The D-Link DNS-320L is an upgrade of the DNS-320. It has a faster processor on board and design changes to the box. I've just had it a few days and it seems to function fine. The on-board fan has high and low speeds and defaults to off/low/high so it runs quietly most of the time (although the low speed fan isn't loud) when it is backing up, but sleeps when not in use. I am a Mac user so it is important to note that this device works fine with Time Machine. It mounts when it is time to back up and unmounts afterwards.I am running OSX Lion (10.7.5) and it is important to note that the Set Up Wizard that comes on the CD is flawed. DO NOT USE IT! Once you get the DNS-320L plugged in to your network, go to it via the Web interface. There is a set up wizard in the Web GUI that will help with the basic setup, and then you can go Management-Disk Management and set up your Hard Drive Configuration (which will format the drive(s)), then go over to Applications-Local Backups-Time Machine where you can enable Time Machine (which starts the AFP service) and then add individual shares under Settings for each machine you want to back up. I also recommend creating a user for the back up connections because if you try to connect to the NAS with the admin password, Time Machine will ask you to change it. Not the case with a mere user.
The problem with the Set Up Wizard failure is that it apparently is the only way you can set up an account with mydlink.com, which is how you can connect to the NAS from your smart phone or tablet (iPhone and iPad in my case). My desire to do this led to a great deal of aggravation because when it fails, it corrupts your password and configuration, and I had to reformat the drive (losing backups that took a long time to do, about 3.25 hrs. for 156 gigs). I've filed a support ticket and hope this gets resolved soon. Meanwhile, if you are a Mac user, some features of the DNS-320L will not be available to you.
Bottom Line: Incremental backups are quick and automatic for my little Mac server and iMac. That's what I wanted. The set up and personal cloud functions are up in the air for now.
After I completed the setup via the set up wizard, I began to transfer movie files to the drive. The device seemed to be working wonderfully. My peripheral devices that are connected to my network recognized the DNS-345 and I was able to stream media to my devices, and write to my NAS storage.
After 1.5 days, the volume on my NAS box for no reason was degraded and then crashed (according to the system logs). I was on the phone with D-Link support for about 4 hours, and they told me what I already knew...all my files were gone! Thank goodness those were my back up files on the NAS box.
After using the D-Link S.M.A.R.T test utility, to test the integrity of my hardrives it turns out that all "four" of my drives arD-Link Systems Incorporation ShareCenter Cloud Storage 4000 (DNS-345)e healthy. The support representative did her best to restore my NAS box but she was unsuccessful.
What D-Link could not explain is how all my data was lost, or why did their device fail. I thouhgt the whole idea behind Raid-5 was to provide the end user with redundancies in case a hardrive failed!
My first exprience with a NAS box was a nightmare.
I'm returning this device and ASAP
Buy D-Link ShareCenter Cloud Storage 2000 2-Bay (Diskless) Network Attached Storage (DNS-320L) Now
So far, it's performed well; was easy to install and configure, and I'm able to stream media to devices throughout my house.The media streaming took a lot of effort for me to get working on my home network. Both Verizon and D-Link tech support were not very helpful and kept pointing to the other guy as the cause. I was finally able to get things working on my own, though I'm not entirely sure what I did that helped.
I also didn't get very good support from D-Link on a question I had regarding my USB UPS. I bought a Tripp Lite SMART550USB based on D-Link's list of supported and tested UPS systems. However, when I connected the UPS to the NAS via a USB cable, the NAS didn't recognize the UPS. My first query to D-Link support resulted in them responding with a broken link to a PDF. When I told them the link was broken, they emailed me the PDF which turned out to be a list of the supported UPS devices, that I already had. I responded that I had purchased one of their listed UPS devices, but that the NAS wasn't detecting it, and I still haven't heard back from them. I guess I won't know until my next power outtage if the UPS works and is able to shutdown the NAS gracefully, without horking my drives.I selected this item because I needed an inexpensive network server. I am not an expert in this matter, and the price and D-Link name convinced me to try it. It took me about one hour to figure out how to get it going (remember, I am not an expert), and since then it has been working fine. My server need are not excessive, having only two users with one program's files on the server. We also use it to backup our computers. So it works well for me.NAS works but I had some issues. D-Link offers only paid support and when I asked for help from multiple D-Link webs sites they did not even respond to tell me they only offered paid support. I wondered why they still allowed input from these sites. I did get some assistance from a forum.
Save 31% Off
No comments:
Post a Comment