Customer Reviews

D-Link DNS-343 4-Bay Network Attached Storage Enclosure

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is my third D-Link NAS. I bought a DNS-323 one year ago and it has been on ever since, serving up files reliably to my PC/Mac home network, downloading torrents, and streaming videos to my PS3/XBOX 360 (after installing Twonky Media Server). Based on my mostly positive experience with D-link products and price-to-features ratio, I decided to stick with the brand. I had wasted money on a Galaxy Metal Gear NAS, and read mostly lukewarm reviews for Netgear, Iomega, Linksys, and other makers. Other NAS devices like the DLNA-enabled Buffalo Technology LinkStation Live were attractive, but their price point or storage capacity was not. I need a large number of bays to create a centralized media server.

When I outgrew the DNS-323, I bought a DNS321 2-bay when I really should have applied that $130 toward this 4-bay product instead. I wanted to consolidate the half dozen 1 TB external drives I had sitting around and network them so I didn't have to keep plugging and unplugging USB cables when I wanted to retrieve files. My home network is heterogeneous and I also needed the ability to write large files (4 GB+) to the drives. FAT32 is the only mutually writable format across XP and Mac, but it has a 4 GB filesize limit, making it impractical for my movie storage needs. The D-Link uses a Linux file system (ext2 or ext3, your choice), so filesize concerns are now gone.

I've had this product for a week, and so far so good. The device can be configured from any web browser, so you don't need the CD (which is a Windows-only configuration app). I have 1 TB Hitachi and WD drives inside. Build quality is solid (made of thick aluminum). It's a brick of a device and looks quite durable.

For the price, I am not expecting world class security and many bells and whistles. I just need it for storing my personal files and media on my home network, and stream them, and for that, it works to my satisfaction. The iTunes server works very nicely. For file transfers, I FTP to it and do all my copying that way. For some reason, the Mac is a lot faster (20MB/sec) than copying from XP (10MB/sec). Vista is the worse, and I usually get 5MB/sec.

It would've been really great for D-link to include BitTorrent support for this, like the DNS-323. Maybe in a future firmware update.

All in all, I'm quite happy with this product. I don't place heavy expectations on it and don't demand $1,500 server performance from a $370 device. It was the cheapest 4-bay NAS I could find for the features I wanted and gives great overall performance for the price. You can install telnet on it (look for Fonz's funplug) and open the device up to more hacking if you are so inclined.

Will update this review as I use the device more.

There weren't a lot of positive reviews out there but I took a chance and bought this NAS and I am very happy I didn't listen to the bad reviews listed here and another site. This was the cheapest 4 drive NAS I could find and it is from a reputable company and it works great. Since I bought it I see that it has come down in price which makes it even better of a deal. Now that I know how well it performs this is a no brainer when compared to all the higher priced 4 Bay NAS available (cough...Netgear).

The NAS itself is very well built...solid construction and not flimsy plastic like some of the others I have read about. Installing the drives in the NAS is very sturdy. You do not need to install rails like some other companies and don't have to worry about anything snapping. Drive bays are all numbered and has the newest firmware now has automatic power throttling fans (when I first turned on the unit the fans didn't start up and I thought the unit was defective and then 1 minute later they automatically kicked on...very cool feature). The unit is very quiet (for me at least), even with the fans running. Another nice feature is this unit has a gigabit connection.

Two very minor things I wasn't crazy about was how easily the front panel can slide off...didn't see a locking mech to keep it closed (maybe it did and I just didn't see it). That being said, my NAS is in a location where it won't be touched or moved around so this is not a big deal. Second, the web interface is just OK but could be a lot better. Feels like the interface to my Linksys router. I read somewhere that it is similar to d-link's router interface but I can't confirm that. Again, this is not a big deal.

I found it convenient that after creating the RAID1 array the software had an option to map the NAS volume as a drive letter on your computer for easy access. I have not had the opportunity to test the actually transfer speeds but I copied several gigs (10GB) of data to it without any speed problems. I was even able to set up an email alert if the drives have any problems.

