# Dlink NAS-323 Home Storage Unit - a mini-review



## Irreverent (May 6, 2009)

With the growing amount of devices at home, it was time to find a cheap, robust storage solution for the house.  The mate and I both have laptops, a couple of home computers, the odd linux box.  Backing stuff up to dvd was becoming a PITA.  So picked one of these up on Monday night.  Its a Dlink-323 network attached storage device, with a 1gb ethernet port.

Dropped two 1tb sata Seagate* drives into it, connected the power and network to a local switch and fired it up.  Total time from out of the box to running was 10 minutes, including the time it took to pry the 1tb drives out of their plastic shipping cases and bundling up all the cords.  Updating the firmware to 1.07, formatting the disks in a RAID-1 configuration and building security groups and file permissions took another 30 minutes.  The box has a bunch of features that need to be turned off (auto raid rebuild, dhcp server, some vista specific crap) but most of the other features are on by default.  Support for iTunes server, UpnP media services and an FTP server seem both simple and secure enough for home use.

Its now configured to do automatic backup of all the devices, consolidating all of the important data onto the RAID.  A second machine then uploads that data to my ISP's personal-vault solution, providing additional protection against a loss of the device.   Since the box runs Debian, it might be possible to add this feature directly to the NAS, but that's a project for another day.  

If you're looking for a home NAS solution, you should consider the Dlink DNS-323.  



* yeah, yeah, they were cheap.


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## Eevee (May 6, 2009)

I don't think you really need to drop $200 on this.  Just throw Linux on some old hardware and set up a cron.


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## ToeClaws (May 6, 2009)

I agree with Eevee - prebuilt solutions are pricey, not to mention a little too automatic.  The use of UPnP for example is scary - that protocol should always be avoided.  You could build an older machine for next to nothing, then shove FreeNAS on it.

Of course... prebuilt solutions do require a lot less time to setup and get running (minutes as opposed to hours).  

Or you could do neither, like me, because of being too lazy to spend that much time on _any_ centralized storage solution.


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## Irreverent (May 6, 2009)

Eevee said:


> I don't think you really need to drop $200 on this.  Just throw Linux on some old hardware and set up a cron.



Leaving the price of the actual disks out of it (cause I needed them anyway):

I probably would have spent close to the same beefing up an old box (quieter power supplies, memory, nic card, sata controller, maybe a new mobo etc) and then there's the time component to install and configure the OS, script the backups etc.  Life's too short.

This thing is a super quite, super cool running....toaster.   Plug, configure, forget.  Given that NOT having a backup of my mate's critical files can lead to somewhat....ah, limited procreation activities, its money well spent. 



ToeClaws said:


> Of course... prebuilt solutions do require a lot less time to setup and get running (minutes as opposed to hours).



Pretty much why I bought it.



> Or you could do neither, like me, because of being too lazy to spend that much time on _any_ centralized storage solution.



:shock: A risk I dare not take.  See, "limited procreation activities" above.


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## Shino (May 6, 2009)

I've got an old HP Pavilion tower kicking around at home that I throw all of my old hard drives into. It's running Server 2008 RC2 (before that 2003), and it acts as both NAS and Media Center server.

This serves three purposes: gives me centralized backup for all the compys kicking around the house, gives all of my old hard drives (and I've got a lot) a second life (it currently has 9 HDs installed, 7 internal via IDE and SATA, 2 external via eSATA and FireWire), and it gives me a system to beta-test new MS server OSes.

Granted, I babysit it a fair amount, but I wouldn't have it any other way. (Gives me something to do when I'm not here or playing CS:S.)

Also, I do a critical file backup onto DL Blu-Rays one a month. 50GB a disc makes it well worth the cost of having the drive on my primary tower.


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## Irreverent (May 7, 2009)

Shino said:


> Also, I do a critical file backup onto DL Blu-Rays one a month. 50GB a disc makes it well worth the cost of having the drive on my primary tower.



Too much like work. :razz:

That's why I want to be able to script the backup to my ISP's 1 petabyte personal vault (yeah, its shared, wadda want for $6 per month?)  

Because if I forget to make a backup, we'll lose the house a month later and all of my mate's "critical" files will be gone.......


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## net-cat (May 7, 2009)

I keep meaning to grab myself a couple of 1TB drives and put them in RAID 1. Lazy.



Irreverent said:


> all of my mate's "critical" files


... porn?

Okay, kidding.

Though I work in a computer repair shop on the weekends. You wouldn't believe how many people come in with a dead computer and need us to get "critical" files off their computer. However, when we actually do the backup, there's not one single, solitary DOC, XLS, ODT or WPD file on the hard drive. Just a lot of AVI and MPG files.


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## ToeClaws (May 7, 2009)

net-cat said:


> I keep meaning to grab myself a couple of 1TB drives and put them in RAID 1. Lazy.
> 
> ... porn?
> 
> ...



*chuckles* Yeah, I totally sympathize with the lazy factor.  And yeah, SO many people don't even seem to think about backups until something goes wrong.  I mean come on now... PC's have been pretty common place in most homes since the since the 1990's, and "backup your data!" has been trumpeted since the beginning.

Crazy thing is though, people just don't think about it.  Pair that with the fact that a lot of novice users (IE, like my parents), also are intimidated by the complexities of it... even though it's really not very hard.  What gets me all the more is that it's SO easy to back stuff up nowadays too - solid state media is HUGE, easy to get, and very affordable and if you're only backing up irreplaceable stuff, a simple USB drive is enough for most folks.

Ah well... we digress.


