Pros: Always available, backup solution with mirroring, gigabit Ethernet, iTunes server, FTP server, printer-support.
Cons: Support not the best, EXT3 support removed by latest BIOS.
The bottom line: Highly recommended - it keeps your data safe, plus provides nice features like iTunes, FTP, a print-server, etc.

What Is It, Why Do You Want It?

I don't know anyone who doesn't have a digital camera; they've made photography easier (and cheaper), but when we stopped using film, we stopped getting negatives.

My wife's parents have an elaborate binder filled with negatives, sorted and labeled, for future reprints, and for safety in case the house burns down. Of course, they keep the negatives in the house, so unless they are particularly level headed in the event of a fire, those negatives will go up in smoke as well.

The digital photos we download from a digital camera to our computer are the twenty-first century version of the negative, but they are at much more risk than the traditional negative ever was.

A hard-drive failure on the computer where you store your pictures is the equivalent of a bad house fire that burns up your negatives.

This is where a product like the D-Link DNS-323 comes in. It's a small box, with two slots for hard-drives, an Ethernet port (a network port), and a USB port. You plug a couple of SATA hard drives into it, and plug it into the network, and instant storage for photos, music, documents, etc.

Physical Features

Smaller than a loaf of bread, but larger than a deck of cards, the DNS-323 is a small unassuming black box with some snazzy neon-blue lights on the front. At the back, you find a plug for power, an Ethernet jack, a USB port, a fan (to keep the hard drives cool) and two levers to aid in the removal of the hard drives. The big square lit-up button on the front is an on-off switch.

The front cover slides up and off, revealing two vertical slots for SATA hard drives.

In the box, you'll find the power cord, a CD, and an Ethernet cable.

The Ethernet jack supports speeds between 10-megabits/second and 1000-megabits per second (gigabit Ethernet), and will auto-detect the speed of your network.

The USB port is for attaching a printer, meaning your printer is always available, no longer available only if the right computer is turned on.

Using the Device

First you need to purchase at least one SATA drive; I use this for data backup, so two drives make more sense for me (and for most people). To install the drives, you simply remove the front cover, and push them in. Plug the Ethernet cable into the DNS-323 and into your network, attach the power cord and plug it in, and the device is ready to go.

The next step is to drop the CD onto your computer; an application will autostart that offers a Easy Search tool, the manual, and a 30-day trial of Memeo AutoBackup. Note that the software on the disk is for Windows only. The configuration software is an ActiveX control, and D-Link only supports Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4, and Windows XP with Service Pack 2.

Start the configuration tool, and it will auto-search the network for the DNS-323; if you use DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) to provide IP addresses to your computer(s), the DNS-323 will have an IP address provided by your router. Otherwise, it will default to a pre-assigned IP address. Regardless, the configuration tool will find the device, and you can begin the setup process.

One of the steps during the configuration is setting up the disks. The DNS-323 offers a few options: RAID-0 (striping – data is split across both drives; very fast, but if you lose one or the other drives, you lose all your data), RAID-1 (mirroring – data is duplicated across both drives – lose either one, and your data is still safe), and JBOD (Just A Bunch Of Drives – the two drives are treated as one big drive – like striping, but without the performance, and if you lose one drive, you might be able to recover the data off the other).

If you are using the 1.01 release of the firmware, you have the choice of two different file systems – EXT2 and EXT3, both Linux file systems (as opposed to NTFS and FAT in the Microsoft world). EXT3 was buggy, and I read several complaints that files and data would just disappear. The newer bios (at the time of writing, 1.02) provides a poor fix – they just removed the EXT3 option. Unfortunately, EXT3 is a journaling file system, and fairly robust; it's harder to lose data. It would have been the file system I'd have picked.

Once the drives are formatted, the configuration tool can automatically the map it to a network drive in Windows so it shows up in “My Computer” and “Windows Explorer”.

Other Nifty Bits

If you have an iPod (who doesn't), you can move all your music to the DNS-323, and it will act as an iTunes server, making your music available from any computer on your network (or any computer in the world if your network is set up correctly).

If you need to access files from outside your network, you can use the FTP server built into the DNS-323 to access them. Keep in mind that FTP is not a secure protocol, and D-Link recommends using a VPN to encrypt the data.

You can create users and groups, and assign permissions and limits on their use of the files on the DNS-323, including limiting people from certain folders, or giving them read-only access.

The box also acts as a UPnP AV server, which is a protocol for streaming music and videos across a network to a UPnP media device attached to a stereo or tv.

Finally, you can have the machine email alerts should some error occur; options include a failed drive, a full drive, a critical error, a password change, or a temperature issue. This is very handy, as you don't have to continually monitor the device to ensure it's working correctly.

Conclusion

This is a great device, and the physical appearance and usability are perfect. The fit and finish are very nice, and everything was easy to use.

Feature-wise, I love the gigabit Ethernet support (assuming your network and computers support it) and the RAID-1 support. Having an iTunes server was also a big selling feature; no more music spread across multiple computers.

Configuration was also pretty straight forward, but if you aren't comfortable with computers, it could be overwhelming.

For myself, this device is a perfect way to keep photos, music and other documents both safe and accessible. I would highly recommend backups off-site (at least for photos), however. A fire, flood, or other natural disaster could destroy your computer AND the DNS-323.

I haven't been impressed by the D-Link support, however. EXT3 would have been the file system of choice, as it's more robust (but a bit slower). The latest bios did not fix EXT3, it simply removed it. The device should be capable of supporting this.

I also would have liked a full version of Memeo Backup; I'd read some reviews, and it looks like a very nice backup tool.

Finally, if you are using a Mac or Linux, you won't be able to use the configuration software on the CD. This is a little silly, as the DNS-323 itself uses several Linux technologies.

A few warnings:

I bought SATA2 drives (as opposed to SATA drives). They are a more advanced hard drive, and the price is pretty much the same. If I decide to move these drives to a computer in a few years, it made sense to buy the latest technology. Unfortunately, the DNS-323 does not support SATA2 cleanly; they mostly worked for me, but I had a few setup issues. The trick is to put a jumper on the back of the hard drives to put them into “SATA” mode (check the web page of your hard drive manufacturer). The DNS-323 works flawlessly once this is done.

Second, check the D-Link site for supported drives. Some work better than others.

Lastly, if you are going to mirror your drives, buy the same capacity (from the same manufacturer). If you have a 100 gig drive and a 200 gig drive, the partition you create will be limited by the capacity of the smaller drive. In other words, the drive you create will only be 100 gig in size.