Came across this price and thought it was an excellent deal for a 4 Bay NAS with 2 x 1Gb ethernet. It might be an older model but still offers good value in my opinion.
D-Link DNS-340L ShareCenter + 4-Bay Cloud Network Storage Enclosure $149 (Was $339) + Delivery @ Budget PC
490
Talby23 on 06/08/2019 - 01:21 budgetpc.com.au (1758 clicks)
Last edited 06/08/2019 - 01:45 by 1 other user
Last edited 06/08/2019 - 01:45 by 1 other user
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From a review at the time:
"you'll probably find the DNS-340L too underpowered and under-featured for serious consideration"And that's comparing it to other 2015 entry-level NASes.
Other the other hand, it does 100MB/s read (about the limit for a Gigabit network connection), 58Mb/s write in RAID5 mode, it's $150 and comes with a 3 year warranty.
SATA II only…. Seems unusual.
Shouldn't be an issue. Sata3 drives are backwards compatible and Sata2 has a maximum transfer speed of 300MB/s. So the network interface speed will be the limiting factor.
Read speeds look fine even for 4k remux so not sure the issue? It doesn't have all apps and Plex and whatever other rubbish? Great! I really wish QNAP and others would give an OS version that doesn't have apps or other crap, just a plain NAS with no bells or whistles to slow things down.
you know you can simply uninstall those apps right? Plex especially is fantastic and the vast majority of consumer NAS' are all purchased for that use case or similar.
You can't uninstall all the crap, there's all that "media station" "download station" piles of crap installed that while yeah maybe you can turn off is still there, services are still there, things are slowed by it. Yes I turn off everything possible and uninstall everything, but even on their (QNAP) enterprise rack mount NAS's all that crap is turned on by default. What I'm saying is they should have an option or an OS that is just SMB or iSCSI storage, nothing else.
And Plex is crap (for my use). If you actually care about watching movies or TV in decent quality its a nightmare. I use WMC and MyMovies with a decent server so I just need bulk storage for my 80gb 4k blu ray remux mkvs but I understand not everyone cares that much.
@deelaroo: why are you arguing that a product clearly targeted at the opposite end of the market to yourself does not meet your needs?
FYI my netgear RN204 had none of that stuff installed by default and quite handily plays my 80GB 4K blu-ray rips via plex without transcoding.
I would suggest the issue you have is your pedantry more than the built in software.
@Laserface: I think we’re not on the same page. I’m saying that this D Link NAS is great because it doesn’t have those features which you seem to agree with?
If all you want is a network attached drive then you may as well just plug a USB drive into your router.
USB would be a huge bottleneck specially on some router. Plus I have like 40TB+ of storage at this point.
@deelaroo: USB2 is on a lot of routers, and that is a bit slow, only 480mbps. If your router has USB3 then there's certainly no bottle neck
From the D-Link site "The DNS-340L can accept 3.5” internal SATA hard drives up to 4TB"
https://www.dlink.com.au/home-solutions/DNS-340L-sharecenter…
They'd accept higher. 4tb was prob the upper limit back in the day.
What I can see, it could be up to 6TB. However "NAS does not support single disk volume larger than 16TB according to Linux system limitation." Here is the reference
http://files.dlink.com.au/products/DNS-340L/REV_A/SetupGuide…
If it accepts 4tb hard drives it should accept any bigger hard drive released today. I know some old systems that only accept 2tb or lower but you should be fine if it accepts 4tb.
Can a WDTV see and read directly off this (through the network)? I have a non-smart TV with a WDTV hooked up so was hoping to use this instead of the microserver.
I have a DN327L which was probably released around the same time and that's exactly this use case. Love that I can read ISOs from the WDTV directly from the NAS. Not sure if I could do the same through Plex?
I think it depends on whether the NAS is running providing DLNA for the WDTV to read from. (I could be wrong on that)
Just be aware when transitoning from non-RAID to something like this, even JBOD mode will usually require the disks to be erased before they'll work in the enclosure so backup your data first folks, just in case.
Isn't that true for any NAS systems?
I have a raspberry pi running with Plex and samba. My 4tb external hard drive connected to it via USB which serves as the main storage. It seems to offer what I need. I don't have a backup which I'll sort out. Apart from backup,am I missing anything by not having a NAS?
Really the best bit is being able to add a bunch of drives. If you have a 4 bay NAS you can easily add 40TB or more, and not be messing with multiple external drives and cables etc.
If that setup meets your needs, I'd just get another external drive and cron some rsync to keep your data safe.
The NAS will:
1. Be loud
2. Use more power
3. Generate more heat
4. Take up more space
5. Cost you money
6. (I'm guessing) stop getting security patchesI'm curious how your setup is working out for you. Which version of raspberry pi (1/2/3/4) are you running?
What's the throughput like (the network, and usb sharing the same BUS if it's <rPI4, etc)?It's a PI 3 B+
I'm not sure what's the answer for your second question but I have not experienced any considerable speed issues. I sync all my media from phone using an app called SyncMe. Then I have it mapped as a network driver on my computer and copy files over wifi. RPI connected to the AC68U through ethernet cable. mp4, mkv plays fine on my Samsung smart TV Plex player (most of them are 1080p)
Slow processor, limited RAM, and outdated firmware will provide unaccptable performance, so I suggest saving up for a better unit.
Marvell Armada 370 1.2GHz CPU
512MB RAMhttp://support.dlink.com.au/Download/download.aspx?product=D…
What about ICY BOX IB-3640SU3 External 4 Bay JBOD Enclosure, USB3 & eSATA?
Can be had for $150ishA friend of mine looking for a NAS asked me the exact question ~ a week ago.
