D-Link DNS-321 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure

Comment:
Works great for the money. Streaming from the drive works great. Cons, Only problem i have with the unit is that if you are going to transfer data over 5Gb TO the drive, it is faster and more reliable to connect the drive directly to your PC. When you are done, just hook it back up to your network. It could be my set network set up. I have an N network. And wirelessly transferring files is inconsistent at best.

Comment:
It took alot to get the e-mail alerts to work properly, and I wish I could turn off the hard drive power conserve mode. Other than that, this was a great choice, and I have started to use it as a media server around the house.

Comment:
The 3 Hitachi drives I purchased to go with the units recently bought do not work in the 321 nor the 323. OS doesn't recognize the drives, flashing HD problem light flashes constantly - is there a firmware update for the 321 available so the drives can be used? I have five other 323 units and am absolutely delighted with them - those have WD and Seagate drives by the way.

Comment:
Quality affordable NAS solution for the house. We have 4 laptops and a desktop in the house and they all can access stored media on the unit. I use Acronis 11 to back up our units to the NAS and we have even set it up to play Quake! However, I would like to see a way to pull data off an old drive without having to format it to /EXT.

Comment:
unit works as advertised, graet NAS for home storage. I put in two 320GB unmatched drives and set up a raid1 with no problems.the administrative feature has quirks, but does work. overall a great buy for the price.

Comment:
I've been using this NAS for almost a month and I'm happy with the purchase. I have a 1 TB drive installed in the first bay and the other bay is still empty.

Comment:
It was kind of weird when trying to configured this network server because of the dlink settings but after getting help from dlink tech support, it was useless! Do i recommond, yes for the price and the product but I wish it came with bit-torrent.

Comment:
Overall this device has performed well. However, I've noticed that a 700MB file will take around 2 minutes to download from the device as opposed to the approx. 1 minute time it takes to upload 700MB to the device. 1 minute is normal for a 1Gbps transfer rate if you have a gig network, which I do. So I'm not sure why it's slow on the device's upload performance, but hey, 1 more minute isn't bad and I rarely upload from the device anyways.

Comment:
I combined this with 2 1GB harddrives and this is really good for Disaster Recovery. However; I had to upgrade the firmware to the latest rev in order to properly use the RAID features. My only minor complaint is that the built-in FTP server for the NAS is a little confusing and lacking in features (sftp support would be nice).

Comment:
I have mixed feeling bout this NAS, first the springs on the inside to keep drive secure hung on drive and bent and if not careful can damage drive, secondly transfer rates have been extremely slow, unacceptably slow but after all I was transfering 1.5g, thirdly you have to download firmware for large drives before it will format them gets stuck at 97%. If you can get past these problems then the NAS is outstanding you make your own chose. In my opinion the price should be more like half what it is.

Comment:
I am very pleased with this unit. Instructions are straightforward & well written. Hardware is pretty easy to set up, and doesn't require tools. Software is provided for configuration via a web browser, & only needs installation on the computer configuring the drive. DHCP or static IP address. Unit can be configured as two separate drive volumes, or as a single combined volume (RAID). Once the unit is configured, other computers on the network just map to the unit. No further software installations required. The unit runs silently and cool. Most importantly, if its powered up, its on the network, every time. A couple of key points: 1) Only 3.5" SATA hard drives can be used. No 2.5", no IDE. 2) Configuration requires formatting the drives, so if your drives have data on them, back it off somewhere else first. I found this easy to do using a Thermaltake USB hard drive docking station (about $35).

Comment:
Excellent product; easy setup, low cost, and good performance. The only reason I gave this unit a 4 out of 5 for "performance" was becasue my encounter with D-Link tech support personnel was disappointing.