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## Eevee (May 7, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> I probably would have spent close to the same beefing up an old box (quieter power supplies, memory, nic card, sata controller, maybe a new mobo etc)


I'm not sure you understand this whole "old hardware" thing  8)



Irreverent said:


> and then there's the time component to install and configure the OS, script the backups etc.  Life's too short.


Installation is non-interactive and would take maybe two minutes of actual time.  Scripting the backups consists of..  writing a two-line cp -l/rsync cron, and maybe setting up ssh keys or something.  Shouldn't be more time than you spent.



Irreverent said:


> This thing is a super quite, super cool running....toaster.   Plug, configure, forget.


I guess I don't trust toasters to do much more than warm bread, and even then only when checked manually.

Plus I can make a spare Linux box do whatever I want, rather than having a toaster for backups and a toaster to hold/play media and a toaster to do routing and a toaster to run this or that daemon...


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## Irreverent (May 7, 2009)

net-cat said:


> ... porn?



No, those are _my_ files.  And I keep them backed up on the 'Net.   I also have a huge collection of sea shells that I keep on beaches all over the world. 

My mate's critical files are anything deemed "critical."  As in, "I lost this file, but its _your _fault."  Why yes, I'm whipped. Its mostly family records, photos, an engineering thesis or two, some of my mates work stuff.



Eevee said:


> I'm not sure you understand this whole "old hardware" thing  8)



Oh I do. Its just that I raked out the basement lab over christmas and gave all the old but functioning stuff to the local women's shelter.  I did keep one box, but I had other plans for it.



> Plus I can make a spare Linux box do whatever I want, rather than having a toaster for backups and a toaster to hold/play media and a toaster to do routing and a toaster to run this or that daemon...



See, I'm an old ops guy, I don't like too many eggs in one basket; I prefer specialization, routers that route, firewalls that firewall, NAS that, well, NASses.  Sure you can do it all on one "old hardware box", but when that box goes tango uniform, you're off line for the duration of the repair.

Ironically, the DNS323 is a Debian box, so I may funplug it and then run a few more things on it.


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## Carenath (May 7, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> See, I'm an old ops guy, I don't like too many eggs in one basket; I prefer specialization, routers that route, firewalls that firewall, NAS that, well, NASses.  Sure you can do it all on one "old hardware box", but when that box goes tango uniform, you're off line for the duration of the repair.


That's fine.. but I've found that 'routers that route, firewalls that firewall' are just plain shit.

When my old desktop went tango uniform, I threw a bunch of money at it to turn it into an on-off dev server, which seemed like a decent idea.. put a nice HDD in it, and I could use it to mess around with server daemons. What I learned in that time.. was just how shit consumer-grade 'routers' and 'firewalls' where.. they all failed at simple security concepts... and keeled over if you did anything beyond 'just surfing and a email'.
I had a Netgear WPN824 and it would crap out if I ran MSN on the PC.. rebooting at random intervals unless I closed it. It completely failed to offer me any usable methods of restricting the bandwidth used by other persons on the network. It completely failed at offering me any kind of usable firewall.
I got rid of it and bought a (sadly v7) Linksys WRT54G... complete fail. It suffered from the same lackings in terms of usable features as the netgear system... and it was even worse at blocking webpages (I used to block ad servers at the router level). To add insult to injury.. the fracking thing went into a reboot spaz if you used P2P or BitTorrent applications... or if I enabled UPnP.
I got rid of that and bought a Netgear WNR834B. Finally something that seemed to give me what I was looking for... only its stock firmware had the same limitations as its predecessors... fortunatly, with 16MB of Flash Memory and a generous amount of RAM.. it wasnt hard to install DD-WRT and use that. DD-WRT had its bugs, but it mostly did what I wanted.. it wasnt quite there, but it was a step closer.

I decided the only course of action to give me my cake and eat it... was to build my own router using Linux and the server machine I had. That was a trial in patience thanks to Debian's retarded kernel developers.
I require outgoing PPTP to be forwarded through the firewall for my dad, who needs it to connect to his work network. Debian completely failed at this... thanks to a kernel bug that was patched in 2005.. and Debian failed to include that patch, even in the current version of the kernel they provide (2.6.18 last I checked). Even Ubuntu which provided 2.6.27.. failed. I later installed CentOS and it worked perfectly, and I steer clear of Debian and its derivatives ever since.

So I have one machine on my network.. that does all the work, because I dont have a rack of machines.. and even if I went and bought them... I dont have a cabinet, enough space or enough electrical power. I found that a cheap old PC, running Linux does a better job as a router or firewall... than most of those corporate grade systems. About the only corporate grade hardware I'd be interested in.. is a switch with PoE.

The specifications for Behementh.. are listed here, along with a picture of my setup: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2211557
I save everything onto the server.. and I have a 500GB external hard drive (I will probably replace the actual drive in it.. with a 1.5TB SATA drive down the road.. or buy a cheap NAS to plug into the network.


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## jagdwolf (May 7, 2009)

Thanks Irre.   I just might look into that.  gonna start some serious aircraft designs and a special project I have been working on the old tyme computers, you know...paper and pencil, but its time to put my work somewhere I can save it should a snafu happen...I'm sure you've met that Murphy guy!


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## whoadamn (May 9, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> maybe a new mobo etc


it is definitely not an xbox after that, and if you do end up doing that post pics because that'd be one godly mod.

edit: conversion.


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## Irreverent (May 9, 2009)

whoadamn said:


> it is definitely not an xbox after that, and if you do end up doing that post pics because that'd be one godly mod.
> 
> edit: conversion.



Yeah, I think you took that out of context.  I was comparing the price of a NAS323 to that of an "old pc box" after I did all of the upgrades it needs to run.


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