The ICY isn't a NAS device, so relies on direct USB3/E-SATA connection to a PC.
Personally I suggest looking for a dual-core Intel ATOM based NAS device as a starting point. They have far better performance than the older Marvell systems, with larger RAM capacity support (2,4+ GB's), and far better app support.
Depends on the use case.
4 bay NAS under $150 is a great price for someone who just wants a storage to put their documents and movies.
It should be completely fine to serve the files to Kodi or to a Plex server (not running on the box).
Definitely a better solution than having bunch of external drives lying around.
Compare it to the Synology 4 bay j series. I would not recommend anyone to run anything on it.I agree, this is not a box to run your Radarr and Sonarr and Plex with transcoding etc.
For pure Network accessible storage - perfect for the price.
too old
It will be better to run Unraid, xpenology or omv on your old pc than this tbh.
I'm very dubious of Dlink's track record with patching vulnerabilities identified. Admittedly they did patch the DNS-340L but they also left a bunch of their similar devices open.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2016/08/29/xss-flaw-d-link-n…
IMO go with one of the other NAS vendors which have a good record for patches and long term support eg Synology. No point having a NAS if it's not secure.
If you let an attacker onto your LAN you're pretty much stuffed anyway
I'm not sure of your point @Jace88.
You say "they did patch the DNS-340L", but then you say "No point having a NAS if it's not secure."
We are talking about the DNS-340L here. This is the item for sale. There was a vulnerability found within a year of its (and other models') release, and that was fixed. Then…. silence for three years.
As several other posters here have noted, this is not the NAS to run your corporate network, with all your industrial secrets. And no-one suggests it should be.
This is suited to simple file serving on a home LAN. For the extremely paranoid, any out-facing services can be disabled, however this is going to be behind a home user's router/firewall anyway.
For a home user to consolidate a bunch of old 1TB, 2TB disks lying around, and creating a JBOD, this seems an ideal low-cost solution.
My point was that D-Link does not have a good track record with updating their products longer term as vulnerabilities arise. I used to exclusively use D-Link IP cameras throughout my home (about 8) but after vulnerabilities kept popping up and they stopped supporting their products, I decided to stop buying them. I also looked into buying a D-Link NAS at some point to use with those cameras and was about to buy it when I remember at the time, the NAS I was looking at, had known vulnerabilities and D-Link were dragging their feet with patching it even after it had been widely publicised.
Re your point about it not being used to run a corporate network, even for my own use, like many others, the features promoted include access on the go as well as to act as a DVR for IP cameras - I wouldn't want to be trusting a potentially insecure device with this given it's an eye into my home 24/7. I take your point though if it's a low-risk set of data (e.g. downloaded movies) which is replaceable, then sure, maybe it is a perfectly suitable option but for me I would get something a little more robust but that might be my own paranoia since I know my NAS holds some irreplaceable personal data too.
To clarify my stance on "no point having a NAS if it's not secure" - if the point of it is to store your data in a way which it's available and safely backed up, then having it kept secure seems vital to ensure it's fit for that purpose. I'd rather go with a Synology or QNAP device which at least receives regular OS updates which patch known vulnerabilities.
Guys,
Sorry maybe a dumb question but how does this compares to QNAP or Synology?
From all the comments i gather better to stay away and don't fall for the cheap price.
Bloody 2-Bay QNAP never comes under 400$ :(
There are many options for 2-Bay under $400 (QNAP and Synology )
My experience with DNS-327L, the 2 bay version:
- The WebUI isn't great. The file sharing part is not flexible enough for me. Basically, I found that you cannot have multiple rules on the same shared folder (I tried, but the last applied rule always overwrites any previous rule you applied on that share folder). So, the workaround is, you simply need to work on applying 1 rule per folder. As for Admins, give them full access to the drive or RAID root/top level shared folder(s) (so they can still reach the desired folders). It's pretty dumb because the underlying smb does allow very complex permissions.
- Provided defaults apps are okay, but not that great. Add-on apps, while you can find them are generally quite dated. One of the nice sites wants payment, otherwise you are limited to 3 downloads per day.
- Gigabit ethernet - make sure you get proper/decent LAN cable. Otherwise, it can easily go for 100Mbits mode, which is no good.
- The default aggressive power saving, while good in terms of saving power, isn't great from a speed point of view. When you want to access the NAS when the HDDs were suspended for power saving. You do need to wait a few seconds for the HDDs to spin up.
- Disk checks: when you perform a disk check using the Web interface (say after a power outage), it shuts down all file sharing services and the only way to bring them back online is to restart the NAS.
- The overall performance isn't great.
- The plastic brackets don't feel good (they feel cheap). Would those plastic brackets last in the long run? Just a bit worried that they might break then the hard drives would stuck in the enclosure.
In short, there is a reason why these D-Link NAS tend to be the cheapest. They might be okay due to price, but if I were to setup a linux server as a proper NAS (or even just use a custom router firmware for a router with USB 3 port(s)), the solution would be much more flexible, albeit more time consuming to setup.
Thanks a lot mate for the detailed explanation and insight , appreciate it
Depends what you want.
I run an AppleTV 4K with Infuse, so it just needs to access a network drive, doesn't need any smarts.
So I rip my 4K UHD movies, blu-rays and old DVD TV series, and they all play with no hassles, as the ATV is doing all the hard work, so all I really want is the ability to stick a bunch of drives in a box, and read it via the ATV.
For that kind of usage case, this thing should work like a dream.For people that want the NAS to do the transcoding, downloading etc. then a QNAP or Synology will offer better option.
Isn't that thing older than most people here? I think it has been discontinued years ago