Comment:
I got this awhile ago (Because My Fantom 1tb NAS Died) i put the drives from the fantom into this and after reformating the HD (took about 45 Mins for 2 500 gig i fortmated them as 2 seperate HD's so if i lost one i could just replace it insted of both them) ran the web interface to setting up the shares i i was able to use them and started downloading my lost torrents, It's a quiet drive easy to use interface and with it hooked to a TB Network the transfer are smoking fast1 gig file in about 3 - 5 mins. i'm thinking about getting another one tand get 2 1tb drives and use them as a array and then transfer my 500 gig USB drive to it. I would recommend this to anyone who asks about.

Comment:
Only reason not rated 5 all was first unit bad on arrival. But D-Link support was cooperative, even though the first contact had to ask another for help (which he did - a plus actually) after trying the appropriate suggestions from D-Link, the retailer immediately issued an RMA with shipping label and we negotiated an immediate replacement. New unit works perfect - runs like a bat out of.... Would not hesitate to buy another one or recommend. Good Stuff.

Comment:
Replaced on that was three years old that failed. That was a bummer until I installed this one; great product, easy setup. RAID 1 feature very helpful. Now my only regret is that I didn't purchase one with a USB printer port.

Comment:
I haven't checked out any of the fancier features, just using it as a basic NAS. I have two 1TB Hitachi drives - mirrored. They were not recognized at first. Needed to do a firmware update and that solved the problem. It just works and I am happy.

Comment:
This product is sooo easy to install and set-up and at this price, you cant go wrong. I put two 1TB hard drives in it, connected it to my router a and turned it on. It was that easy.

Comment:
D-Link has put out a very good low cost solution for a Raid 0/1 NAS. It does exactly what is advertised. I had very little trouble getting it installed and running. A little warning on the software, it is a little clunky and as long as you don't have a need for complex user/group permissions you will be OK. If the web interface was a little more user friendly this product would be perfect.

Comment:
Bought it, brought it home, plugged it in, configured it, took about 15mins from opening the box to using it. Absolutely no issues yet and don't anticipate any. Runs quite too!

Comment:
Great product. I use Vista (64bit) and the setup took 5 minutes. Plugged two Western Digital 1 TB drives in and they intalled with no issues. Drives are accessibel from all computers on my home network. I am extremey pleased and have had no issues in the month I have been using.

Comment:
I have had this for a few weeks now. It was easy to set up, and easy to manage in the web interface. It's so reassuring to be able to network attached mirroring raid for just a couple hundred dollars, without the hassle of setting up the drives and file systems myself. Now I just have to get around to scheduling our computers to automatically back up onto the little wonder.

Comment:
Was pleasantly surprised with the I/O performance as it supports transfer speeds in support of HD video. Very easy to setup. Stable - continuous operation for +2 weeks. Remains cool (and quiet!!) even with intense I/O to the 2x1TB drives (WD Green). Media center software is mediocre (decided to ignore in favor of Plex). Note that drives formatted as linux ext2 - means you cannot move drives out of casing into other non-linux casings. Would have loved to have usb2 extension for printer/usb-drive but that model is more expensive. Overall: surprising value - I would highly recommend.

Comment:
I've had this DNS-321 for a month now, and haven't lost a byte of data, I've mainly used this for backing up all my important data, I am using only one 1TB WD Caviar Green Drive at the time being, I do have intentions to add another hard drive and use RAID-1 in the near future. I use this product with Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1, works great with both. this is a great product for anyone who wants to integrate their data to more than one computer, without having to open security threats by sharing most of your folders from your primary pc! for you xp and vista users, you can map this drive as a network drive. However, this product has locked up on me once or twice, but a little power cycle fixes this problem, no data loss. And you may have to configure some firewall settings on select antivirus programs. Haven't tried the ftp or any other features, it only took 5 minutes to set this up, for the price of this product, it is a great investment for any home or small office use

Comment:
This rig is a solid investment for the money. Fast and it

Comment:
This is a great device. easy to set up and use, it could be faster, but its what you'd expect for the price, if you want real fast then you should pour out the bigger bucks. the drive temps seem to run a lil on the high side but not at a critical point. Easy to setup the FTP with share permissions as well as connecting this to your current home network. i definitely recommend this item