Price : Too low to display
The 352UN is unique external hard drive that can make up to 2 hard disks with SATA interfaces available for external storage via USB or on the LAN using NDAS. It is compact, sturdy, easy to setup and provides several advantages for the small network or home user that are not possible with more expensive servers. Windows users can assemble the drives in RAID configurations, via the network to create a large disk or to maintain a mirror image of all the data in real time.Network and USB connections are possible from Windows, MAC and Linux computers and multiple Windows based computers can share write access on the LAN.
This review is from : NETDISK DUO NewFAST - Enclosure 352UN
USB Meat for NAS Vegans . The Netdisk DUO Newfast is a technology breed of it's own. It offers USB 2.0 direct connect functionality, but also enables you to access the drive as a network attached storage device. While neither of those functions separately are unique amongst the plethora of cheap attached storage these days, what makes this product stand out from the crowd is the ability to do both...AND provide RAID 1 (mirror) redundancy between two disks at the same time!
Okay, OK! It's not really a NAS...hence their naming it NDAS - which I can only assume means Network Direct Attached Storage. Think of this device as iSCSI, but using their own LPX protocol instead. If you're looking for a media server on your network as an all-in-one self contained device...this is not for you. So, no direct access from iPads, iPods, AppleTV, Sonos, uPnp, etc...unless you have a host computer sharing this as a network drive.
Unfortunately, the product installation is not for the faint of heart, and even with a college degree in computer science it took me the better part of an afternoon and a call to their support line to resolve a couple of setup challenges. What is also misleading about this device is that it does NOT operate as an IP accessible NAS device since it communicates using it's own LPX protocol over Ethernet.
That is good and bad, depending upon who's point of view you prefer:
1) Good, since it does not use TCP/IP, nor has an IP address, it's fairly secure and does NOT require firewall manipulation to utilize (thanks to it's proprietary LPX protocal).
2) Bad, since it does not use TCP/IP, and therefore cannot provide file sharing over a network without either the use of the provided client software (Windows or Mac only), or requires the use of a host machine (Windows) to provide a network share.
As long as you're only planning on using this device as a network accessible drive from Windows or Mac, and you don't mind installing client software on all machines, the DUO will meet your expectations. If you want a network file share without the need to have a host computer always attached, on, and running, then this isn't the solution I'd recommend.
Speed of the NDAS in USB mode is comparable to any other USB attached drive (30-40 MB/s), however the network NDAS mode offered a wide range of experiences depending upon the size of the files copied and the number of files. I saw anywhere from sustained large file (DVD isos) copy speed over direct CAT-5 cable connection through a switch upwards of 40-50+ MB/s. But with a copy of 1000's of smaller MP3 files, the speed dropped to 10-18 MB/s. All in all, still not bad and it only took a few hours to transfer half a Terrebyte.
There are several options for using this device, but I would argue that the most common and logical use would be RAID-1 mirrored redundancy of two same sized drives. I dropped in two Western Digital Cavier Green 2TB drives, and setup was a simple as sliding the drives into the bays and turning it on.
The DUO senses which mode it should be operating in by the cable that it senses connected. And I do mean connected at the back the device...regardless if the other end of your USB or ethernet cable is plugged into something else or not. Do not keep both cables plugged in at the same time, it will not work and it causes all sorts of strange issues...hence my call to their support line. Once I understood that you only plug in the cable that you want to use (USB or ethernet - NOT both), the DUO figures out the rest.
CAUTION: In USB mode, when using RAID-1 mirroring, the DUO will allow a computer to see both internal drives as available USB drives to browse and read/write to...however...only the drive in the right hand side bay as you're facing the front(drive bay A) is the one you want to copy files to from your computer. Why? Because when you switch back to NDAS mode (unplug USB cable from back and plug in ethernet cable), after the client software discovers the NDAS in NAS mode it will perform a RAID drive sync and copy the contents of drive bay A to the other drive and overwrite the other drive's contents. How do I know this? Well, as you might have guessed I made the mistake of copying content to the wrong drive that showed up in Windows when I plugged in the USB and when it synced in NAS mode, all those files were lost. This is documented in the manual, albeit not very well (one sentence in the drive configuration table options).
So, the USB sanity check to follow when in RAID-1 mode is to only copy files to the first USB drive letter that shows up in Windows, and when doing so...watch the green lights on the top of the DUO to make sure the right hand drive bay A is the only one fully lit green when in use. This way you'll rest assured that when you revert back to NAS mode after using USB, the RAID-1 sync will copy these files from drive bay A properly to drive bay B and not the other wrong way around.
