D-Link Network Storage Enclosure
D-Link DNS-321 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure

I purchased this NAS to stream video, music, and pictures to my Xbox Media Center. I put a 2 TB SATA drive in the system, formatted the drive, and started using it. No problems and the looks make it a nice addition to my home theater setup. The power saving features work perfect without any issues when you start streaming. The advanced features are cool and make the NAS a really great value.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I bought this as a backup storage device for my network and it works perfectly for my needs. I back up 3 Linux servers, 4 Windows workstations, 1 Linux laptop and 1 Windows laptop to it and have not had a single hardware related problem in the month it's been up and running. I did have to perform the bios update because the two Seagate Barracuda 1.5T drives in RAID0 configuration showed 0 space available at first, but the bios update solved that. The Windows backup software included is a little lacking... it failed on 3 out of 5 backups, but that was because of Windows file locks on key files; would be nice if the SW had a facility to skip locked files, or not fail the backup. Overall, easy set-and-forget operation once you find a backup software solution that's right for you; I ended up using an old version of Arcsoft TotalMedia Backup that I got with an older USB drive instead of the included utility for my Windows machines; Linux uses simple bzipped tar on a cron job because the unit mounts easily with fstab and samba.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I have only used this as a Network Attached Drive and haven't tried the other features yet but so far it has been reliable and all the computers at my house have recognized the drive so far. I have XP and Vista machines and they all work well with the drive. I am quite satisfied with my purchase.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Gigabit network port, dual SATA hard drives with RAID, fast startup -- what more do you need? Great overall performance and I love the fact that they don't pretend it's all proprietary technology, so you can pick the drives you want to plug in, and the filesystem and O/S are standard linux. I am using the DNS-321 as the primary hard drive for all the computers, and I don't really see much performance difference over local hard drives (so long as the computers also have gigabit NICs). The complete setup process is probably a bit tricky for first-time users, but I have yet to see a NAS device that you can just plug in and have basic security already setup.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I have this unit connected to my wired router and it allows me to run 2 each 1.5 T drives thru a single network connection. I am also running the DNS-323 (with a printer server) and 2 each 1.5 T drives. I also connected a WIRELESS NETWORK STORAGE ENCLOSURE 3.5 INCH BAY 1-GIG. PORT 802.11G - DSM-G600 with 2 USB connection (external 1.5 T and 1 T drives)and an internal 750 IDE drive that works to make all drives available wireless to my laptop. A total of 9.25 T of storage on 3 newtwork connections, all available on a secured wireless network.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I purchased this until because I wanted to have a better system for backing up all 6 computers on my home office network. It's worked great and the ability to access files remotely has been a giant bonus.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Unit is well built and very quiet. I have this on 24-7, I measured power draw with no drives to be 5 only Watts! Individual drive powerdown works great. UPNP server works with XBOX 360 (Download the latest firmware). I also stream movies in DVD-VOB format using XBMC, never a problem. Also installed fun-plug to use ssh and WinSCP for secure remote access. fun-plug is great because it does not change the internal firmware and can be easily disabled to keep unit as shipped from factory. Highly recommended.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I recieved this unit and installed a 1.5 TB drive. It formated it self. The setup is very easy!. I have been using it now for a few weeks and it works great. I have been using Smart Sync Pro to do automatic backups and when a folder or file is changed. I am very happy with this product.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I bought the D-Link DNS-321 to back up the computers on my home office network and to provide access to some files over the Internet via FTP. From the time I opened the box until I had it running on my network with FTP access and back-ups running was less than 90 minutes. As noted in a few other reviews, file transfer speed when downloading files over the Internet is slow. I have no other complaints. It just works.
 
Was this review helpful?    

This unit is great and is serving me well. There a re few things to watch out for: 1) You must use SATA-2 disks. SATA-1 will not work. 2) Take the software that came with it and throw it out. Set the unit up via the default web page. One minor complaint: I wish I didn't have to specify my password every time I logged into the drive. I would like the ability to connect on reboot without having to initialize the connection every time. Other than that, this is a good unit and well worth the price. We have three different laptops and it's nice to have everything centralized now.
 
