Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Not For Data Critical Application!, February 10, 2009
First some important features that were over looked in the design of this NAS.
1. The is no way to determine which drive in the raid needs to be replaced. No LED for each drive (as most systems have), no single disc testing in the software.
2. NOT hot swappable
3. No Ability to create specific shares. If you use RAID 5, you get a single raid volume whether that is what you want or not.
Tech support: I am no techie but it's scary when level 1 and level 2 support technician don't know a RAID array from a can of insectiside.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent NAS at a Great Price, November 25, 2008
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.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very good NAS solution if you need a simple way to store lots of data, July 8, 2009
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.
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