If you can deal with these nuances then this is as cheap and flexible USB/pseudo NAS device you're going to find that provide higher speed data transfers. Personally, this solved my problem of only being able to backup computer sector-by-sector images to USB drive (due to image file size limitations of NAS SMB, etc) yet still give me the flexibility of using the same mirrored drive solution to act as a NAS backup repository for daily incrementals for all of my computers at the same time. So far so good.
Notes: FYI, I have three PCs (XP, Vista and Windows 7) and a Mac on the same subnet reading/writing data to the NDAS simultaneously without issue both wired and wirelessly. I use Acronis True Image Home for backups (didn't use the software that came with the DUO). Be sure to format the DUO from within Windows disk manager on the most recent Windows OS that you have. I ran into issues when initially having formatted the drives from XP, then accessing the drive in Vista and Win7. So, I reformatted in Windows 7 and no longer any issues from any of the other Windows flavors. Also encountered an issue with Symantec Endpoint Protection, [...]
Looking forward to trying out the advanced BIND features for expanding the NDAS with up to 8 additional DUO drives. It would be great if I could setup a second DUO linked to the first for mirroring, so that a second DUO could be swapped in and out of the network for offsite storage and safekeeping.
USB Meat for NAS Vegans . The Netdisk DUO Newfast is a technology breed of it's own. It offers USB 2.0 direct connect functionality, but also enables you to access the drive as a network attached storage device. While neither of those functions separately are unique amongst the plethora of cheap attached storage these days, what makes this product stand out from the crowd is the ability to do both...AND provide RAID 1 (mirror) redundancy between two disks at the same time!
Okay, OK! It's not really a NAS...hence their naming it NDAS - which I can only assume means Network Direct Attached Storage. Think of this device as iSCSI, but using their own LPX protocol instead. If you're looking for a media server on your network as an all-in-one self contained device...this is not for you. So, no direct access from iPads, iPods, AppleTV, Sonos, uPnp, etc...unless you have a host computer sharing this as a network drive.
Unfortunately, the product installation is not for the faint of heart, and even with a college degree in computer science it took me the better part of an afternoon and a call to their support line to resolve a couple of setup challenges. What is also misleading about this device is that it does NOT operate as an IP accessible NAS device since it communicates using it's own LPX protocol over Ethernet.
That is good and bad, depending upon who's point of view you prefer:
1) Good, since it does not use TCP/IP, nor has an IP address, it's fairly secure and does NOT require firewall manipulation to utilize (thanks to it's proprietary LPX protocal).
2) Bad, since it does not use TCP/IP, and therefore cannot provide file sharing over a network without either the use of the provided client software (Windows or Mac only), or requires the use of a host machine (Windows) to provide a network share.
As long as you're only planning on using this device as a network accessible drive from Windows or Mac, and you don't mind installing client software on all machines, the DUO will meet your expectations. If you want a network file share without the need to have a host computer always attached, on, and running, then this isn't the solution I'd recommend.
Speed of the NDAS in USB mode is comparable to any other USB attached drive (30-40 MB/s), however the network NDAS mode offered a wide range of experiences depending upon the size of the files copied and the number of files. I saw anywhere from sustained large file (DVD isos) copy speed over direct CAT-5 cable connection through a switch upwards of 40-50+ MB/s. But with a copy of 1000's of smaller MP3 files, the speed dropped to 10-18 MB/s. All in all, still not bad and it only took a few hours to transfer half a Terrebyte.
There are several options for using this device, but I would argue that the most common and logical use would be RAID-1 mirrored redundancy of two same sized drives. I dropped in two Western Digital Cavier Green 2TB drives, and setup was a simple as sliding the drives into the bays and turning it on.
The DUO senses which mode it should be operating in by the cable that it senses connected. And I do mean connected at the back the device...regardless if the other end of your USB or ethernet cable is plugged into something else or not. Do not keep both cables plugged in at the same time, it will not work and it causes all sorts of strange issues...hence my call to their support line. Once I understood that you only plug in the cable that you want to use (USB or ethernet - NOT both), the DUO figures out the rest.