Was this review helpful?    

This hard drive enclosure works great. Replaced my WD500GB MyBook which continually crashed on me. Now I can access my files from anywhere at high speeds. Figuring out the ftp setup was fairly straightforward and works just as I had hoped.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Put 2 Seagate 1.5TB as Raid-1. Easy setup. Not very fast, but for home NAS is more than enough. so far, so good. Make sure: 1. 2-HD are running the same version of firmware, when possible, and 2. upgrade the DNS-321 firmware to support 1.5TB drive.
 
Was this review helpful?    

To start off, I'm very tech-savvy, but my only weakness is in networking. Well, if you know how to read simple instructions than you will have no problem setting this thing up. From installing the hard drive into the NAS to setting it up, it was so easy! I was so worried that it would be difficult to setup/configure since I really don't have any networking skills, but I had no problems. The transfer rate is not bad people! For the people that complain about the throughput, this is just fine on a consumer level.
 
Was this review helpful?    

This is an awesome little device. I'd definitely recommend it. I threw a couple of 500GB SATA Western Digital drives in it, updated the firmware, followed the instructions to create a mirrored RAID, and it's been running like a champ ever since. Has some neat features such as email notifications on events like when the password has changed or if you want to know the remaining drive space over a time interval. Some (very) minor disappointments were that the email interval for drive space can be at most 24 hours (once a week would be sufficient!), the fan is a bit noisy (the fan will stay on high continuously if you don't use the powersave option), you can't adjust the temp at which the fan turns on and off, and the interface for creating new folders with permissions isn't the most intuitive. Also, the ability to re-name some shared folders is limited. None of these are really deal-breakers though, and D-link could probably improve these features with a firmware upgrade if they desired. The device itself is quite compact and has simple yet easy-to-read indicator lights. However it also has a rather large power brick, and personally I'd rather have a slightly larger device with the power supply built in.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I upgraded the firmware to 1.01, installed 2 1.5 Tb Seagate drives and I'm accessing it from both Linux and Windows. The only problem I've found so far is that the drives are not detected after a soft reset. The unit has to be power cycled to see the drives.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Been watching NAS cases for years waiting for the prices to come down. Finally saw this with high rating so went for it. Put in two WD640's. (Manual says you can run it with only 1 hard drive in the right bay if desired). They formatted no problems. Set them up in RAID with mirroring to protect my data since we also use it for home business. I spent several hours exploring the setup and settings using the software that was included. It has the capability to set up protected shares with user names/passwords, individual and groups etc. I am very happy with the functionality and ease of use. It makes a great home NAS. I was able to play music (mp3) from this NAS on two computers simultaneously with no "hiccups" (both PC's running XP). Haven't tried the ipod server (don't own an ipod), nor have I tried the UPnP media server (don't own a compatible media player). If you're looking for a nice NAS enclosure to get started with I'd recommend this box. I've had it plugged in running 24/7 for a couple weeks now with no problems. One consideration - The drives I bought have a "sleep mode" When I hit the NAS after a time of inactivity it takes it about 5 - 10 seconds to spin the disks up. This might be a consideration when purchasing disks for the NAS enclosure, but has nothing to do with the NAS itself.
 
Was this review helpful?    

easy to use and setup. a little slow on transfer rate and I cannot find a setting to increase its MTU but for NAS it is good.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I've been looking for a good inexpensive NAS enclosure for awhile now, and I'm happy to have purchased this D-Link DNS321. I actually had a WD WorldBook, 1TB drive, and I was so dissapointed with it. I ended up taking out the two 500 GB drives from that unit and placed them right into the D-Link enclosure. The drives slide and lock in so easily. And the software is even easier to use. You could either just map it as a network drive without the backup software, or you could use both. I ended using both, and am able to access it with my 2 PC's, and 1 Macbook. It has so many great features on it, I haven't had a chance to use them all yet. Built in iTunes sharing, FTP access, and DDNS access also just to name a few. I would highly recommend this enclosure to anyone. If you would like to have a print server, upgrade to the DNS323, that one has the USB port on it. Oh, almost forgot, this has Gigabit ethernet too!
 
