d-link dns-320l

i think i'm becoming a d-link fan.

just got a d-link dns-320l.

i actually got in touch with a store that was offering me the dns-320 for a good price.

another store told me that the dns-320 has already been phased-out and what they have is the newer dns-320l for about 28% higher than the price quoted by the other store for the 320.

okay, so i told myself. i'll just settle for the 320. i still have to buy hard drives right?

so off i go to sm north edsa. pretty place. much better than what i expected as i've never been there. (where was i living at? lol!)

well anyway, guess what the store gave me? they gave me a 320l because their supplier sent them the later version for the price of the 320 they told me on the phone. good deal i might say.

so here we go.

the dns-320 and the newer dns-320l are network attached storage (nas) devices. it's like an enclosure for hard drives.

hard drive enclosures are plugged into a pc or a laptop via a usb plug or an e-sata plug.

a network attached storage is plugged instead to the network so all devices that have access to the network can access the drives. think of it as a local youtube because what i have in mind is put all my medias in there.

found a few problems which a few might have encountered.

i create an account on the nas using my windows account credentials. this way, i don't need to login each time i try to access the nas on my pc. incidentally, the my windows account has a capital letter, i.e., "Dennis".

i created an account on the nas using the same name: "Dennis".

problem: "CIFS: Authentication for user Dennis has failed." this means no access to the nas.

solution: create an account on the nas using lower case: i.e., "dennis".

problem solved.

if using p2p or the bittorrent protocol, the settings page may look confusing.

the maximum download rate and upload rates are actually in kilo BYTES per second (kBps) and not in kilo BITS per second (kbps). kilo is represented by a lower case "k." bytes are represented by an upper case "B" and bits are represented by a lower case "b".

maybe the d-link dns-320l web ui guys can correct the page /web/download_mgr/p2p_main.html.

and so far, i have noticed this too: after a torrent has been deleted (leaving the torrent list empty) but leaving the p2p setting to "enable", this nas is sending out udp packets continuously.  probably dht? but continuously? this still holds true even after the nas has been rebooted, cold or soft.

also, the "stop seeding when meet" would only accept value of 100 or lesser. c'mon guys, some people seed until they're more than 100. it's good to seed.

i'm calling d-link support now.

the d-link dir-825 conundrum update

so d-link sent me an updated firmware (3.01 baby!) for the dir-825c1 router.

problem with short-gi is still there. perhaps the web ui programmers can check the /adv_wlan_perform.asp page. i think the problem is somewhere there.

the d-link dir-825 conundrum

the d-link dir-825 is a great router that holds a lot of promise. but of course, it's not perfect.

don't get me wrong. the pros overwhelm the cons. and the problems i have encountered will be what i will be discussing here.

it's not because i want to pick on d-link but because there seems to be no documentation about the problems i will be discussing here.

so here goes.

firmware issue

i have a d-link dir-825. hardware version: c1. firmware version: 3.00.

as everytime, i have a new hardware (or if there is a new firmware available) i update.

downloaded via dlink.com.ph the latest firmware. the firmware on their support page reads version 3.00b32 dated 20 sept 2012 and updated the router.

after the router has restarted, the web utility still reads current version firmware: 3.00; date: 19 jan 2012.


weird.

went to the d-link US website and downloaded the latest firmware. the firmware listed there is dated 12 jul 2012.

after updating the router, the information indicated in the web utility of the router is still the same, as shown above.

"short gi" issue

i wanted to turn short gi off. so i go to the advanced tab and advanced wireless section.


what's interesting here is the fact that short gi cannot be turned off. sure, i can uncheck the boxes, save the settings, and reboot. but checking the settings later would indicate that the short gi options are still checked.

here's another ineteresting discovery: when making changes to other sections and you opt not to reboot right away, an additional button appears: reboot now.

obviously, clicking on reboot now would reboot the router.

but while the reboot now button would appear on all pages, that button would not appear on the advanced wireless section.

the media server issue

this router can be a network attached storage up to a certain degree. up to a certain degree because anyone in the local network can have full access to the storage be it a flash drive or even a usb-powered hard drive. this means that anyone can upload and delete files.

by the way, i have tried fat32 and ntfs formatted drives/flash drives and they both work.

so here's the problem. i plugged a newly formatted flash drive into the router. rebooted the router.

after the reboot, the power indicator would light up and the lan port where a switch is connected ends up blinking (i have a switch plugged into the router; my pc is connected to the switch). that's all no internet connection.

i unplugged the flash drive and rebooted the router. everything is back to normal.

plugged in again the flash drive and tried to access the flash drive via windows explorer (\\192.168.1.1; i have configured the router to use another ip address instead of the default 192.168.0.1). no access to the flash drive.

i unplugged the flash drive from the router and plugged it in the pc and copied a single mkv file. plugged in the flash drive to the router again and now everything worked fine.

out of curiosity and as a form of experiment, i again reformatted the flash drive via pc, turned off the router, plugged in the flash drive into the router, and turned it on. now, even with an empty flash drive, i have now access to the flash drive as mentioned above.

inconsistent.

the media server name issue

there are ways to connect to the shared drive, the one plugged into the usb port of the router. it may be via the ip address: \\192.168.1.1 or via a name.

but by what name?

under the setup tab, at the media server section, there is a placeholder for the media server name.

but using \\dir-825 doesn't work. not even \\DIR-825.

so what to use? use the device name found at the network section under the setup tab.

so \\dlinkrouter works.

please note again that everyone in the network would have access to the your shared device.

as a further information, you can even share your files on the net. just enable web file access found at the storage section under the setup tab.