CAUTION: In USB mode, when using RAID-1 mirroring, the DUO will allow a computer to see both internal drives as available USB drives to browse and read/write to...however...only the drive in the right hand side bay as you're facing the front(drive bay A) is the one you want to copy files to from your computer. Why? Because when you switch back to NDAS mode (unplug USB cable from back and plug in ethernet cable), after the client software discovers the NDAS in NAS mode it will perform a RAID drive sync and copy the contents of drive bay A to the other drive and overwrite the other drive's contents. How do I know this? Well, as you might have guessed I made the mistake of copying content to the wrong drive that showed up in Windows when I plugged in the USB and when it synced in NAS mode, all those files were lost. This is documented in the manual, albeit not very well (one sentence in the drive configuration table options).
So, the USB sanity check to follow when in RAID-1 mode is to only copy files to the first USB drive letter that shows up in Windows, and when doing so...watch the green lights on the top of the DUO to make sure the right hand drive bay A is the only one fully lit green when in use. This way you'll rest assured that when you revert back to NAS mode after using USB, the RAID-1 sync will copy these files from drive bay A properly to drive bay B and not the other wrong way around.
If you can deal with these nuances then this is as cheap and flexible USB/pseudo NAS device you're going to find that provide higher speed data transfers. Personally, this solved my problem of only being able to backup computer sector-by-sector images to USB drive (due to image file size limitations of NAS SMB, etc) yet still give me the flexibility of using the same mirrored drive solution to act as a NAS backup repository for daily incrementals for all of my computers at the same time. So far so good.
Notes: FYI, I have three PCs (XP, Vista and Windows 7) and a Mac on the same subnet reading/writing data to the NDAS simultaneously without issue both wired and wirelessly. I use Acronis True Image Home for backups (didn't use the software that came with the DUO). Be sure to format the DUO from within Windows disk manager on the most recent Windows OS that you have. I ran into issues when initially having formatted the drives from XP, then accessing the drive in Vista and Win7. So, I reformatted in Windows 7 and no longer any issues from any of the other Windows flavors. Also encountered an issue with Symantec Endpoint Protection, [...]
Looking forward to trying out the advanced BIND features for expanding the NDAS with up to 8 additional DUO drives. It would be great if I could setup a second DUO linked to the first for mirroring, so that a second DUO could be swapped in and out of the network for offsite storage and safekeeping.
NETDISK DUO NewFAST - Enclosure 352UN Reviews
NDAS Devices Auto-Mount During Boot or Power-up . I've run seven NDAS units (5.25TB total) 24x7 for several years without problems. I fully appreciate that "your mileage may vary", but this technology is easily the least of my network worries. I use them for archiving photo, video, and other work, as well as workstation backups. For standalone streaming, I've recently added a USB drive to my wireless router NAS port.
1. NDAS is not a cheat, and it is not meant to be a NAS as some have said.
2. All my NDAS units auto-mount as soon as they power up. When a workstation reboots, they auto-mount during the boot.
3. NAS technology really is outdated, hence the popularity of DROBO boxes.
4. NDAS is faster than NAS in most all circumstances. My Cisco/Linksys E3000 has a uPNP USB NAS port, but it's kinda slow too.
5. NDAS is much cheaper than a DROBO.
6. NDAS really is more secure than NAS, beginning with the fact that it doesn't use IP addresses.
7. All new technology requires its own driver software to be installed, why should NDAS be any different than any new printer, scanner, or graphics card?
8. BTW, NDAS software installation is easy, and if you're comfortable running Linux, building a driver should not be a problem either.
9. NDAS does not support uPNP, but my PS3 does see and stream NDAS-based content via the machines they are connected to.
Life isn't perfect, and the NETDISK DUO boxes aren't either.
1. The mechanical design and construction is less than I like, but that is a common complaint of mine.
2. I'd like to see an eSATA port on the multi-bay boxes like the solo box.
3. I'd also like see USB3 instead of USB2, because even gigabit ethernet is too slow to effectively move terabyte levels of data.
4. Drive access via all interfaces should "see" the same drive configuration (RAID 0, 1, etc.).
The bottom line is that I don't have the time or money to waste, and I need more storage that I can trust. Today, NDAS and $275 will get me 2TB of workable network mirrored storage, and nobody else can match that. So I close with: I have no affliation with any NDAS-related business entity; I'm only an NDAS customer.
NDAS Devices Auto-Mount During Boot or Power-up . I've run seven NDAS units (5.25TB total) 24x7 for several years without problems. I fully appreciate that "your mileage may vary", but this technology is easily the least of my network worries. I use them for archiving photo, video, and other work, as well as workstation backups. For standalone streaming, I've recently added a USB drive to my wireless router NAS port.