Was this review helpful?    

The hardware is designed well -- sturdy, sleek & quiet. Being able to share 2 hard drives on the network without a PC running is very convenient. The firmware is functional and seems to be reliable. I'm not a big fan of the way user permissions are set up with shares created for every permission rule entered. One quirk in the firmware is that when the NAS is turned off, then later turned on, it forgets the shares that had been set up. Hopefully a new firmware will fix this, though I can live with it for now.
 
Was this review helpful?    

This is a decent piece of hardware, but they need to iron out some bugs before it is "good." You should be willing to experiment and put up with failures if you buy this.<br> <li> all the settings, shares, and backup schemes disappear when you reboot it (d-link says to try formatting drives using JBOD to fix this - I formatted using standard) <li> incremental backups don't appear to be incremental... all files are copied regardless <li> NO JUMBO FRAME support (confirmed by tech support) <li> restoring settings from file caused complete failure of web server on device (reboots didn't help - had to use the paperclip reset button on back to recover) <li> Samba is the only protocol option - NFS would be nice <li> tech support knows very little about this gizmo - they claim it's because it's not very popular <li> makes a good paperweight
 
Was this review helpful?    

Excellent deal for a NAS enclosure. I was able to install 2x Seagate 1TB and have them running in RAID1 in no time. Power saving options are nice too, lots of options for me left to explore, but I'm highly satisfied with my purchase so far. I'm actually considering getting another one and making all of my storage in my home network NAS.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Basic functions work well. There is a bug that does not allow you to set permissions if you only have 1 drive intsalled (It forgets its permissions when rebooted with 1 drive) Also, could not get my ps3 to read from it or get the ftp server to work. Basic functionality seems to work well.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I just got this last week and set it up in about 5 minutes. The installation software works well, though I did find the users and groups a little confusing. I don't need it now, so I'll go back to that at a later date. No problems formatting the drives in Raid 1. Runs quietly, though I think windows is keeping the drives from going to sleep by pinging it every once in a while to make sure it is there. I put two Seagate 640 gig drives in there, should be enough capacity for quite a lot of my digital junk. I would recommend this to friend.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Did some research before buying this. Prior was running FreeNAS on old PC's and poor experience with a competitors box. This is so easy to set up. I am using 2 WD "Green" 1TB SATA drives inside of it for a few weeks now. Using it on a fairly complex local network and also as a FTP server via internet. Limitations 10 individual users but they can be grouped. Nice design. Nice looks. a quality looking and feeling product. Runs cool. Has e-mail notifications on faults and alerts. Very pleased for the money.
 
Was this review helpful?    

I like this NAS. Has all the things I need and more. Recommended.
 
Was this review helpful?    

When you install your hard drives and go to format them, it may seem like it is hanging up at 94%, it is not hung up. I installed two Samsung 1T drives (no cables needed) and set them to raid 0 in the setup and watched it format and it seemed to lock at 94%, D-Link tech page said delete cookies, etc. and few other things. I looked at the lights and it looked to be still formating so I finally left it alone on the third try and it finished formating.( I had installed two 750 gb Samsungs in the first one I bought but didn't pay attention to formating) This thing is great and the speed rocks.
 
Was this review helpful?    

This is a great deal for a nice NAS. It is virtually the same thing as the DNS 323 but no usb port. Setup is easy and speed is very strong. Price is right.
 
Was this review helpful?    

Computers > Shop by Brand > D-Link Systems > Top Sellers

Computers > Shop by Brand > D-Link Systems > Back to School

Computers > Hard Drives > Enclosures

Buy for Business > Storage Solutions

Computers > Shop by Brand > D-Link Systems > D-Link's "Green" Products