Promise Comments: Quieting Down the Promise SmartStor NS4300N and NS4300N Review!

[celibertojr]

nice!

and the temperature? because in brazil you have warm weather?

between 40~47 celsius (summer)

 

[--taz--]

Promise NS3200N - 1.5TB Seagate

Looks like Promise has fixed the issue with Seagate 1.5TB drives in the NS4300N...

They've replaced Compatibility List NS4300N_SR5_Compatibility_List_v1.0-20081031.pdf with NS4300N_SR5_Compatibility_List_v1.0-20081126.pdf -- the never revisions of the V1.0 Compatibility List omits the Seagate 1.5TB drive (interesting that they choose to call it V1.0 rather than V1.1 and remove the V1.0 list)... but the firmware release notes still contains the statement that they've added support for 1.5TB drives (the only 1.5TB drive I know of is the Seagate).

Promise's actions are a little suspect... maybe it's time for a trip over to Alameda's Small Claims Court...

 

[Unregistered]

NS4300N + SR5 Network Drives Disconnecting

Wondering if anyone here has seen and/or found a workaround for this problem...I've had the NS4300N for about a year with no issues. Just upgraded to SR5 and now my mapped network drives in Win XP won't stay connected. If I play a long MP3 it will often cut off midway through, and if I open a file and the drive disconnects while it's open the application will give an error next time it reads or writes to the file. I can't seem to find a way to fix this on the Windows end...any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Unregistered]

I had the same problem joining my NAS to our AD. for us the simple answer (OK, it took me a few days to work out) was that your AD administrator password can not contain any special characters like #?/_() etc. only 0 to 9 aA to zZ are allowed, this must be a Linux restriction?

hope this helps.

Simon

 

[simonl]

Howzit People! (it's a South African thing don't worry about it )

I've got the latest firmware, BT plugin and smartnavi s/w installed and the BT service is enabled, the problem is I can't see the BT download in SmartNavi. Anyone else had this problem or know what to look for to fix it? I've searched the forum and other sites but no joy.

BTW: to join the NAS to an AD, your AD administrator password can only contain characters 0 to 9 and aA to Zz, no specials like #$%^&*/?. etc.

i also found out from tech support that you have to disable FTP if you want to use AD with SmartNavi.

I hope some of this may help someone else.

Cheers

Simon

 

[avvidme]

4300 Permission Issues

I've been playing with this for days, and Promise support - well, lets just say there's a few people there who quite obviously don't like their jobs.

Status: 4300 with 1.05.0003 firmware. 4 x 1.5tg Seagate (1 spare, therefore don't have the 1.5tb issue).
Running both SMB and AFP protocols.
Using MacBook Pro's (2 of them)

Issue: I create a file or folder logged in as my name, my wife (logged in as her name) has no permissions to anything I create. The NAS is obviously not inheriting permissions from the parent folder. Although this doesn't seem to happen in Windows, i've worked with Apple to demonstrate its a NAS issue.
To demonstrate this, I create a file locally which has permissions for "everyone" to read and write. I copy (or move) this file to the NAS, and it strips "everyone" to no permission. Although the permissions on the NAS are WIDE open.

Anyone can help with this?

 

[avvidme]

NAS replication

Another issue. NAS Replication doesn't work.
2 x 4300's. both running raid 5, 1 with 3 x 1.5tb, the other with 4 x 750g.
The 1.5 is only 47% full (so there's plenty of room). Latest firmware (1.05.0003), tried both AD integrated and stand alone (built-in) user accounts.

No go.

(I'm at the point of RMAing both of these things and getting something that actually works.)

Thanks
J

 

[thiggins]

Given your experience with Promise support and the lack of response in this forum, I'd say return the products if you can.

 

[PromiseNasDude]

I've been playing with this for days, and Promise support - well, lets just say there's a few people there who quite obviously don't like their jobs.

Status: 4300 with 1.05.0003 firmware. 4 x 1.5tg Seagate (1 spare, therefore don't have the 1.5tb issue).
Running both SMB and AFP protocols.
Using MacBook Pro's (2 of them)

Issue: I create a file or folder logged in as my name, my wife (logged in as her name) has no permissions to anything I create. The NAS is obviously not inheriting permissions from the parent folder. Although this doesn't seem to happen in Windows, i've worked with Apple to demonstrate its a NAS issue.
To demonstrate this, I create a file locally which has permissions for "everyone" to read and write. I copy (or move) this file to the NAS, and it strips "everyone" to no permission. Although the permissions on the NAS are WIDE open.

