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D-Link DNS-323 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure for $264 @ Centre Com

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SATA Drive Support
Internet Access via FTP
UPnP AV for Storing and Streaming Media Files
10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Port
USB Print Server Port
Built-In Fan Included
Takes two HDDs up to 1TB each
Shopbot has the lowest price of $294.95

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closed Comments

  • I'm looking at upgrading my current D-Link NAS which is very noisy… I wonder if this one is any quieter?
    (staticICE has them from $265)

    • +1

      I've had one for a while now and even with the fan running its very quiet. Just be careful what drives you put in. Mine has Samsung in it which are very quiet. The WD Caviar Greens are also very quiet (but a bit more expensive)….

    • There has been some discussion of the DNS-323 on SilentPCReview (SPCR), which is one of the best websites for quiet computing.

      Just be careful what drives you put in. Mine has Samsung in it which are very quiet. The WD Caviar Greens are also very quiet (but a bit more expensive)….

      Regarding drives, check out SPCR's reviews of the Samsung F1 and WD Caviar Green Power. Note that the Green Power is only 5400rpm, whereas the 7200rpm F1 offers much better performance:

      The Samsung F1 750GB and 1000GB drives are the quietest 7200 RPM drives currently available, by a small margin. Their overall noise signature is quite benign, with very low tonality; the mostly broadband sound easily blends in with other noise in a PC. The other high capacity 7200 RPM drives we've tested don't come anywhere close to this level of quiet. That the Samsung 1TB F1 drive should also set new highs in performance is icing on the cake. Only the 5400 RPM WD Green Power drives offer better acoustics, but with nowhere near the performance.

      • The hard drives won't be the bottleneck in most of these devices, the NAS implementation is. Should be looking at temperature, noise and most importantly reliability (temperature, MTBF, warranty and number of platers).

  • +2
    • Seems like these have the same problem as my old unit… Thanks for the heads up…

  • Worth looking at the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo with a 500Gb disk $399 at dse.com.au
    Similar device, but would seem a tad better (more memory, better Mac support, maybe other things)

  • -1

    Does it have a BT client, I know some of these NAS units do. No mention of it on the dlink website?

  • +1

    Just bought one online (bank xfer saves 2% c/c surcharge) $18 postage to QLD (from VIC). Going to use this with xbmc via NAS. was going to put the 1TB WD GP drive (msy $165) inside the xbox.

  • -1

    Assuming it runs linux like most other NAS boxes, you cant pretty much load/do anything.

    • +1

      It's a very hackable box, people have done all sorts of things with it…

      See here…
      http://wiki.dns323.info/

  • OverClockersClub recently reviewed the DNS-323 and wrote of its cooling:

    The DNS-323 is cooled by a single rear-mounted 40mm fan. Experience tells us that smaller fans have to spin faster to move the same amount of air as their larger cousins do at lower speeds. Higher RPMs generally mean more noise as well. The fan on the DNS-323 is relatively quiet, mainly because it doesn't spin that fast. In fact, at first I wasn't sure it was spinning at all because it was so quiet and I couldn't feel any air exiting the unit. There are no external ventilation openings on the enclosure save for a single slot on the lower bottom edge of the front cover. This opening mates up with a opening on the inside of the enclosure which ducts cool air underneath the motherboard and then out the back through the fan. There is little allowance for cooling of the hard drives.

    • a co-worker told me he has this for ages and uses WD GP drives inside, this unit can shut down the drives when they are not in use via software. Plus GP generates less heat.
      I knew overheating was an issue when Netgear first bought a similar unit out a few years ago. apparently you could cook an egg on one of those.

      • As per the OverClockersClub review:

        I decided to run a check on the case and system temperatures by kicking off another series of tests using the Intel NAS Performance toolkit while monitoring the interior case temperature using a digital temperature probe placed in the center of the enclosure directly between the two hard drives. Checking the Status page, the highest recorded temperature for the system was 39 C while the interior of the case was a toasty 36 C. I could not detect any noticeable change in the fan speed during the test and still felt little or no air exiting the enclosure. […]

        The DNS-323 does not provide for any S.M.A.R.T. monitoring capability so I was not able to check on actual hard drive temperatures, but that's way too high a temperature for ensuring hard drive longevity. Let me emphasize a point here. Let's be careful to note the temperatures in the Test column above were under extreme sustained usage conditions not typical of normal everyday use. However, I'd definitely would like to see improved air flow in the case.

        On the other hand, the Carnegie Mellon University study of hard drive MTBF ("roughly 100,000 hard drives across a variety of manufacturers") suggested:

        According to test results, the majority of the drives did not appear to be affected by their operating environment. In fact, researchers indicated that drive operating temperatures had little to no effect on failure rates — a cool hard drive survived no longer than one running hot.

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