D-Link DNS-323
Review by The Straits Times - Digital Life Feb 5,2008

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SMALL, easy to use and afforadable. Those qualities come to mind when you speak of the DNS-323.

Its interiors may not look as sturdy as thoroughbred like the QNap TS-209, but the metallic shell is slick.

The two-bay network-attached storage (NAS) device is also well thought out when it comes to usability.

No tools are required - you just slot in your hard drive and close the front cover by sliding it down. Fire up the machine, format your disks and you're in business within a minute or two.

The Web-based configuration screen, like those on D-Link's router, is clear and easy to use. Here, you can turn on (or off) your:

• FTP server (to let users log in to download files),
• iTunes server (to share music with people on the same network) and
• uPnP media server (to stream songs and movies to a compatible player in the living room).

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That's a nice bunch of features for a small device. It also sports a print server and limited scheduled downloads (I can't find any bit-torent support).

This gigabit Ethernet device is also a speed demon. It took just 1 min 24 sec to copy a 1.35GB video from a PC, and despite taking longer to copy it back at 2min 17sec, it still does its job faster than the others reviewed here.

Bad news is, you can't "hot-swap" one drive out while the system is still running. And you'll have to make sure there's space around the device for ventilation because it can run hot.

To sweeten things a little, D-Link should throw in a Bit-torrent client to let you download files directly to the DNS-323, sans PC.

Nonetheless, this is a great bargain for people who don't want the frills.