloaded and installed the ifs program and .... nothing. Rebooted. nothing. Tried the other disk...nothing. I can't see the disk drive (yes, I've attached power).
Do I need to do anything with the BIOS?
What about if I fire up a linux VM machine, would I be able to see it?
Help?
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You may need to "enable" the SATA controller in the BIOS - the drives may or may not show in my computer automatically, if they do not, try reading the documentation for ext2ifs - you may have to assign drive letters in the ext2ifs control panel snapin.
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