1. NDAS is not a cheat, and it is not meant to be a NAS as some have said.
2. All my NDAS units auto-mount as soon as they power up. When a workstation reboots, they auto-mount during the boot.
3. NAS technology really is outdated, hence the popularity of DROBO boxes.
4. NDAS is faster than NAS in most all circumstances. My Cisco/Linksys E3000 has a uPNP USB NAS port, but it's kinda slow too.
5. NDAS is much cheaper than a DROBO.
6. NDAS really is more secure than NAS, beginning with the fact that it doesn't use IP addresses.
7. All new technology requires its own driver software to be installed, why should NDAS be any different than any new printer, scanner, or graphics card?
8. BTW, NDAS software installation is easy, and if you're comfortable running Linux, building a driver should not be a problem either.
9. NDAS does not support uPNP, but my PS3 does see and stream NDAS-based content via the machines they are connected to.
Life isn't perfect, and the NETDISK DUO boxes aren't either.
1. The mechanical design and construction is less than I like, but that is a common complaint of mine.
2. I'd like to see an eSATA port on the multi-bay boxes like the solo box.
3. I'd also like see USB3 instead of USB2, because even gigabit ethernet is too slow to effectively move terabyte levels of data.
4. Drive access via all interfaces should "see" the same drive configuration (RAID 0, 1, etc.).
The bottom line is that I don't have the time or money to waste, and I need more storage that I can trust. Today, NDAS and $275 will get me 2TB of workable network mirrored storage, and nobody else can match that. So I close with: I have no affliation with any NDAS-related business entity; I'm only an NDAS customer.
NETDISK DUO NewFAST - Enclosure 352UN Opinions
Perfect Solution . This product was all I could have asked for and more. It was super easy to set up and the transfer speeds are amazing. I am not a super technical person and just wanted a solution that was cost effective and served my purpose which was sharing one back up and storage unit on my network. I had absolutely no trouble setting it up at all. I simply loaded the drivers on each system on my network...in my case three. It was quick and easy and I have not had a problem with it at all. Great product and price. It is also very solidly built.
Perfect Solution . This product was all I could have asked for and more. It was super easy to set up and the transfer speeds are amazing. I am not a super technical person and just wanted a solution that was cost effective and served my purpose which was sharing one back up and storage unit on my network. I had absolutely no trouble setting it up at all. I simply loaded the drivers on each system on my network...in my case three. It was quick and easy and I have not had a problem with it at all. Great product and price. It is also very solidly built.
Cons Review
ok for some users . First of all, this is not a NAS device. it will not have an IP address.. As IOCELL says, it is a NDAS device using propietary software to share your network circuit... Even so, i bought it thinking it would be handy storage thru my home network.. the drives appear as an added drive letter in the file manager but you have to mount them each time you boot your computer... there were times when the drives would not mount and be recognized and i think it was related to the drive connectors mating.. the device has three led's but the manual did not mention their function. the manual excludes windows 7 in the list of operating systems but the retail box does say it is compatible.. The Linux software is stated as beta and gives instructions how to "build" the linux driver. Once all the drives got mounted i was pleased with the read, write, and transfer times but there were times when the mounting process failed. i have returned this to the store and will stick with the NAS devices with an ip address that dont have to be mounted each time i turn on my computer.
Zero speed on network today... . I have a Dlink DNS323, and was overall satisfied except for one thing: it's 17MB/s best speed. And I needed more space, and the 4-bay DLink is crazy expensive. Even the DNS323 isn't cheap.
So I grab the 352 for 99$ at Frys, pop in a 2TB green WD for 89$, and try to figure out what the next step is. The quick install seems to get to the point pretty quick, seems there's some decent security here. But the writing is too small, one side of a 8x11 page in English, the back in German. Ok, save some money here. Good laser printer, but the font must be near 1 point or so for the smallest print.
I am able to get the device to show up in USB mode, but not in ethernet.
The instructions have the usual hundred screen shots, but not much conceptual introduction. There are some well placed red notes interspersed. They throw around words like Registration and Activation without defining them in detail. They did ask for feedback, and I gave them a half dozen nitpicks. Stuff like the 3 LEDs on the box - what do they mean? Why does the fan stop and start instead of running proportional to temperature? If I had to guess, 28 dB - not silent enough for my desktop. Another peev: no shutdown button. You have to go to every PC on every floor of the house and do a kind of unmount - ok, that's safer, but most people will just pull the power plug and be unhappy when their collection of photos is lost, because even the engineers I know don't realize you can trash the directory.
