D-Link DNS-323 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure

Pros: Extremely stable. Quiet and reliable.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I've had this running since May of 2009. It's been on a UPS and has NEVER EVER been powered down since the installation. I have my entire music library stored on this NAS using two 1T drives. I back up daily just in-case, but to the date of this review I have not been let down. This NAS is used daily for music playback and storage. This has been a really great purchase.

Pros: Built-in FTP, media, iTunes servers for sharing content in your home with an extensible Unix-lite shell to run powerful applications like PHP Web server and much more. SATA drives transfer data quickly, especially over Gigabit ethernet, and RAID seems to be stable and comforting.

I've had this NAS running on my network for over five years without any hardware failures. That's impressive!

Cons: Runs really hot and the fan is loud. The Fonz Funplug shell extension allows for upgrades to fan management though, so it's worth tinkering a bit.

After a few months of use the faceplate came unglued and doesn't stay attached unless you glue it back in yourself.

The front cover rattles while the disks are spinning and that gets annoying.

Other Thoughts: Overall this is a great little storage server with plenty of features for the novice and expert alike. I only hope the newer models have some of the kinks worked out for when I have to replace mine.

Pros: Reasonably quiet, nice-looking, solidly built, reasonably easy set-up, although DLink could create "Quick Setup" software for ALL their products to make it easier for less-knowledgeable users...

Cons: Slow for streaming, access not as fast as wired external drives. Proprietary HDD formatting. Need to be fairly picky with your choice of HDD's. RESEARCH THIS BEFORE YOU BUY!

Other Thoughts: I use this as a place to back my files up to, not everyday access, so the slower speed doesn't matter to me.

The unit is very quiet under normal use. Typically, the only sound is the HDD's clicking. How loud that is depends on the HDD's you install. In my case, it's a low, muffled sound when the head arms make a big move. I have the same HDD's in my tower, which is further away from me than the DNS323, yet I can hear them better. So, IMHO the sound-deadening in the DLink is very good. The cooling fan is controlled thermostatically, and while noticeable when it fires up, it quickly fades into the usual "background noise" of a standard computer set-up. I find that the cooling fan runs only about 25-33% of the time when I'm actively using it, and less when it is just sitting there, powered up.

My only REAL complaint with this is the way it formats the HDD's. If the DLink itself dies, you're basically out of luck.

For the price, and for what I use it for, this is a nice, versatil

Pros: Quiet
Inexpensive
Great UI in management panel.

Cons: Didn't work with the drive I put into it until I updated the firmware.
Very slow, The speeds capped at 13MB/s writes and 22MB/s reads. (I couldn't stream 1080 videos across the network)

Other Thoughts: Being very nitpicky about the speeds of the transfers for network devices, this was just not for me. I got it and returned it to newegg within a week. For a budget NAS this product is great, but if you want speed or more than one person streaming music/video off of it you should probably look for another solution.
I ended up getting a Synology NAS because it has very fast speeds. They are much more costly though, but it all breaks down to cost == speed.

Pros: Inexpensive, fairly easy to use.

Cons: Not compatible with newer WD drives,
RAID 1 not reliable,
Could lose your data!

Other Thoughts: I've been using this for a year or two now and it largely work fine (after getting it configured with drives it supports), but twice now I've had the RAID 1 array degrade on me without any HDD failures. I don't know why this happens, but as a result I don't trust the enclosure to maintain my data.

Review this list of critical known bugs before purchasing:

http://wiki.dns323.info/information:known_issues

Pros: I've had the DNS-323 for several years now, and just purchased a second one. It can be a little confusing adding users and permissions at times, but it does what it is supposed to. I also access this from remote locations via FTP which works well, and a the latest firmware FAQ states it now supports secure FTP, I have in the past used the UPnP for media.
I only wish that D-Link would get their heads out of their *** and just allow the USB port to service another external drive. I know there was some gifted linux guys that wrote patches/additional code to allow this some time back, although I never tried it.
It has been a while since D-Link has updated the firmware, so I can't help but wonder if they are still actively supporting the product, yes there is still support for it, but wonder if they are still looking at any new features or updates. I do agree at some point, every product just gets to where it is the best it's ever going to be, and maybe this is it.

Cons: The only 'con' I can find, is when this unit is on sale, it is a great value. when not, it is a bit pricey as are all NAS boxes.

Other Thoughts: Overall, I am very pleased with the DNS-323, it is a great unit and would not hesitate to purchase a third.

Pros: Very attractive exterior. I like the indicators on the front of the unit... its easy to turn around and see if the thing is being accessed and which drive is being accessed, if its still booting up, etc. The drive release system handle is easy to pull back on. The front plate that conceals the drives and serves as the button to turn the unit on/off has never misaligned when replacing. Reliable under very basic configurations.

Cons: Unit gets too warm. The JBOD implementation in the firmware is HORRIBLE or maybe JBOD is just horrible in general! (I noticed a newer model WITHOUT JBOD support). Progress/update/new features are non-existent. Unit is HORRRIBLY slow. Was getting only getting speeds of 11mb/sec using windows explorer file transfer system. Made sure every single component from the cable being 1GBit compatible (cat7), the router being set to 1GBit compatible(it is rated 10/100/1000 with this feature enabled), another cat7 cable, to my gaming computer... which when I hover over the network icon, says 1000/MBiS. I still get this speed. I got in and started horsing around with settings and hard drive configs, etc, and now I get 4.72MBy/s. I bought a new hard drive and put it in this unit, got 11MBy/s... I tried ext2 with the new drive with the same result. As mentioned in my previous review, I have had many file-loss woes, even though Im using the recommended ext3 file system for reliability.

Other Thoughts: Seems like they could just modify the firmware to do some of what they do in a new model, like much-anticipated NTFS support. There are several un-addressed issues that are causing me to buy an anonymous different brand of NAS and mothballing this one... It is causing me to spend and extra 200$ on something I already have a semi-functional network appliance of. They come out with newer and/or more expensive models of this that have some of the features NAS users have been asking for...

Pros: Sleek design, rubber strips on the bottom to prevent NAS from sliding around. Very easy to assemble and slide hard drives in.

Cons: Power button's location is off, had to remove the face plate to reset. Takes forever to reset (about 3 minutes). DDNS configuration could be a little easier.

Pros: Nice NAS. It is more on the basic side and easy to setup. It has support for 2TB Drives. I am running 2 X WD Green Drives in it. Very small, it is not much larger than the 2 drives and power cord.

Cons: Speed is not the best, I think it maybe the unit but could be the green drives I am using. According to others they have some speed complaints. This unit could be fast but for the price I think it is acceptable.

Other Thoughts: I did not and most likely will not setup up the print server so I can not comment on that.

I either do a direct copy or have used Acronis.

I have had and used this version and the Dlink 321, which is similar.

Does not support NTFS only EXT - do your research and be prepared to format your drives.

Pros: Can use large drives

Cons: Very slow. Takes up to 60 seconds to give a directory listing when browsing over the network.

Other Thoughts: I've been an IT guy for nearly 20 years and this has to be one of the most frustrating pieces of equipment I've ever used. At least when something doesn't work at all you can replace it. This thing does work, but half the time you have to wait nearly a full minute just to get a directory listing to show up in Windows Explorer. Other times things work fine. I have all DLink hardware on a gigabit network. This thing should scream. Instead, I'm the one doing the screaming. :-)