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

[scurvies]

Well........

PromiseNASDude,
I just bought one of these from buy.com today. Then I read all over this forum (and others) about the apparently ridiculous fan noise. I'm wonderring is there any chance at all that I will receive the rev b versions or is it still too early?

thanks.

 

[Unregistered]

webserver

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

 

[jasonsilzle]

PLug-in trouble NS4300N

HELP!!

I bought a NS4300n. I put in 3 1TB Samsung drives and it seems to be working fine except the iTunes pluggin and BT pluggin randomly stop working? I have requested help from Promise tech support and havn't heard back yet. I am running SR5.

Also is ther any way to throttle the Torrent downloads? - And once finished downloading do they seed for upload?

Any Ideas...?

NAS DUDE?!? you there?

Thank you,
Jason

 

[highstrings]

NS2300N, iTunes, and smartnavi connection issues

PromiseNasDude,

I've been having a lot of trouble getting iTunes to locate and find media through the plugin, as well as my iMac intel using the latest smartnavi to even show the 2300n in the smartnavi program. I've been logging into the unit on a pc with the latest smartnavi and using ip connection on mac 192.168.1.69

Can you help? Also, can you send the beta firmware update?

Thank you for your time!

Darren

 

[--Taz--]

NS4300N + Four Seagate 1.5TB Drives = Paper Weight

I filled a support request a week ago; got the canned email I would get a response in one business day -- haven't heard anything back...

My problems is simple; with the lastest firmware (that alledgedly supports Seagate 1.5TB drives) if you put four of them into a RAID5 array when you reboot you get a corrupt file system... and the only way to recover it is to delete it (losing your data) and start again.

You can have up to THREE drives in a RAID5 array using 1.5TBs; but NOT FOUR drives... this happens on multiple units and also happens for a friend of mine so it's obviously something that was NEVER tested at Promise.

My finding is that the support is pathetic... and I can't say much about QA or Development there either!!!

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

 

[diggityDawg]

Well, I upgraded the firmware to R5 yesterday, and at first it seemed to be working great. But I had the issue where the BT service stopped, but in this case I couldn't restart it. Then the FireFly service stopped and I couldn't restart that either. So I sent a support request in to Promise.

After I submitted that request my system stopped responding. I couldn't get the Web PASM to load, and the device didn't show up in the SmartNAVI any more. I tried rebooting by holding down the power button, but it didn't work. It had crashed. So I pulled the plug. After a minute I plugged it back in and restarted it. That was five hours ago. I can now load the Web PASM and it shows up in SmartNAVI, but I can't access any of the shares. When I try to go to File System Management in the web PASM it says "System busy. Please wait..." and it seems stuck at 95%. The System Status light blinks orange (not sure if it's amber or red, seems orange) every second. The drive lights (on the side) blink green continuously and the drive lights on the front don't do anything.

The event log only shows "System is rebooting" and "System is starting to work" but nothing after that. RAID Management says RAID Status is Functional, Action Status is Idle, and Background Activity is None.

Is it rebuilding? Please tell me I haven't lost my data, I do not have a backup, since I thought using RAID5 would protect the data... ALL of my pictures for the last 6 years, as well as all of my music library is on that thing... It's a 4TB RAID5 (2.8TB capacity). I'm freakin out, and praying that when I get up tomorrow morning it will be back...

 

[thiggins]

Not to rub salt into the wound, but never, never, never trust your data to a single device, RAID or not. RAID is not a backup strategy.

Promise's participation here is occasional. I suggest contacting them directly.

 

[diggityDawg]

Not to rub salt into the wound, but never, never, never trust your data to a single device, RAID or not. RAID is not a backup strategy.

Of course I know you're right, just haven't been able to scrape together the funds to have another 4TB backup. No excuse, but given the amount of data, it's tough to keep a completely redundant set of drives running.

Luckily though, I woke up this morning and everything was back t the way it should be. The FireFly service was even running.

Thanks for the help!

 

[thiggins]

Of course I know you're right, just haven't been able to scrape together the funds to have another 4TB backup. No excuse, but given the amount of data, it's tough to keep a completely redundant set of drives running.