I finally figured out (also on page 50 of the PDF, RTFM) that you need to use DiskManagement to format the drive, which I had to do in USB mode. That might have been worth to mention in one sentance of the quickstart guide :)
I had trouble plugging in the Ethernet connector - thanks for the cable that has the clip protector, but you saved a few too many pennies on the female. I had to push hard, and jiggle to get it to click.
The device seems to park and unpark the drive every few minutes, not sure why - seems not an effective power save strategy, or an efficiency conflict between their software and WD's.
Three hours of debug, and a half hour in the store, plus another visit to return it.
It's also not clear from the box or manuals or quick-install, that this device will _NOT_ work for any non-windows or non-mac device, unless you want to hack your AppleTV or XBox or PS3 or Wii or DlinkBoxee with some beta code maintained by "the community". I hazard to guess what happens to the fancy new TVs with built-in media streaming - probably won't work with this either.
I'll give them credit for a fast software install, but take off points for including a bunch of stuff that I couldn't tell what it was for. Also some demo software, which I didn't try.
Bottom line: Cheap and fast (well I didnt see that part yet). Designed for secure (office?) Windows operation, not general media/toy server.
So I grab the 352 for 99$ at Frys, pop in a 2TB green WD for 89$, and try to figure out what the next step is. The quick install seems to get to the point pretty quick, seems there's some decent security here. But the writing is too small, one side of a 8x11 page in English, the back in German. Ok, save some money here. Good laser printer, but the font must be near 1 point or so for the smallest print.
I am able to get the device to show up in USB mode, but not in ethernet.
The instructions have the usual hundred screen shots, but not much conceptual introduction. There are some well placed red notes interspersed. They throw around words like Registration and Activation without defining them in detail. They did ask for feedback, and I gave them a half dozen nitpicks. Stuff like the 3 LEDs on the box - what do they mean? Why does the fan stop and start instead of running proportional to temperature? If I had to guess, 28 dB - not silent enough for my desktop. Another peev: no shutdown button. You have to go to every PC on every floor of the house and do a kind of unmount - ok, that's safer, but most people will just pull the power plug and be unhappy when their collection of photos is lost, because even the engineers I know don't realize you can trash the directory.
I finally figured out (also on page 50 of the PDF, RTFM) that you need to use DiskManagement to format the drive, which I had to do in USB mode. That might have been worth to mention in one sentance of the quickstart guide :)
I had trouble plugging in the Ethernet connector - thanks for the cable that has the clip protector, but you saved a few too many pennies on the female. I had to push hard, and jiggle to get it to click.
The device seems to park and unpark the drive every few minutes, not sure why - seems not an effective power save strategy, or an efficiency conflict between their software and WD's.
Three hours of debug, and a half hour in the store, plus another visit to return it.
It's also not clear from the box or manuals or quick-install, that this device will _NOT_ work for any non-windows or non-mac device, unless you want to hack your AppleTV or XBox or PS3 or Wii or DlinkBoxee with some beta code maintained by "the community". I hazard to guess what happens to the fancy new TVs with built-in media streaming - probably won't work with this either.
I'll give them credit for a fast software install, but take off points for including a bunch of stuff that I couldn't tell what it was for. Also some demo software, which I didn't try.
Bottom line: Cheap and fast (well I didnt see that part yet). Designed for secure (office?) Windows operation, not general media/toy server.
Product Image
Feature NETDISK DUO NewFAST - Enclosure 352UN
- Ethernet to the Network via Switch or Router, install the network connection drivers
- Use the USB wire to reload them on a computer in the event of a system failure. USB is also useful on the road.
- Users can format the internal drives with native file system structures.
- Mirroring: NDAS uses a software RAID system to provide real time data duplication for Windows Users.
- SATA Speed: 1 or 2 SATA interface hard drives can be installed.
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5-Bay Network Attached Storage 301525U
Product Details
EAN : 0777778422838UPC : 777778422838
MPN : 352UN
Brand : IOCELL Networks
Color : Black
Weight : 4 pounds
Height : 6 inches
Length : 10 inches
Width : 8 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
Manufacturer : IOCELL Networks
Model : 352UN
Publisher : IOCELL Networks
SKU : DH352UN
Studio : IOCELL Networks
Where To Buy
You can buy NETDISK DUO NewFAST - Enclosure 352UN on Amazon . Click here to Read More
