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

simonprr wrote:

Hi,

I've been spending ages on this forum reading posts and trying to figure out if the DNS-323 is any good and if it actually works or not and therefore whether to buy it... and I still have no idea. Seems that a lot of people have problems with it!

1. So would you recommend it or not and why?
2. I see there is some posts about a 2GB file limit, is this a problem with the DNS-323? Or a problem with Vista? Is there a file size limit at all?
3. Does the EXT2 file system support long file names and directories?
4. Does the EXT2 file system have any major limitations compared with NTFS?
5. The thread about the uptime concerns me big time, is it really that unstable? I would get annoyed restarting it every 8 days or something!
6. I've also seen a rumour that you have to re-format every time you update the firmware is this true?

Would appreciated any answers!

Thanks

Hey simonprr! Welcome to the forum

Saw your post and thought I would help ya out since I has similar thoughts and questions as you do a couple months ago myself.

1. I very much recommend it! I have been running it for a month now and am enjoying every moment of it. Replaced my old 1.2GHz Win2003 computer that I used as a file server, and the DNS-323 turned out to be way faster at that.
2. I myself was worried crazy about this problem, I was running Windows Vista 64-bit (recently formatted to 32-bit Vista) and was very concerned, I read about a fix but was still skeptical if it worked or not, but I bought the DNS-323 anyway, followed the fix step by step and it worked like a charm! but from what I know, now with the 1.03 update (I still need to update myself), the 2GB+ limit is no longer a problem with any operating system
3. I backed up everything (500GB worth of data) from my NTFS drives to Freshly formatted EXT2 drives, and I haven't had one problem with file names yet, but maybe someone else can fully confirm this?
4. Not that I know of! From what I have always read, EXT2 is a fantastic format, I personally have seen a great performance increase using it and I personally think I trust it more than NTFS these days with the huge linux community support it shouldn't ever be to hard to find help somewhere when you need it, but this is just me, once again maybe someone else can give you their 2 cents on this.
5. I haven't read anything about this? and like I said, my DNS-323 has been running like a champ for a month now.
6. I'm not sure about this one, a few months ago, apparently when D-Link decided to no longer support EXT3 on the DNS-323, when you updated the firmware to the newer version, it would want to reformat the drives back to EXT2. From my knowledge this should not be an issue at all. Just make sure you have the latest firmware installed before you get started with your DNS-323

Anyway, thats it.. like I said I very much recommend the DNS-323, I can tell you it is one of the better tech investments I have made in a long time. What can I say.. I love the little guy, It has saved me time, money (very low power consumption), and space all around. I also enjoy how can take it with me somewhere if needed. I can very much see myself buying a second one of these in the future.

If you have any other questions i'll attempt to respond as soon as I can, just make sure to quote my post so it emails me about it. I personally have noticed that it sometimes takes a while to get a response in this forum, it is a small yet still very helpful community, so just be patient and make sure to search old posts!

I gotta head to bed its 2am, enjoy yourself and get the DNS, take care for now!

Last edited by stevodotorg (2007-04-27 12:07:57)

1 - Recommend is such a strong word - I'll come back to this.
2 - There was a 2GB limit problem that showed up with Server 2K3 and apparently Vista, this has been fixed in 1.03
3 - Yes - there may be issues with special characters used in foreign languages.
4 - I'm no expert, but none that I'm aware of.
5 - The uptime problem relates to a DST bug, I have never personally experienced it, since we don't use daylight saving.
6 - No - at least not any more - support for the EXT3 file system was removed in one of the firmware updates, I don't recall which.  The reformat was only necessary if you were using EXT3 before the upgrade.  In any event, I would backup before any firmware ugrade.

Back to your first question - if you're going to recommend something you should have a reason why, and of course, vice versa.  I bought my DNS-323 so that I could perform some some tests before recommending it to a few of my SOHO clients, most of whom are non technical, and whose interest is in running their business rather than fiddling with IT.

