D-Link DNS-343

I came across a user review of the DNS-343 4 bay D-link NAS. This is a low price four bay nas that is quite hackable as are all the D-link NAS devices due to the fun_plug.

Fun_plug is described as:

Fun_plug is essentially a technique to stepwise turn a NAS with fixed out-of-the-box functionality into an open Linux machine on which you can install additional software packages and, if you want, learn a bit about Linux.

Source: Nas-tweeks.net

The review is quite positive and makes the point that the Dlink NAS devices all have a good feature-performance-price balance. A summary of the highlights of the review:

I've had this product for a week, and so far so good. The device can be configured from any web browser, so you don't need the CD (which is a Windows-only configuration app). I have 1 TB Hitachi and WD drives inside. Build quality is solid (made of thick aluminum). It's a brick of a device and looks quite durable.

For the price, I am not expecting world class security and many bells and whistles. I just need it for storing my personal files and media on my home network, and stream them, and for that, it works to my satisfaction. The iTunes server works very nicely. For file transfers, I FTP to it and do all my copying that way. For some reason, the Mac is a lot faster (20MB/sec) than copying from XP (10MB/sec). Vista is the worse, and I usually get 5MB/sec.

It would've been really great for D-link to include BitTorrent support for this, like the DNS-323. Maybe in a future firmware update.

All in all, I'm quite happy with this product. I don't place heavy expectations on it and don't demand $1,500 server performance from a $370 device. It was the cheapest 4-bay NAS I could find for the features I wanted and gives great overall performance for the price. You can install telnet on it (look for Fonz's funplug) and open the device up to more hacking if you are so inclined.

Source: http://bestwirelessrouter-forhome.blogspot.com/2012/04/d-link-dns-343-4-bay-network-attached.html

The reviews over at Amazon are somewhat mixed. Checkout the lower price at Newegg.

A few examples of products:

USED D Link 4 Bay Network Storage Enclosure DNS 343 $100.00 Time Remaining: 1d 17h 34m Buy It Now for only: $200.00 Buy It Now | Bid now

D Link ShareCenter 4 Bay Network Storage Enclosure w 4TB DNS 343 $299.00 Time Remaining: 4d 8h 42m Buy It Now for only: $299.00 Buy It Now

D Link ShareCenter 4 Bay Network Storage Enclosure DNS 343 Used $149.00 Time Remaining: 11d 5h 13m Buy It Now for only: $149.00 Buy It Now