The OLED on the front states the current HD health, IPs, drive capacity readouts, etc. The OLED goes to sleep after not being used for a while. The rear is pretty basic, two fans, 4 HD releases, USB Connection, Gigabit Ethernet port and a cable clip. The DNS-343 has so many features that I just haven't had time to look into yet including FTP or the Print server to name a few.

Most importantly, I was able to connect my Tvix M-6500A Media Center to the d-link and stream HD movies from it without a hiccup. My next step is to buy (4) 1.5 TB HDs to setup a RAID 5 on it.

I am sure there are other points I am forgetting so if anybody has any questions or like me to test anything please leave a comment asking and I will try to help you.

Overall I am extremely happy that I have purchased this unit and VERY surprised at the negative reviews here and other sites (must be non techies). I would definitely buy again and probably will be soon.

I waited for a while before sharing my opinion because I've had a couple other NAS boxes that seemed great out of the box but didn't turn out well after a bit of use.

- It's very quick. I haven't done any formal tests but I copy large video files back and forth and I'm quite happy with the speed.

- Extremely stable. The only time I've had to reboot was when I updated firmware.

- Good solid hardware. Although I agree with another reviewer that the face comes off too easily. But like him I keep it in a closet so I never touch it.

- I'm very happy it doesn't come with any drives. I already owned 3 500GB drives and set it up for RAID 5. If you buy one with pre-installed drives that don't match the size you already have you either can't build a RAID 5 config or you end up not utilizing some space since drives in the array need to be provisioned the same size.

- UPS interface that automatically recognized the APC 350 that I connected it to. It monitors the battery life left and it's nice to know that it can shut itself down gracefully if the power goes out.

- The very best feature: Extensibility! I wasn't initially too happy with performance when using it from a Mac. But I installed AFP using fun plug ([...]) and it totally rocks! It shows up in Finder as an Apple server and it even works with Time Machine. Fun plug is not for the GUI dependent - you must be comfortable at a command line to install it. There are other extensions as well.

We have two Mac Books and two Windows laptops and all are backing up to the DNS without a hitch.

Maybe my expectations were set low because of my previous NAS experiences, but but I have to give it an overall 5 start rating. Especially for the price.

I bought this without too much research and have spent a lot of time with it to make it sing for me. After a lot of work, I've gotten it to a place where I love this thing. Not too expensive and works great for what I need it to do. Which for me was hold a lot of storage (4 drives), be able to use Time Machine on my Macs (even over wireless), and stream Movies to my ps3.

Pluses:
+ Hackable to the extreme, if you have a cross-compiler then you can do pretty much anything with it. Just install funplug.
+ Low noise, low heat generation.
+ Just slightly larger then your hard drives.
+ Supports enough RAID to give you some peace that your data won't vaporize.

Minuses:
- Doesn't work very well out of the box. I spend probably 40-50 hours to get it to the state where it is now for me which allows it to be accessed like a normal mac share, and stream all my videos I've transcoded from it to my PS3.
- Needs more ram/processor, I'm definitively limited by its slow processor and 128MB of ram. Though I can still get good transfer rates out of it.
- You have to install all the same size drives at one time since it only supports normal raid options. When you upgrade you have to reconfigure your array and that means either having 2 arrays or blowing away your current setup during an upgrade and restoring.

Overall: I still love it, as long as you want to spend the time to make it work for you and know what you want from it then it's great. Yes it is a pain to get setup,

If you're looking for a cheap NAS to store some data/backups where speed/performance are not in play, this may be enough for that. I have this NAS for over a year now, as well as a Synology 411+. I'm using this NAS as a secondary backup, but even for that I find that the data transfer speeds I get out of it are in the order of a poor 100Mbit connection (i.e. ~8MB/sec). I have try connecting it to different Gigabit switches, and in the same segment/switch to my Synology 411+, but regardless the difference in data transfer speeds are enormous (>10X compared to the Synology); I have even changed cables to very high quality UTP6, thinking it may be the cable.

