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The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-323 => Topic started by: garyhgaryh on March 24, 2009, 12:54:14 AM

Title: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: garyhgaryh on March 24, 2009, 12:54:14 AM
I am running two 1.5 T drives on each of my DNS-321 and DNS-323 NAS drives.  I used the DNS-321 first because the firmware to support 1.5T drives came out for that unit before the DNS-323.  I never had any problems with losing my Volume_1 over the network.  When the firmware for the 1.5T support came out for the DNS-323, I pretty much set up both units the same (or very close to it).

I noticed that I keep losing Volume_1 on my DNS-323.  When I lose Volume_1, XP will throw up a dialog saying the path cannot be found.  I can log into the UI for the NAS, but I cannot map any of the directories.  I have to reboot my laptop to get it working, all the while the DNS-321's connections are solid.

Anyone seen this problem?

Gary
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: fordem on March 24, 2009, 07:41:13 AM
Yes, and it is more likely to be your network than it is the DNS-323 - try connecting the DNS-323 to the same cable and port that you are using with the DNS-321.

I've never seen it using my DNS-323, but I have experienced it transferring files across wireless networks with high error rates, and having tracked down the cause, it can occur in any network (wired or wireless) which has a problem that causes retransmits to occur.
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: garyhgaryh on March 24, 2009, 09:38:58 AM
Yes, and it is more likely to be your network than it is the DNS-323 - try connecting the DNS-323 to the same cable and port that you are using with the DNS-321.

I've never seen it using my DNS-323, but I have experienced it transferring files across wireless networks with high error rates, and having tracked down the cause, it can occur in any network (wired or wireless) which has a problem that causes retransmits to occur.

It does not look like a network issues.  I work up this morning thinking if it's a dns-323 issue, I shouldn't be able to access it from my vista machine.  But to my surprise, my vista machine has access to the dns-323.

So it's either my laptop running XP or my switch is confused.  I'm running a dlink green eithernet 8port gigabit switch dgs-2208 if that matters.
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: fordem on March 24, 2009, 10:09:00 AM
I noticed that I keep losing Volume_1 on my DNS-323.  When I lose Volume_1, XP will throw up a dialog saying the path cannot be found.  I can log into the UI for the NAS, but I cannot map any of the directories.  I have to reboot my laptop to get it working, all the while the DNS-321's connections are solid.

Anyone seen this problem?

Gary

Here's what - take a look at the portion of your first post that I've highlighted - think about what it's saying ...

Now - let me ask a question - assuming that you are right, and it's not a network issue - why should the switch matter, or to "flip" the question over - if the switch matters, doesn't that point to it being a network issue?

Here's something you might like to try - the next time the XP laptop drops the connection, before you reboot it, go to network properties and do a "repair", Windows will disable and re-enable the network card, re-initialize the ip stack, renew the DHCP lease and clear the DNS & arp caches - see if that fixes it, or if it really does require a reboot.
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: garyhgaryh on March 25, 2009, 12:03:25 AM
Here's what - take a look at the portion of your first post that I've highlighted - think about what it's saying ...

Now - let me ask a question - assuming that you are right, and it's not a network issue - why should the switch matter, or to "flip" the question over - if the switch matters, doesn't that point to it being a network issue?

Here's something you might like to try - the next time the XP laptop drops the connection, before you reboot it, go to network properties and do a "repair", Windows will disable and re-enable the network card, re-initialize the ip stack, renew the DHCP lease and clear the DNS & arp caches - see if that fixes it, or if it really does require a reboot.

Quckily read this and thought you might be onto something so I did the "repair" which was successful.  Then I tried accessing my map drive and the following dialog still comes up:

Y:\ is not accessible.

The network path was not found.

I was hoping your suggestion would work.

Yeah if the switch was the issue it would be a network issue.  I really didn't give it much thought when I said that.
I don't think it's the switch now since I go through two of these 8 port switches.  My laptop and my vista machine are on the same subnet and has to reach the dns-323 through the same two switches...  On the laptop side of things, I move the network cable to another port on the switch .. same issue.

Any other ideas? It has to be on the computer side (network).  What do you think?

Gary
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: fordem on March 25, 2009, 06:02:18 AM
Try reloading (or updating) the network card drivers.
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: Zardoz66 on March 25, 2009, 11:07:29 AM
Just to add in to this, I have a DNS-323 on the same DGS-2208 switch and don't have issues with connting to the NAS. wire or wireless.

Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: fordem on March 25, 2009, 11:46:44 AM
Thanks Zardoz - I think Gary has narrowed it down to something on the laptop - I'm guessing NIC drivers or some sort of network stack corruption.
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: Zardoz66 on March 25, 2009, 02:38:15 PM
Yeah that's what I was beganing to think myself. but wanted to say this I had no issues with the combo myself.
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: garyhgaryh on March 27, 2009, 12:24:42 PM
Ok, I think I narrowed the problem to/related to DNS.

Some facts:
x I'm running a windows xp laptop.
x My two nas are named dl321 and dl323.
x Both names seem to be registered with my router, dlink 615
x When my laptop has issues, it cannot find dl323
x I can ping dl321, but not dl323

I fixed it by working around this problem.  I put both dl321 and dl323 in my etc/host file for the xp machine.  Anyone know what the actual problem is? Vista and all my other machine works great.

I do have network magic running, but I don't think that's causing an issue.

I have my dns set to my router.  My router has these names (dl321 and dl323 registered - i checked the admin page), yet my laptop cannot see dl323.  Just a day or two ago, I couldn't get to my dl321 NAS.  But if I use the IP address it works.  Same issue.

So, my NAS drives so far have been reliable (forgive the name of this post).  It's my laptop that is the problem.  If anyone can shed some light into this, I'd like to fix my problem if it's something obvious.

Gary
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: sgip2000 on March 27, 2009, 03:51:32 PM
If you can reach the DNS-321 and DNS-323 by typing the IP addresses into the address bar, then it sounds like it is an issue with the DNS not resolving on the laptop.
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: fordem on March 27, 2009, 03:54:16 PM
This is an old and well known quirk of Windows - in the absence of a DNS server, Window uses an old NetBeUI techique which depends on browse lists - unfortunately, it's not very reliable, not even in a pure Windows environment, and even less so, in a mixed OS environment.
Title: Re: DNS-321 seems more reliable than the DNS-323
Post by: Zardoz66 on March 27, 2009, 10:44:32 PM
it's the notebook, nothing to do with the DNS-323 at all. and when I say it's the notebook I mean the current windows load.