| Article Index |
|---|
| D-Link DNS-323 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure Review |
| Page 2 - Drive Installation |
| Page 3 - Configuration/Performance |
| Page 4 - Security/More Features/Conclusion |
| All Pages |
NAS – ‘Network Attached Storage’ devices are becoming very
popular lately, and today we take a look at D-Link’s latest NAS device, the DNS-323. A 2-Bay NAS enclosure using Serial-ATA drives and RAID technology.
The DNS-323 retails online for around AU$310, has slots for up to 2 Serial-ATA hard drives, a Gigabit Ethernet interface and a USB Print server with 1 USB port is also included as a standard feature.
The Design:
The unit itself has a (now very common) glossy silver on black colour scheme on the front, and the sides are a mix of matt black and black brushed aluminium with a D-Link logo de-bossed into each side. The front of the unit has only a power button and no other controls, there are several different activity LED’s, one for each hard drive and one for Ethernet activity. All in all a minimalistic design that succeeds in giving a very presentable appearance, enough said.
The rear of the unit has two drive eject levers for pushing the hard drive out of the case (should one fail or needs to be removed for some other reason), the normal power/Ethernet/USB ports that are required, and a hole for an included cable organiser clip to go into. A cooling fan is also included in the rear to keep the drives cool, a necessity if you want your drives to last and another smart inclusion from D-Link, as there are so many external hard drive devices that come with no cooling whatsoever, and people wonder why their drives fail?? Oh well.
Some criticisms about the design however – there is no way to secure the face plate of the unit, often I’ve gone to pick it up, holding the front and back and the front comes off in my hand, a small secondary catch or lock would have been good. Another thing I was surprised to not see is a security hole for a Kensington style lock to go into, it’s not a necessity, but on something of this size and this value (it’ll be valuable when there are 2 hard drives installed) it would be good to be able to lock it down if desired so it doesn’t go walkabout.
Drive Installation:
One of the best features of the DNS-323 is the simplicity of the hard drive installation:
- Simply remove the front cover
- Slide your drive(s) inside
- Replace the front cover
And you’re done, your hard drives are now installed, no screws or tools are required, it’s a very easy job even for people who aren’t very technically minded, and shows thoughtful design from D-Link, something not uncommon with a lot of their products these days.
Configuration:
Configuration is nice and simple also, a little more involved than the hard drive installation, but if you follow the included quick-start guide you shouldn’t have any problems. With the DNS-323 plugged into your network somewhere, it will try to obtain an IP address automatically via DHCP, if it can’t it will default to 192.168.0.32, an unusual default number, but good because it’s unlikely to conflict with anything else on your network, run the included CD and it will find your device and start the configuration wizard with step-by-step instructions. It is in here that you can select how you would like your drives configured, you can have two separate drives, a JBOD array (single virtual drive), or you can set them up in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 array. RAID 1 (mirroring) would be best for any critical data, because if one drive dies, the unit will continue to function properly with all your data intact on the remaining drive until the faulty drive is replaced, whereby it will rebuild the array.
You can access the drives either by browsing to them through “My Network Places” in windows, or use the included software to easily map the drives to “My Computer” for easy access whenever you need it. An FTP server is included in the device so you can access it from anywhere in the world via the internet, some configuration of your router would be required but it is a handy inclusion for people away from home or the office.
The DNS-323 does not support either FAT32 or NTFS file systems, and will format any drive you put in there to convert it to its own file system, this means you won’t be able to take your drives that already have data on them and expect to make them a NAS drive, nor can you easily recover data from drives that have been in the unit should the unit itself fail. Rather disappointing.
Performance:
Data transfer performance is mostly dependent on your network, if you have a Gigabit network you can expect speeds of around 23 megabyte/s read and 12 megabyte/s write, however this will be much lower if you have a slower 100Mb network, as is expected.
When reading or writing data to the DNS-323 as a mapped network drive, it is as reliable as any other NAS device out there, I’ve been transferring files to and from it all day without an issue.
Security:
The DNS-323 seems to lack any form of physical security, as mentioned earlier there is no way to lock the unit down, and as there’s no way to lock the front cover, or even lock the drives in place, someone could walk up, open it up and walk off with the SATA hard drives in about 3 seconds flat.
It does a fair bit better in the area of data security, firstly you have the option of setting the drives up in a mirrored RAID 1 array, to protect against drive failures. There is also the option of creating individual user logins and/or groups with private folders and different levels of access (i.e. read only or read/write), as well as storage quotas, which would be useful in an office or school environment, however only 64 unique users can be created, so it is somewhat limited. The built-in FTP server is of course user name and password protected.
Additional Features:
The DNS-323 includes a few other nifty features, the first is its ability to act as a UPnP AV server, able to stream photos, music or videos to UPnP AV compatible devices (such as D-Link media players of course). An iTunes server is also included, which means any computer running iTunes will be able to automatically detect and connect to the DNS-323 and stream music and video files. The DNS-323 also has the ability to act as a DHCP server if your network doesn’t have one already.
Disk utilities are also included and accessible via the web interface, such as scandisk and defrag, to keep the drives healthy and performing their best. Basic power management is also included, to shut the drives down if they’re not in use for a certain period of time.
Conclusion:
The DNS-323 is a well priced NAS device that has more than enough features for the majority of users, it’s fast and very easy to setup and use, but it’s lack of any sort of physical security is a big letdown. The fact that it can only use its own type of file system on the internal drives is very annoying, best suited to home or small office use.
OzHardware Rating – 7/10
This product can be purchased online at www.techbuy.com.au (Direct Link)