Anyone can help with this?

Greetings and sorry for the delay but with the Holidays and Macworld/CES last week (introducing new products), I am very behind. Note, for the future, my email address is in my profile.

The issue you are experiencing, I duplicated months AGO and reported to Apple (as we are the official storage for XSAN 2 and Final Cut Pro 2). We have duplicated this issue with "other" NAS products and we were able to determine the problem lies in OS X (if you search the web, you can also find this same issue with NAS and other Mac's/PC's). To Apple support, this would seem like our issue and when I first duplicated, it also seemed like our issue but debug proved otherwise.

Since reporting we have not had an update but I will check in with them this week. Please use my email at billyh@promise.com to continue the discussion.

Anything, please let me know..

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Another issue. NAS Replication doesn't work.
2 x 4300's. both running raid 5, 1 with 3 x 1.5tb, the other with 4 x 750g.
The 1.5 is only 47% full (so there's plenty of room). Latest firmware (1.05.0003), tried both AD integrated and stand alone (built-in) user accounts.

No go.

(I'm at the point of RMAing both of these things and getting something that actually works.)

Thanks
J

For NAS replication, are you attempting to duplicate local or via WAN? NAS replication does work (I use it very often in the office and in my own home) but network configuration or topology issues can cause problems.

Please enable email notification and attempt to run replication. Upon the failure, you will receive an email notification. Please forward the email notification to me (billyh@promise.com) as it contains info we will use for debug/analysis.

Anything else, let me know...


Thanks..

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Howzit People! (it's a South African thing don't worry about it )

I've got the latest firmware, BT plugin and smartnavi s/w installed and the BT service is enabled, the problem is I can't see the BT download in SmartNavi. Anyone else had this problem or know what to look for to fix it? I've searched the forum and other sites but no joy.

BTW: to join the NAS to an AD, your AD administrator password can only contain characters 0 to 9 and aA to Zz, no specials like #$%^&*/?. etc.

i also found out from tech support that you have to disable FTP if you want to use AD with SmartNavi.

I hope some of this may help someone else.

Cheers

Simon

Hi Simon, sorry for delay on responding but with the Holidays and preparatin for Macworld and CES, I am seriously behind. But I can also be reached at billyh@promise.com.

Can you explain the BT issue a little more? When you say cannot see BT in SmartNAVI, you mean the Download Station is NOT visible? If the Download Station is visible, what happens when you select the Icon? Can you forward me some screenshots (billyh@promise.com)?

Also, the special characters issue was resolved in SR5. Some characters worked and some others did not. Should no longer be an issue.

And yes, FTP cannot be used with AD as the Domain Controller controls all permissions of the NAS when part of AD. FTP is managed by internal permissions thus the two can conflict if enabled at the same time.

Thanks...

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Looks like Promise has fixed the issue with Seagate 1.5TB drives in the NS4300N...

They've replaced Compatibility List NS4300N_SR5_Compatibility_List_v1.0-20081031.pdf with NS4300N_SR5_Compatibility_List_v1.0-20081126.pdf -- the never revisions of the V1.0 Compatibility List omits the Seagate 1.5TB drive (interesting that they choose to call it V1.0 rather than V1.1 and remove the V1.0 list)... but the firmware release notes still contains the statement that they've added support for 1.5TB drives (the only 1.5TB drive I know of is the Seagate).

Promise's actions are a little suspect... maybe it's time for a trip over to Alameda's Small Claims Court...

Hi Taz, as I explained to the others, sorry for the delay on responding but with the Holidays and Macworld/CES I have been extremely busy.

Compatibility lists versions are changed only when the content changes such as new drives added or a major service release. With the 1.5 TB issue we had to remove the drives from the list for a short time as we found an issue with 4 drives and our file system check. To explain more, Everyone wants to see new drives supported at launch. Problem is Drive Vendors only supply a few engineering samples prior to launch (in addition to Product Manager for NAS/DAS I am also the Strategic Technology Alliance Program Manager). Generally issues are found with new capacities therefore we can generally test with a few pieces and allow customers to utilize the latest and greatest right away instead of making customers wait weeks or even a month or so.

Unfortunately we discovered an issue that only occured when using 4 drives in RAID 0 or 5. We updated the list leaving the version at 1.0 BUT changed the date. We quickly worked to "workaround" the issue (as neither Promise or Seagate was at fault) and posted new FW along with the updated list and some errata migration with large volumes.