You dodged a bullet this time. Next time you might not be as lucky.
I strongly recommend that you do something to back up at least your critical files. Backup to DVD or an online service like Mozy or Carbonite.

 

[vwphaeton]

My experience so far,

Diggity,
This happened to me, i suspect that for me it was i chose to power the drives down after 5 hours. They would not wake up when a call was made to them. I had to do a hard reboot. When you do that it takes a tremendous amount of time to bring the file system back up.

The 4 1.5 TB drives, I have not had an answer on yet. My answer from promise has made me wonder what they are thinking. Please buy drives we support. My workaround is to create 2 1.5 tb arrays in raid 0, and split my load that way. It is not a perfect solution but allows me use the full range of the drives i own.

My current dilema is DLNA will not work with the new ver 1.05.. I have tried a variety of workarounds. I have uninstalled it and tried 1.01 but that keeps crashing, and the rebuild time is abysmal. The 1.05 doesn't even do an initial scan, atleast i dont see it from any of my dlna devices. Is there any help on this? Is there any log to let me see what my system is doing with the data?

I dont mind using a back door if anyone has some suggestions. As it stands i am staring at a very pretty , (albeit loud) paper weight.

I have to answer to my wife as to why she cant access movies music and pictures from her dlna connected tv etc.

Someone please help me out!

thanks again.

 

[vwphaeton]

responses to support

I filled a support request a week ago; got the canned email I would get a response in one business day -- haven't heard anything back...

My problems is simple; with the lastest firmware (that alledgedly supports Seagate 1.5TB drives) if you put four of them into a RAID5 array when you reboot you get a corrupt file system... and the only way to recover it is to delete it (losing your data) and start again.

You can have up to THREE drives in a RAID5 array using 1.5TBs; but NOT FOUR drives... this happens on multiple units and also happens for a friend of mine so it's obviously something that was NEVER tested at Promise.

My finding is that the support is pathetic... and I can't say much about QA or Development there either!!!

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...[/

 

[--taz--]

Thanks vwphaeton; I checked the status of my case daily for the first ten days... and I even added a couple more entries to it -- but -ZERO- response from Promise...

And closing a case without a reply would be even more HORRIBLE than the pathetic support I've already seen...

The seven drive Thecus is probably a better buy Terabyte for Terabyte, and since they target the business user I'll bet their support is a little better...

I think I'll just sell my six Promise boxes and buy something with decent support.

Companies who don't value customers shouldn't have customers!

 

[Yohan]

Resources for Application development

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

 

[Unregistered]

ssh

Hi Everyone, here is the SR5 Firmware Release Notes for the NS4300N. SR5 will be posted tomorrow evening.

Firmware Feature Enhancements

1. Support Bonjour on system service (Such as AFP / iTunes /Printer Service / SMB / FTP)
2. Improve AFP performance.
3. Add file system check function.
4. Add AFP folder permission setting in WebPASM.
5. Change default user permission of share folder to Read/Write.
6. Add AFP protocol particular setting page in WebPASM.
7. Add a test button for email notification in WebPASM.
8. Turn off the HDD led when HDD is spin down.
9. Add 1.5TB HDD support.
10. Remove RAID5 migrate to RAID0 and RAID1 migrate to RAID0 feature.
11. Add recycle bin feature.
12. Add DDNS feature
13. Ability to disable Guest Access on the Public Directory
14. Turn on the system led to red color when using locate feature with NAS
15. Support port settings for SMTP
16. Supports read and write an USB drive with NTFS format.
17. Fix Special Characters with AD Domain

Firmware Fixes

1. Fix Bug, User can not mount AFP share folder at Mac after AC power has been interrupted.

When we may expect ssh server on NAS 4300n?

 

[jasonsilzle]

Blinking Orange Light no Share response!! HELP!!

