Gerard's codebase

This is a personal repository of code snippets and information.

Over the years I have generated lots of little sub programs and stored away acres of useful code snippets. The problem is always to locate them.

Even more time wasting is forgetting how to do simple things when you havnt developed in an environment for a few years (or even a few months)

My new years resolution is to start putting them up in a common place as I produce them. (thanks google)

They are handy for me and, with a bit of a clean up and documentation, they might be handy for others if they wander in here.

Gerard 2008

Sunday, May 8, 2011

DLink DNS 323

The DNS 323 is a relatively cheap ~$150 Network Attached Storage device (NAS) that I use at home to store all the important stuff (family photos etc), back and synchronize my work directories on all my computers and to stream movies to our PS3 (unfortunately cannot stream microsoft's TV format - .wtv)

It has a little 200mhz ARM processor running a cut down version in Linux and a web interface to make all setup and changes.

Here is the link to its homepage
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=DNS-323
Basic services offered are:
  • NAS disk share
  • AV server for streaming media
  • USB port to attach a network printer (see notes on SharePort utility below- don't even bother trying to use it as a print server as DLink advertises)
  • ftp server
  • iTunes server
  • + a few others
  • + you can install other Linux packages if you are technical
Overall I am very happy with it for the last 4 years. It has gone through a series of drives and a series of RAID configurations as I have filled it up and run out of space. There are few things to both know and be aware of with it though - here is a list of what I am aware of

Disk Size - 2TB now supported
With firmware v1.8 or v1.9 installed it is capable of holding 2 X 2TB disks. Yay. Be careful of the disks you buy though. DLink has tested only Western Digital WD20EADS 2TB drives. There are potential problems with (most) 2TB disks on the market using the newer 4K sectors and AFT technology. Look into it very carefully before you buy a disk. I just went with the DLink recommended WD disks - be careful they are the exact ones though - the WD20EARS 2TB drives do not work (1 character different - beware)

Speed
The 323 is very slow in file transfers to windows machines. A fair bit of this is due to the SAMBA configuration on the 323, a fair bit due to the limited CPU and a fair but due to the windows configurations and network card used. Basically this device is not up to much with its little ARM processor and the SAMBA configuration as set up is very CPU intensive with 64K buffers. In addition file transfers will be slower if the windows machine has a low powered CPU. Still - it streams HD no problems for me.

Use FTP. If you are doing a lot of large file transfers turn on the built in ftp server and use ftp to transfer the files. You will find it will be double the speed. Filezilla is a good ftp client for windows.

SharePort Utility
This DLink utility shares the USB port on the back of the 323 across the network. I use it to share a Lexmark 3200 series printer. The concept is great - apparently if you attach a powered USB hub you can share multiple devices.

I couldn't get SharePort working but eventually struck on the magic combination. I had initially installed v1.17 addon and on the 323 and was using 1.17 windows utility software on my PC. It could not see any in USB device inserted into the 323

The magic combination (for me) was SharePort v1.17 addon on the 323 and SharePort v3.0 windows utility software on my PC.

I will update this post if I find anything else to be aware of about this great little box. Feel free to add comments if you know of any other "gotchya's"
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