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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-323 => Topic started by: j.carile on January 14, 2010, 08:37:00 AM

Title: Looking for a NAS solution (Help Needed!)
Post by: j.carile on January 14, 2010, 08:37:00 AM
I have been looking for a NAS for a while and the only real, inexpensive solution I have found is the 323. Can anyone recommend anything better? Or is this the best solution? Here is what I am running:

Linksys Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54G
Wireless MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard
Wired PS3
Wired PC running Windows XP

I am looking for something around 1TB to host various media files and and share them on my MacBook Pro (running Snow Leopard) and PS3. I really liked the ability to remotely access my drive anywhere. That's a big plus. Furthermore, I have a HP p1005 laser printer that I would like to use over the network. I have heard that this model doesn't play nice with the 323. Can anyone verify or deny this? Any help would be appreciated!
Title: Re: Looking for a NAS solution (Help Needed!)
Post by: gunrunnerjohn on January 14, 2010, 11:28:40 AM
The DNS-323 appears to address your needs, though I don't know about the HP printer compatibility.  The print server shouldn't have any preferences as to the printer, and I've had a Brother and a Canon printer connected to mine without issues.
Title: Re: Looking for a NAS solution (Help Needed!)
Post by: j.carile on January 14, 2010, 11:52:03 AM
Can you basically throw any hard drive in it, have it formatted to its EXT2 and it would work? I read the post about hard drive compatibility, but they only seem to test newer hard drives. Would old ones work as well? Like if I just wanted to throw in an old 40gb Western Digital.
Title: Re: Looking for a NAS solution (Help Needed!)
Post by: jamieburchell on January 14, 2010, 11:57:25 AM
The NAS only takes SATA disks so if you have older IDE disks you can't use them. can't say for sure but I would expect most disks from the major brands to work- dlink can't test them all..

With version 8 of the firmware you can choose ext2 or ext3 in various modes, such as RAID1 if you have two drives. Check the product specs on the website for more info.
Title: Re: Looking for a NAS solution (Help Needed!)
Post by: DocD on January 14, 2010, 03:24:53 PM
For what it's worth, I have an HP 1012 LaserJet hooked up to one of my DNS-323's and the printing has been flawless.  The only thing I see is that the jobname stays in the queue even though the job has printed - but that's a nit.  I don't think that there's too much of a difference between our printers - both are using HP's infamous "host-based printing".  (It's the "host-based printing that seems to cause all sorts of incompatibility fits).
Sorry, I can't vouch for how it works with Snow Leopard.  I'm running WinXP as well.  The HP will show up in your printer folder as "lp on your IP address"  (Not exactly descriptive...)

-DocD
Title: Re: Looking for a NAS solution (Help Needed!)
Post by: gunrunnerjohn on January 15, 2010, 05:45:11 AM
I'm actually surprised that a GDI printer would run at all with the print server.  I have an old Xerox printer that I could never get working on any print server for that very reason.