I have a NS4300n that was bought a last month. I put 3 1TB Samsung drives in it and Rev. 5 software and then started dumping all my data on it. Everything worked fine for some time. Then I got to about 1.6+TB full of the 1.8TB available so I went and got another 1TB Samsung and put it in this week. I chose the option EXPAND from the SmartNavi on Tuesday of this last week and the system started expanding. I checked in on it through the week and then suddenly on Friday afternoon I couldn't pull files from the system and smart Navi couldn't log on but when I logged on from PASM its log said it had completed the migration. So I went to the Physical NAS box and the drive light where all flickering like crazy I waited a while and they didn't stop and I saw the network activity was high (And it shouldn't have been) at least I wasn't pulling any files. So, I held down the power button till it turned red and then I let it shut itself down. After turning it on I still can't access my shares. I do see the mapped folders now from my windows box but they show as empty!!! Yet the drive shows like it is still almost full. Also I realized when I logged onto it after restarting it that all my services (HTTP, FTP, MAC etc..) where all "Off" so I turned those back on. Maybe that is why I couldn't access it. Even so why should those have turned themselves off?

Also when I looked (IN PASM) at the "file system managment" page it still showed 88% full 1.6TB of 1.8TB available. BUT when I got to the "Raid Managment" it shows as status=Functional, action=idle, background activity=none, capacity=2,794.35GB (as it should now), RAID 5 (Striping with parity) (x4) - no longer 3x as I believe it should.

So I clicked on the button at the bottom of the file system page (I think it was something like check file integrity) and that was lastnight and now this morning I still can't access the system it says 0% done "system busy please wait" and there is an Orange BLINKING light instead of a solid green light like usual (the blinking orange one is the one on the left) Drive activity lights aren't doing anything.

HELP!!!

I did the stupidest thing..As I migrated my data off several removable drives on to this one NAS I "MOVED" my files since it was the easiest way to check in the mornings what data moved successfully (it would take all night to move data on to this thing) I know I should have copied the files and stowed away those drives but now the only copy I have of this data is what is on these drives!!!!!! I am really scared. PLEASE HELP!!!!!

Blessings,
Jason

 

[jasonsilzle]

Update...On blinking Amber light

I looked in the manual and it says a "Amber" blinking system light means power failure or fan failure. Yet when I look at the PASM I see both are within spec. Smart Navi won't show many of that it just says, "System bussy"

Should I try powering down again? Im really getting scared here...

 

[thiggins]

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

 

[Unregistered]

Promise_website is not clear

I just ordered the same.
I have to say it's not clear at all!

In their website they have two compatibility lists:
The first one dated 10/31/2008 says that SEAGATE ST31500341AS 1.5tb is compatible
Please check: http://www.promise.com/upload/Support/Compatibility/NS4300N_SR5_Compatibility_List_v1.0-20081031.pdf

The second one dated 26/11/2008 in which this model disappears !
Please check: http://www.promise.com/upload/Support/Compatibility/NS4300N_SR5_Compatibility_List_v1.0-20081126.pdf

Posted a ticke and never got a reply. I guess I'll change my 4xHdd to 1 TB.

Ciao

I just receieved my 4300N and 4 seagate 1.5TB drives

After doing the setup everything runs fine until i do a reboot. After the reboot the system tells me the file system needs rebuilit.

I have opened a trouble ticket.. Called in for support and was told sorry only use the drives that are compatible and we dont know when they will be tested..

I have been running into a road block. I called in and was told to only use the drives that are supported. I didnt realize the drives would make that big of a difference and have opened them and installed them.. I have 4 at 220 and cannot return them. I really dont want to waste that money is there anything i can do to make this work?

 

[celibertojr]

noise

I bought the NS4300N, it work fine and i love the speedy but i hate this NOISE from the FAN and here in Brazil this device is so expensive (US$ 700) it is impossible to chance easy if show new model

I make my own "quieting down" changing the FAN.

http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1937nk7.jpg

Now it is better, beautiful and a much less noise !!!!

http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1936bj1.jpg

FAN Technical Specifications

http://www.akasa.com.br/akasa_english/spec_page/fans/spec_ak_170cb_4bls.htm

 

[nusul]

I bought the NS4300N, it work fine and i love the speedy but i hate this NOISE from the FAN and here in Brazil this device is so expensive (US$ 700) it is impossible to chance easy if show new model

I make my own "quieting down" changing the FAN.

http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1937nk7.jpg

Now it is better, beautiful and a much less noise !!!!

http://img155.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1936bj1.jpg

FAN Technical Specifications

http://www.akasa.com.br/akasa_english/spec_page/fans/spec_ak_170cb_4bls.htm

nice!

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