I'm not one to review products. There are just too many new products released on a weekly, even daily basis to keep up with. Furthermore, I don't get paid to review products so I don't take time to do so. With that said, I'm now going to review my very first product. I'm still not getting paid, but I thought this particular device is worthy of mention. I was introduced to this device one night at a friend's house and was very impressed.
The D-Link DNS-323 is a network storage device with some extra features that aren't typically included with external storage devices. First and foremost, the DNS-323 connects via Ethernet, making it fully sharable over a home network by setting permissions for users. It has two drive bays that accept bare 3.5" SATA II hard drives that can be purchased at almost any major electronics retailer and are widely available on the web. SATA II drives currently have a maximum size of one Terabyte, or 1024 Gigabytes.
The DNS-323 can be configured in three different ways, as a JBOD drive (Just a Bunch of Disks), RAID 0 or RAID 1 (Redundant Array of Inexpensive/Independent Disks.) When the DNS-323 is set for JBOD, it will mount as 2 separate hard drives. There is no data protection when formatted as JBOD. When set to RAID 0, assuming there are two equal sized hard drives installed, the DNS-323 mounts as one large hard drive. This provides higher data transfer rates but no data redundancy. If one drive fails, all data on both drives is lost. Finally, when set to RAID 1, the DNS-323 will mirror both hard drives. This means that all the data on drive one is duplicated on drive two (drives of equal size and same manufacturer is required and recommended by D-Link.)
RAID 1 is an easy way to back up important data without using 3rd party software. Most importantly, if one of the drives fail in RAID 1, you can pull that drive out, pop in a new one (Same size, same manufacturer) and all the data from the remaining drive is automatically copied to the new drive. I don't know if the DNS-323 has been tested with Apple's Time Machine so I can't comment on it other than to say that since it is a network device, presumably it should work. Just don't quote me on that though.
So what? An affordable RAID for home, SOHO or small business users? Who needs it and why? Well, in addition to the aforementioned, the DNS-323 includes one USB port for USB printer sharing, can communicate at up to gigabit Ethernet speeds and includes FTP capabilities for connecting to the DNS-323 from any computer connected to the internet. If that's not enough, the DNS-323 can also be fully configured through a web browser. That means there's no software to install, at least for Mac users. Mac users connect to the DNS-323 via the SMB protocol.
I've saved the best for last. The best feature (In my opinion of course), and least described except on this somewhat cheesy video, is its ability to share an iTunes library. It has an iTunes Server service built right it! This works by copying the contents of the iTunes folder on a local hard drive to the iTunes folder on the DNS-323. In the iTunes Preferences, change the location of the iTunes Library to the DNS-323 location and viola, a shared library that can be easily accessed by all users on a subnet.
My reason for liking the iTunes Server service is simple. As someone that supports Macs for a living, one of the most common issues that's requested of me is to combine the contents of multiple iTunes Libraries into one. Frankly it's a pain, especially when combining data from both PCs and Macs. The DNS-323 solves this issue by having a centralized iTunes Library. If the DNS-323 is set to RAID 1, the library is also backed up all the time. Fantastic. While at my friend's house, I showed him how to copy the contents of one iTunes Library to the DNS-323 and then authorize those songs that were purchased from the iTunes Music Store to play on the shared library.
I've seen other devices, like the Drobo, that are very impressive, but all they do is store data. I should mention here that in terms of network storage devices, I really like the Drobo a lot! However, the DNS-323 actually broadcasts an iTunes Library that shows up in iTunes as a shared iTunes Library as long as users have set the iTunes Preference to look for shared libraries. It's brilliant. I can't comment on the reliability of the DNS-323 since I haven't had extended experience with it. I will however continue to look at this device and may end up getting one for myself someday. All the information about the DNS-323 is available on the D-Link product page.
Considering how large an iTunes Library can become between music, movies, TV shows and podcasts, the D-Link DNS-323 offers a simple and elegant way to safely store and share all that data while freeing up your computer's internal hard drive for more important things.
Erik