As an example, While reordering some of my digital library (composed of large ISOs and software packages) it took about 7hrs to transfer 340GB of data. The total bandwidth I could use was ~7MB/s (even if I tried parallelizing the transfers using different physical drives from the source).

I have setup this NAS as a RAID5 with "supported" WD 1.5TB drives. The array is in healthy conditions, or at least there is nothing reported on the NAS management/maintenance console.

One last thing, even though I bought this NAS exactly about a year ago, I realized 2 weeks later that this model was no longer supported by D-LINK. I have tried to contact them many times, to no avail.

Final comment, if you're looking for a 4-bay NAS, try to increase your budget a little bit and get a Synology or QNAP NAS. Their software and user interface as so much more user friendly and robust, furthermore, their customer support is amazing.

I purchased this device under a good impression of DNS-323. So far, there is no disappointment at all. It works right out of the box. It took me 15 minutes to install 4 x 2Tb WD Green into it and configured it (RAID 5, IP, e-mail, access for 3 persons)through web interface - no software requires to install. It does not have an amazing transfer rate (usually 12mb/s to write and 25Mb/s to read) but the high speed transfer is not a NAS purpose - it should not kill your network. This rate is good enough, for example, for video streaming from it to my Samsung internet ready tv.

I am surprised with amount of the bad reviews. However, one should read them carefully, because these complains have nothing to do with the NAS purpose.

In addition, just out of the box, it allows to create individual and group access, set a quota, run FTP, iTunes and UPnP AV server, plus ability to include third party add-ons.

When one transfer a lot of information (especially at the beginning) the device could go hot then noisy (fans kick on). Do not forget to place it into the cool area if you plan to use it constantly, - it is hard to keep low temperature in the toaster size box with 4 HDDs.

Make sure that you buy this device for the long term storage with quick access purpose. It is not for the regular or day by day work, and it is not for the high speed transfer.

It is a very good tool, but use it right.

Becasue of the negative reviews I've seen, I almost didn't buy the DNS-343. But decided to buy it based upon my good past experience w/ the DNS-323. My experience so far has been good, solid, unspectacular performance. I really like how quiet it is w/ the WD Green drives (there is a time lag after the drives spin down to conserve power). I installed 4 WD 2TB Green drives, and configured it for Raid 1/EXT 3. I plugged it into my home Verizon FIOS wireless LAN. Installation and configuration was easy, although some of the settings/instructions are confusing to a non-Raid guy like me. The first time I formatted the 4 2TB drives, it configured as 3 volumes: 1TB, 2TB, 1TB...not what I expected. So I reformatted it exactly as I did the first time, and the 2nd time it configured it correctly as 2 volumes of 2TB each. But other than that strange behavior, it seems to be working fine. So far I've transferred about 2TB of files to the DMS-343 with no problems...it's not fast, but I don't expect it to be. I can retrive/view videos from the DNS-323 with no problems. There was a momentary electrical power outage during one transfer, which terminated the transfer...after deleting the incomplete file, I started copying files again with no issues. One problem I've had with both the DNS-323 and DNS-343 is that I'm unable to delete files using my Windows Vista computer and have to use my Windows XP computer to delete files...has anyone else had this problem or has a solution?

I have bought 2 of these and they work without problems... both have 4x Seagate 1.5TB 7200.11, each NAS has a single partition of RAID5. The NAS shuts down the drives when idle, this is very good but I guess all NAS do this.

The speed is not very high while transfering files to them (generally 12MB/s), but for me the most important is streaming videos at a good reasonable speed, even blu ray at 1080p stored there works without problems through a gigabit network.

