Move Over DNS-323: D-Link DNS-321 Reviewed

[thiggins]

Aside from two minor omissions, D-Link's new, less expensive dual-drive NAS has what it takes to replace D-Link's top-selling BYOD NAS.

[Spiken]

I think USB ports are really important on a nas :

- I m agree to say that print servers thrown into routers and NASes are a crapshoot but if you have a simple usb printer to share in your home lan, do you have to switch on your pc all the time to share it ?

- It can be very useful to add/expand storage to your nas connecting an usb drive to it. You can also separate critical data (stored in raid one) and non critical (usb storage)

- Some of the nas support apc protection (by the official firmware or community), but no chance here to support it one day.

[djy8131]

I have tried 2 Dlink DNS 321 units and they both exhibit the same probelm. When you try and give a user permissions to the share and reboot the box, ALL share permissions are removed. All other settings on the 321 remain intact. Dlink level 2 support said they have heard of this before but this is really a glaring error that makes it unusable for me. I am also using a supported hard drive.

[djy8131]

I figured the problem out on my own. The DNS loses all its permissions if you only have 1 drive installed. Now that i added another and established a RAID 1 set, it works fine. Hope they fix this bug soon!

[Unregistered]

Try using an alternative firmware to fix the settings issue.

[Unregistered]

The loss of share permissions is not related to the number of hard drives. I have two drives (standard formatting) and I also lose my permissions on reboot (and any backup schedules I created). Tech support told me to try JBOD formatting.
Why they can't retain settings with standard formatting is a mystery, and it sure gives me a low opinion of D-Link.

[MAK4MAX]

Hello,
Recently, I got a DNS-321. I could not see it on my Vista after enabling UPnP on DNS-321.
Any special settings required to see my NAS drive in windows vista? can I use windows media player to stream movie/songs from my NAS?

[thiggins]

Hello,
Recently, I got a DNS-321. I could not see it on my Vista after enabling UPnP on DNS-321.
Any special settings required to see my NAS drive in windows vista? can I use windows media player to stream movie/songs from my NAS?
Try this thread (http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=470).

[Unregistered]

The loss of share permissions is not related to the number of hard drives. I have two drives (standard formatting) and I also lose my permissions on reboot (and any backup schedules I created). Tech support told me to try JBOD formatting.
Why they can't retain settings with standard formatting is a mystery, and it sure gives me a low opinion of D-Link.


where can one find alternate firmware? I know about router f/w for both linksys and d-link, but i haven't found any for this.

Yes google is my friend, however if anyone knows of any real links to custom f/w please post!

thanks!

[Unregistered]

D-Link currently is not offering any firmware updates (as I'm sure you've discovered), and I wouldn't expect any from them soon. Tech support says that this is not a popular device and that's why they have so little troubleshooting info available for it. To me that translates to "don't expect a firmware revision anytime soon"

[Unregistered]

Thanks for the review, and especially for testing the RAID1 recovery.

So with it being formatted EXT2, am I correct in my Linux newbie understanding, that I could, if need be, yank a drive from the 321, attach it to a Linux system and it will mount and be accessible there?

Thanks.

[FromageTheDog]

D-Link currently is not offering any firmware updates (as I'm sure you've discovered), and I wouldn't expect any from them soon. Tech support says that this is not a popular device and that's why they have so little troubleshooting info available for it. To me that translates to "don't expect a firmware revision anytime soon"
These have been going in and out of stock at Amazon for the last couple weeks, which implies to me that they are selling reasonably well. Like many people, it seems, I'm also waiting and watching for what happens re: updated firmware before deciding whether or not to buy.

If you go by what the D-Link forums are saying, the update is in final testing.

Say what you want about the DNS-321; the price is vastly better than any other 2-bay NAS with similar feature-set!

P.S. -- "Vote Now" to commit my edit?

[thiggins]

So with it being formatted EXT2, am I correct in my Linux newbie understanding, that I could, if need be, yank a drive from the 321, attach it to a Linux system and it will mount and be accessible there?
Yes, that's correct.

[Unregistered]

These have been going in and out of stock at Amazon for the last couple weeks, which implies to me that they are selling reasonably well. Like many people, it seems, I'm also waiting and watching for what happens re: updated firmware before deciding whether or not to buy.

If you go by what the D-Link forums are saying, the update is in final testing.

Say what you want about the DNS-321; the price is vastly better than any other 2-bay NAS with similar feature-set!

First, thanks Mr. Higgins for replying about my EXT2 question. That was the answer I was hoping for! Cool!

Next, price... I picked mine up a couple weeks ago from TigerDirect... they had them on sale for $99.

