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

Diam0nd wrote:

I'm about to buy meself a DNS-323. I have a 750gb drive full of data. I'm planning to run it in Standard mode. Now, when I put it in:
1. Do I HAVE TO format it?
2. If I update the firmware, do I HAVE TO format the drives or anything? In other words, does firmware updating involves any drive-formatting?

The thing is that there is NO WAY I can format anything. I simply can't do it, since I got nowhere to back up my data off the drive (this is a huge drive and I don't have the capacity to move data for formatting). So, my question is, is there ANY formatting at all involved? Because if there is, this device doesn't quite suite me I guess

In a nutshell: I want to buy the device, flash the latest firmware, put my drives in. All this without any formatting involved. Is this possible with DNS-323?


Thanks in advance,
D.

P.S. Also, if formatting is a must, is there maybe a hack or something that will allow me to do without formatting?

Allow me to spare "Captain Backup" the task of writing this.

Just erase the drive, format it in the DNS323, and restore from your backup.

If you don't have a backup then simply delete the data, as it obviously isn't of much value to you.

;-)

I think you need to ask what format your drive is in as the dlink doesn't use ntfs of any of the fats it is a linux based format ,
there is a thread that says what it is , so if your disks are windows based I am afraid it won't be any good and a reformat is needed 

there is a disclaimer that comes with the device

I found this


  The NAS runs on an internal linux based system.
FAT32 or NTFS file systems are not supported.
I'm not sure which linux file system it uses (ext3 probably).

hope that helps

Diam0nd - Chris is poking at me - Captain Backup - not at you, I'll explain it later.

You are more likely than not going to have to format the disk when you install it - you haven't told us what format your disks are in right now, if it's NTFS - the answer is a definite yes, you need to format, if you're using ext2 - you might not need to - ext2 is the format used on this device, ext3 was removed because of some data loss issues.  The main difference between ext2 & ext3 is that ext3 also has a journal, which I believe makes it more secure in situations where an improper shutdown may occur - secure from the point of view that you are less likely to lose data due to corruption as a result of the improper shutdown.

Firmware update - IF you start with the ext2 file system, you will not need to reformat the drives after any of the firmware upgrades to date, on the otherhand, if you had originally used ext3, you will need to reformat after upgrading to the firmware in which that file system was removed.

Now the backup "joke" - Chris refers to me as Captain Backup because I constantly preach the need to backup.  You may not be in a position to backup 750 GB of data - I'll be the first to admit, it's not that easy - BUT - think about this - what is standing between you and the loss of that data?

A power spike, a virus, your kid - if you have kids - or significant other clicking on the wrong link, and of course drive failure - there are so many things that can result in lost data.  How much value do you place on that data?  $100, $200, $500, more?  What would it cost you to buy another drive and back it up?

Oh - one more thing - with a RAID1 array - that exact list I mentioned, except for the drive failure, could result in the data being lost from both disks.  RAID1 is about drive fault tolerance, not backup.

buggymonkey wrote:

Hi Fordem

so if I am at 1.03 and want to upgrade to 1.04 I won't need to format ?

thanks for your help

kids eh can't live with them can't kill em 

1.04 - is that out yet ?

buggymonkey wrote:

it has appeared on dlink-germany ......but I cannot find it anywere else ....so who knows

Let me put it this way - when the folks here said it was on the D-Link Germany ftp site, it was not listed on the download page for the DNS-323 - so, in my opinion, D-Link has not yet released a final version of 1.04, although there seem to several different beta versions floating around.

If you want to use beta firmwware that would be entirely your choice, personally, I haven't tried it and so I'm not in a position to comment on it.

Last edited by fordem (2008-01-09 02:21:03)

Diam0nd wrote:

ChrisOwens wrote:

Allow me to spare "Captain Backup" the task of writing this.

Just erase the drive, format it in the DNS323, and restore from your backup.

If you don't have a backup then simply delete the data, as it obviously isn't of much value to you.

;-)

Is this supposed to be a joke or smth? Because I sure as hell am not laughing. The fact that I don't back up those 750gb does not automatically lead to my data being valueless to me. If you think that backup is a must and I don't (at least in this case), does not make YOU automatically right.

If you can't answer any of my questions above, what's the point of answering at all?


P.S. And of course if you happen to know of an easy way of backing-up a 750gb drive, share the wisdom.

Sorry, didn't mean to be a jerk but was channeling "captain backup" from another thread.

My point in answering is to remind people once again to back up their data or expect to lose it.

On sale before Christmas I bought two 400GB SATA300 drives with 8MB cache for $85 each.  So you could have a fully redundant backup for $200:  put the new drives in your DNS323, copy the data from the old drive to the new ones, and then you've got enough hardware in place for decent backup situation.  (presuming your old drive is installed in some computer now).


Signed,

An old guy who never again wants to be fiddling with a bit-level sector editor trying to salvage something off a trashed drive.

fordem wrote:

ChrisOwens wrote:

An old guy who never again wants to be fiddling with a bit-level sector editor trying to salvage something off a trashed drive.

Off topic I know - but - been there, done that and just out of curiosity, what diameter & capacity was the drive?

Sorry -- missed this earlier.

In Novermber I walked into a Staples (a big office equipment superstore here in the US) and there was a large pile of Western Digital SATA-300 400GB drives, 7200 RPM, 8MB cache, 3.5", sitting on a table.  The first one was US$59 (with a coupon); after that they were US$89 apiece.

I don't know whether the model was about to be discontinued, or whether they simply bought too many, or what, but it seemed a good way to obtain additional storage at low cost.   Since I don't know the story behind these drives, I'm not sure I'd use them to control a life safety critical application, but with proper backup seemed just the right thing for a home server.

Last edited by ChrisOwens (2008-01-15 09:37:25)

Well... I've seen those but never actually touched one.

This particular disk failure was on a much more modern architecture -- a Macintosh, probably OS 7 or 8, probably a 20 meg sealed hard drive unit --- I had become sloppy about backups and one day the drive wouldn't boot -- at that point in my life my time was cheap but my data was valuable --  by spending a day probing around with a bit sector editor I was actually able to find and repair the wreckage of the  master partition table.... Huge sigh of relief, and pretty good backups ever since.