FYI: The 1.5TB Drives are "Desktop Class" drives and Enterprise Class. 7200.11 = Desktop and ES.2 = Enterprise. Desktop drives do not support Time Limited Error Recovery (TLER reduces error recovery on the drive to 10 seconds or less which prevents drives from disappearing from the array resulting in the RAID Engine marking the drive dead), have much lower MTBF, lower duty cycles and are designed to be used in "single" drive environments.

On our SuperTrakEX SAS Controllers and our E-Class Subsystems we ONLY support Enterprise Class drives are Desktop drives are NOT reliable enough to be used in RAID Arrays. For NAS, I support Desktop drives as they are commonly sold along side NAS products in retail and NAS is at a much lower price point then Enterprise Class RAID Controllers and Subsystems. But Desktop drives are problematic and account for the majority of drive related issues or unexplain issues in the field. I am considering (decision has not been made yet) to remove all Desktop drives in the future. This is better for us and "especially for the consumer.

Anything you need, let me know..

Thanks.

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Would like to develop a custom streaming application (for storing MPEG4 data) based on the NS2/4300.

1. Is it possible to load the application on the NS2300 as a plugin / primary application.
2. Is there an API for the device / Developer resources (details)

John

Yes, we have an API development kit for developing Plug-Ins. It requires an NDA and SLA. Please contact me at billyh@promise.com for an overview.

Thanks.

 

[PromiseNasDude]

When we may expect ssh server on NAS 4300n?

To honest no time soon. We have some IP issues that prevent us from opening up the OS. This does not mean it will not happen, but we need to find a way to support the feature that works best for us and for you. Cannot say much more at this time.. Will try to keep everyone in the loop..

Thanks.

 

[PromiseNasDude]

when it comest to support i suggest logging in and checking your status. I find they like to close cases without even responding to them.. I have several cases that magically keep getting closed with no response.

Or they respond with half a sentence and close the case.

My favorite answer from them so far is "SR5 won"

Dont know what they mean by that, but thats it.,

The NS4300N might be an inexpensive solution, but I'm certainly in the market for another vendor...[/

HI VW, who was your case assigned to? Someone closed without resolution? This should not happen and I apologize..

I can be reach at billyh@promise.com to speed things up...

Thanks..

 

[PromiseNasDude]

hi. PromiseNASDude,
is anyway you can turn NS4300n to a webserver?

We may add in future service release. We are working to see if this can be added given the limited performance of the Freescale Processor. The Next Gen NS4600 has Web Server, Remote Access Media Center and much..

Stay Tuned..

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Contact Promise directly. It appears that Promise has stopped monitoring this forum.

I apologize for not being as active as I would like. With the current state of the economy I have not been able to offload my Strategic Technology Alliance duties as I have moved to fulltime Product Manager for NAS/DAS therefore I am working "double-time". This has kept me unusally busy and with the Holidays plus preparation for Macworld and CES, I have had NO breathing room at all since November. This past weekend ended the madness and I will be around much more (I Promise, no pun intended).

As for support, I will see what is going, therefore is no excuse for lack in response (even though they deal with several other products as well).

Anyone who ever needs immediate help, please email me at billyh@promise.com. I monitor email 24/7 (well, close) and will always respond.


BTW: Thiggins, I have been relying on email notification for thread changes but have not seen one in a while (as I need to monitor several forums). Can you check this out?

Thanks.

 

[zacharee]

Question About the NS4300N REV B Exchange Program

Hi PromiseNasDude,

Could you please tell us when the NS4300N REV B will be released and when the promised Exchange Program will be fulfilled.

Thanks for your proactive support.

 

[thiggins]

Welcome back PND!

I checked your profile and you have the instant notification option for threads enabled. Maybe your spam trap is snagging notifications?

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Hi PromiseNasDude,

Could you please tell us when the NS4300N REV B will be released and when the promised Exchange Program will be fulfilled.

Thanks for your proactive support.

Hi Zach, in just about two weeks... Waiting for more inventory to arrive (and had to wait for your main RMA person to return for an extended vacation)... The first shipment arrived in December which I planned to use for the exchange but we actually ran out of Rev A sooner than expected.

I am working on the process now. I will post details in the next day or two (I am trying to get settled after being out of the office for several weeks).

Thanks.