Last, this thing is great! I put a couple drives in last week. Turned it on. Configured it from its admin website. Tonight I just did a Windows "Map Network Drive", pointed at the "\\theNASdevicename\Volume_1", and picked a drive letter to use. Bam! Just as though I had a Windows file server sitting out there! No probs! Next I'm using BeyondCompare to backup some of my files! Cool beans this is!

[MikeF]

Thanks for the review, Tim.

Even though this seems to be the best value for a RAID 1 SMB server, it still seems a little flaky for me to trust my critical backup data to. Based on ten years of painful experience, I don't trust most consumer product vendors to fix even basic functionality issues like you've mentioned.

I'm liking my simple Ubuntu/Win2K file server running on a 10 year old, 200 Mhz, K6 system; it will get even better after my next system upgrade/flowdown :-).

[Unregistered]

I noted on the DLink website that although both the 321 and 323 are advertised as having gigabit ports, only the 323 is compatible with the Gigabit standard 803.3ab according to the spec sheet for both models.

If the 321 is not compatible with the gigabit standard, how can it be capable of utilizing a gigabit port? It seems the 321 may only be a fast ethernet capable NAS.

[thiggins]

I wouldn't worry about it. I have tested both at gigabit speeds and they work fine and support jumbo frames up to 9k.

[sid700]

Hello. I'm a newbie to NAS and I have a question.

I put in a single 1 TB samsung in this NAS, and now, I would like to buy another harddrive (also a 1 TB samsung) and set up a RAID 1. Do I have to backup and clear the current drive, set up the raid and then load the NAS? Or is there an easier way?

[Unregistered]

I put two Seagate ST31500341AS (Barracuda 7200.11) 1.5 TB hard drives into DNS-321 and while the drives were detected, the size was misreported as 0 GB. Called d-Link technical support and they say the DNS-321 is compatible only with drives up to 1 TB.

Be forewarned!

[louisw]

I put two Seagate ST31500341AS (Barracuda 7200.11) 1.5 TB hard drives into DNS-321 and while the drives were detected, the size was misreported as 0 GB. Called d-Link technical support and they say the DNS-321 is compatible only with drives up to 1 TB.

Be forewarned!

Have you tried upgrading your firmware.

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=3617.0

[claykin]

Have you tried upgrading your firmware.

http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=3617.0

Dlink released V1.01 the day after they released V1.00. No indication it supports drives larger than 1TB.

The DNS series of NAS boxes are toys. Should be sold in Toys R Us. Actually, should come with a disclaimer that says "this is a toy, don't deploy in real world situations".

See here:

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=800

[Unregistered]

The loss of share permissions is not related to the number of hard drives. I have two drives (standard formatting) and I also lose my permissions on reboot (and any backup schedules I created). Tech support told me to try JBOD formatting.
Why they can't retain settings with standard formatting is a mystery, and it sure gives me a low opinion of D-Link.

When I rebooted I had to re-map the shared volumes. I thought I may have been doing something wrong. It's just a monir annoyance but I cant believe that D-Link won't come up with a fix for this in the form of a firmware update. Boo! >:-O

[Unregistered]

Hello. I'm a newbie to NAS and I have a question.

I put in a single 1 TB samsung in this NAS, and now, I would like to buy another harddrive (also a 1 TB samsung) and set up a RAID 1. Do I have to backup and clear the current drive, set up the raid and then load the NAS? Or is there an easier way?

Ask yourself this, "Can I afford to lose everything on my existing drive?" --Thought so. (Otherwise you wouldn't be asking.)

So, back up (whatever's important to you) on that existing drive!

Murphy will bite your @$$ on this one !!!

[tomrabelo]

Hey buddys, I'm really concern on buying one DNS-321... but I'm in doubt, is any difference nowadays between DNS-321 and DNS-323? Excluding the USB port... I have googled about it, but I couldnt find much... I really need the bittorrent client, and I found some people that said that installed transmission on DNS-321. Is it possible to do all hacks (DNS-323) on DNS-321?? The DNS-321 is about 40 buck cheaper..
thanks in advance guys

[Unregistered]

dns -321 has no firmware updates but the 323 d does

[Unregistered]

dns-321 now has new firmware available.

V1.02 was released 06/15/2009

http://www.dlink.ca/products/?pid=DNS-321

[Unregistered]

The DNS-321 firmware release 1.03 contains quite a few new features. See http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=DNS-321 for a complete list.

[Unregistered]

I just plugged in my DNS-321 and it did not correctly list my 1.5TB Samsung Spinpoint drives. The interface listed them as 0MB drives. The firmware shipped was 1.00. After upgrading the firmware to 1.03, the drives are displaying correctly as 1500MB. I wanted to post this so that others do not think this is still a limitation.