James Bannan29 February 2008, 4:19 PM
The D-Link DNS-323 comes across as something of an entry-level NAS, but, in reality, it’s anything but.
It’s a two-disk NAS, supporting RAID-0, RAID-1, JBOD or independent disk configuration. While supporting non-redundant RAID standards (RAID 0) is really just a legacy capability of more advanced RAID, it worries us when vendors promote RAID 0 as a viable option. It isn’t — lose one disk and the data is irrevocably lost. Fortunately, D-Link don’t do this, and the DNS-323 will certainly keep your data safe if the disks are mirrored.
The unit itself is very compact compared with other two-disk NAS devices, and this certainly helps to conserve space. The front of the unit has status LEDs, while the back has a power port, Gigabit LAN port and a USB port for connecting and sharing a USB printer. It also has two drive eject levers, which is an interesting feature. You install the drives by lifting and removing the front cover — the drives then slide in and replacing the cover provides the mean of securing them. The only problem with this design is that the front cover is sensitive, and moving the unit can result in it popping straight off.
Read/write performance is pretty good. We wrote 3GB of assorted MP3s, videos and executables across, which took three minutes, 30 seconds to copy across and just under three minutes to copy back.
The DNS-323 doesn’t have the same range of networking services as other units on the market, but it does provide FTP, iTunes, UPnP AV and DHCP services, which is still a useful array for most home networks. It comes bundled with Memeo AutoBackup software for automating backups to the device, but it’s accessible as a mapped drive or UNC path — you can always just use Windows Backup to automate data protection.