One reviewer said he could not see the drive with problems in the array and this is not right. The external display shows an error message and indicates which drive has problems. Also, the web interface can test each drive individually (even when configured in a RAID5 array). There's both a log test and a quick test. One of the drives I bought was not functioning correctly, and the quick test pointed the bay with the erratic drive (btw, Seagate exchanged the drive without any delay).

I would give it 4 stars because it is just an average (good) product, but I think it deserves an additional star because, in my opinion, many reviewers were not fair and did not have a justifiable reason to give it one star.

I've been running the DNS-343 for approx. 4 months now and have had consistent issues with the device. I'm running a full bay of 4-2TB WD drives arranged in a RAID5 configuration.

Everything seemed fine for the first week or so. After that I noticed that the status of my NAS had changed to "degraded" and the drive monitoring did not show drive 4 as present.

Rebooted the NAS and drive 4 came back along with a 26+ hour resynch which caused massive freezing and glitching to any streaming media (essentially making the media unwatchable until the synch as done). Less than 1 day after the synch finished, the NAS showed as degraded again. Thinking my drive was dead I swapped it out. Luckily I didn't lose any of my data (as others on dlink's own forums have) but experienced the exact same issue as before. It would resynch for over a day then the following day or so it would be degraded with drive 4 missing. I had the original drive 4 tested apart from the NAS and all tests registered the drive as perfectly good.

I searched dlink's forums and found multiple other people were have the exact same issue as mine. Unfortunately dlink has been of NO help in the slightest with this and the forums are pretty much just people crying... no technical help from dlink personnel at all.

Then to top things off, at one point my RAID5 volume "disappeared". No reboots would recover it. The NAS recognized that there were disks in the bays but couldn't find the RAID5 volume anymore. It wanted to setup a new RAID or JBOD and reformat the drives for it (which would effectively destroy all the data I had on it originally). I was initially running firmware version 1.03, after upgrading to version 1.04beta I got lucky and the system found and recovered my RAID5 with all data. Unfortunately beyond that version 1.04b did nothing helpful. The NAS still shows as degraded, disk 4 missing, and resynchs for a day every time I reboot it. Plus now it appears the fan in the back is no longer running. Which is amusing considering that was a known issue that version 1.04 was suppose to fix. As a note the fan ran fine under 1.03, it was the 1.04b that killed it.

There are only a few good points I can say about this device. Even though it was/is degraded I am able to add/remove and stream media from it fine (assuming it wasn't synching at the time). I connected a small usb printer to it and printing via the network attachment to the NAS works fine as well. I have never had an issue printing, though it seems to take awhile for the document to buffer through the NAS for some reason regardless of document type or size.

I can not comment on the other features of the NAS as I have not used them, and don't really intend too. So I have not idea how well the iTunes server, UPnP AV server, bittorrent addon, ftp access, or remote backup run. I am using the NAS as a pure file server, and stream media off it through other outside computer media connections.

This is a cheap 4-bay NAS and will probably work for you, but I am very highly disappointed with it (and with Dlink's response to it) and would highly suggest you look at a different NAS solution. I am extremely concerned with this consistently "lost drive" and the 26+ hour resynching that occurs every time the NAS powers down for any reason. I have since moved all my critical items to other areas and use this as "throw away" storage as I am fully expecting to completely lose everything on it at some point and not be able to recover it.

Love my two dlink dns-323s but the dns-343 is a lemon. Never managed to format 4 drives into a successful raid 5 volume. They nicely replaced the unit but the second one was no better. The machine runs hot and I suspect fails due to heat, but it would randomly drop drives, build a volume then forget about it. Undocumented flashing lights on the panel, and unhelpful error messages (after an hour of formatting, at 100% complete it announced error 127 had occurred, then upon reboot it suggests I put the drives back in the correct order and refuses to do anything till i comply) etc etc. I wanted this to work - it's a cute box and the concept is great, but execution failed somewhere. Useless $500+ paperweight in nice brushed black metal that probably fried 4 perfectly (previously working) drives.