My specific concern is that the unit's disk error/failure sensing mechanisms appear to be lacking.

One of my first tests was the mirroring - where I simulated a drive failure, first by powering the unit off, removing a drive and then powering the unit back on - the unit boots and your data is available, so the mirroring works - BUT - and this is a big but for me, the unit did not provide the expected drive failure indicators - no emails, and no amber lights - ejecting a drive with the unit running, gave me exactly the same results.

Other tests show that the unit does not report SMART errors that the drive reports, and that it will quite happily format a disk with bad sectors, and the only indication of a problem is the length of time it takes to format and/or resync the mirror.

NOW - having said that, with the release of the 1.03 firmware, the unit will send an email alert if a drive is pulled (but still no amber light) and I have been told it is using a different kernel which may also have fixed some of the other issues I mentioned, I have not yet had the chance to run through a similar set of tests.

I don't regret buying it - it is in daily use for Acronis & BackupExec D2D backups, I have not lost data (I do a verify on the BackupExec after reading some horror stories here, but so far no errors reported) - but I have not actually recommended it to my clients - to be quite fair D-Link has been fixing stuff and I figure it's only a matter of time before I do.

There - now you know my concerns - you get to make your own decision

Last edited by fordem (2007-04-28 06:07:28)

7 & 8 - I can't comment on EU/UK firmware - although I'm not in the US, I have a US sourced unit and I'm using US Firmware, I believe there is a report on this forum of someone with an EU unit using US firmware successfully.
With regards the DST bug, it is my understanding that you can disable DST as a work around.

9 - That sounds about right.

10 - No mention of jumbo frame in the documentation or the setup - I suspect the answer is no, and I believe the point is moot, since max throughput does not appear to be the network interface - if I recall correctly the maximum throughput I was able to achieve is around 70mbps on 100mbps and 150mbps on GbE.  For both of these tests the other end point was an IBM xSeries server capable of just under 300 mbps without jumbo frame.

11 - I'll leave this one for the folks here who have been working in that area to answer.

OK - In deference to the following post - I'll rephrase - I have a US sourced unit and I'm running firmware released for the US

Last edited by fordem (2007-04-28 16:03:55)

Evening,

I have a UK version, which came with the original firmware.
I downloaded the latest software from the US site, installed it and there have been no problems at all.

HTH,

Colin

The ReadyNAS is not "a bit more", it's a lot more - almost 4X more.

I've finally got my DNS-323 and so far it's not too bad.... however...I've updated the firmware to 1.02b blah blah whatever the latest UK version is and I have discovered the annoying file limitation bug with Windows 2003. Is the only way around this firmware 1.03? If it is, that would mean me flashing it with the US version when it says not to. I know other people have discussed this but it does concern me for future support cause they could just refuse to support it once they realise what I've done. If the US version is ok and really no problem being on the UK version then why do they cause this issue and delay releasing it??? So annoying and werid that this is only an issue with 2003 and Vista but not XP - doesn't make sense to me!

PS. Can't seem to login to this forum using IE7... bug?

Last edited by simonprr (2007-05-17 02:11:06)

Thanks... wow that workaround is a complicated read!!!

Anyways, this is amazing... I just checked the UK D-Link website and FW 1.03 is out!!! Has a date of yesterday on it, but wasn't there a few hours ago!

They must have been reading the forum! lol

loopback

You might want to take another look at that disk spindown issue - it may be related to your use of the print server feature - there are reports on this forum of the DNS-323 spinning down and then backup because of unprinted jobs in the spooler.

My DNS-323 has always spun down with the exception of one occassion on which I was mucking around with the print server, and deleting the jobs in the spool did fix it.

On the subject of network printing - I've been an advocate of it for many years - there are many printers available with network ports, and for those that don't have them, you can buy inexpensive network print servers such as the D-Link DP300U or the Netgear PS121