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

[Ruff_MT]

Service has started. And joined the AD domain failed.

Sorry for delay.. We have a special character issue and a workaround. The issue is now resolved in SR5 so workaround is not necessary. SR5 will be posted tomorrow or you can PM me for access now.

Thanks.

Am now using SR5 dated 2008/12/16 and still cannot join domain

Now what?

 

[Unregistered]

Joining ADS

Hi all, I just succeeded in joining NS4300N this way:

I created a new admininstrator like account with "root" as username and with a password made of only letters, because PromiseNAsDude said "We have a special character issue and a workaround, and I assumed that issue was not actually got fixed
Btw.. I DONT know if both things (having a "root" account and a no special char password) are mandatory.. It was 3 a.m. when I figured it. Not it works and i follow the rule If work, dont fix.
I can now see all AD usersa and group andre user management in WebPASM
Hope it helps

 

[ADuser]

Three Questions... for now

Previous poster - you said you saw all AD groups & users in PASM? How many do you have? I only see about 1k and no way to go to the next page....

Someone earlier said they could telnet into their box. I just tried now using winxp telnet, I get no response. [...Could not open connection to the host, on port 23: Connect failed]. Does it require ssh or a special port?

 

[Unregistered]

Copy with permissions/acl AD

I am replacing a windowsxp box with a shared drive with the NS4300N. Both are on the same windows domain. I am an adminstrator on the windows machine.

How do I copy the files from the windows machine to the PromiseNAS while keeping the permissions/acl the same? I've tried robocopy and permcopy without much success. I could try and mention all the ways it doesn't work, but I can't be the first person to do this, so I'll only go into a few details.

There's about 70 users that have various permissions to various folders, and everyone else on the domain (several thousand) has no access. This is all configured already on the windows machine, so I'd like to just copy it over as is.

I would like to make it as its own folder so I made a new share from PASM which makes it a folder in the root directory when I open the NAS with \\NAME, but if I right click on it, doesn't let me do much if anything. So as a test I've tried making it as a subdirectory, then I kinda can change permissions manually with right click, but not everything seems to behave consistently, and even if it does, I'd have to do this for every friggen folder and subfolder which would take weeks.

Basically robocopy gives me "Access Denied" when I use the switch to copy ACLs, and permcopy only works on shares, not subdirectories of shares. I tried both ways, one gives an error message 123 and the other error 5.

 

[GanJi]

2TB HDD support?

Hello

Is there any news on support of the new 2TB HDDs from Western Digital?
Are they supported right now, or do we need a firmware update?

Thanx
Rumen

 

[Changerx]

How does the torrent plugin work?

I am download stuff after install the edonkey/torrent plugin.

But how does it work? Does it share my files as I am download like a regular torrent client or does it just download and not share?

No word on the replacements yet.

 

[rbhalla]

Exchange

Hi All,
Any news on the exchange offer that was going to happen for the NS4300's?

 

[PromiseNasDude]

SmartStor Updates: Exchange Program, AVL Changes, DLNA, etc.

I apologize for the delay in providing updates on the Exchange Program, Rev B shipping status, next Service Release, etc. The start to year was very hectic with Macworld, CES, changes in the economy and other unexpected events. In addition I have been battling a rash of sinus infections which are a result of my allergies. It has not kept me from the office but has affected my energy level and time spent on other activities. With me finally getting over the last infection, I am nearly 100 percent again and will be back on the boards permanently. As usual, email is the best way to reached me (billyh@promise.com) if I am absent.


Exchange Program

Emails will go out next Monday the 16th of March. The emails will be sent out over a period of several days so the Tech Support RMA persons are not swapped with handling the exchanges. RMA will be handled between the US and European Locations. Instructions will be included in Email.


Preparation

1. Backup all critical data. The recovery function is designed to recover array information from the drives in the event the array is placed into a new enclosure. This process works well but nothing is 100 percent and drives with poor integrity can complicate the process. Frankly, you should always have a backup of all data and never a single copy or central storage. In future firmware release we will provide function to backup to USB attached drives. The upcoming NS4600 will allow backup to USB and eSATA attached drives.

2. Make sure your “Rev A” model is on SR5 Firmware 1.5.3 or 1.5.7. No exceptions as we do not have time to support “array roam” with older versions on the new hardware.

3. Those using Seagate Desktop Class (Barracuda AS 7200.11 and 7200.12) and Barracuda ES.2 Drives, not sure if you are aware of the current issue with the drives becoming inaccessible on power cycle, but I advise NOT to “power cycle” the NAS until you have a good backup of your data. If more than one drive becomes inaccessible on reboot (power cycle) you will have an offline array resulting in data loss. Once you have backup of your data, I advise “updating the drives” to the Firmware Level Seagate has posted on their Website.

ES.2 Firmware is here (please read very carefully and pay attention to part numbers): http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207963&NewLang=en&Hilite=firmware

Barracuda 7200.11 is here (please read very carefully and pay attention to part numbers): http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207957&NewLang=en&Hilite=firmware

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/c...51&NewLang=en&Hilite=firmware+Firmware-Update

If you are using Seagate Hard Drives branded as Maxtor or Quantum Hard Drives, please check the Seagate Support site for firmware update.


Removal of Seagate and Samsung Desktop Drives from the AVL (All NAS Products)

As of a few weeks ago I removed the Seagate and Samsung Desktop Drives from the NAS AVL. Desktop Drives are not designed to be used in RAID Arrays. Desktop Class SATA Drives lack several key characteristics that are present in Enterprise SATA Drives. These drives do not support TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery), have lower MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure), have lower Duty Cycles and typically lack RV Sensor (Rotational Vibration). They are not ideal for running in RAID solutions and excessive bad sectors on multiple disks (especially without TLER) can result in severe errors to the filesystem including data loss as RAID 5 can only handle errors on a single disk at a time. I discussed the decision with both Seagate and Samsung; both agreed that removing is in the best interest of the customer (you). WD and Hitachi Desktop Drives will remain on the list. If you are using any of the removed hard drives we will still support you but moving forward all new or existing customers replacing drives should use Seagate and Samsung Enterprise Class Drives only.


NS4300N Rev B Availability in the Channel and Retail

NS4300N Rev B is now available in the channel and retail. The following Retailers below have the units in stock. Rev B has new blue retail packaging (see attached image).

Buy.com
Fry’s
Micro Center
PC Mall
New Egg

BTW: Some Fry's stores may still have inventory of Rev A. As of late Jan Fry's started to receive Rev B. To sure to look for the new "blue" retail box if you must have Rev B. If the NAS is going into a closet, garage or other space where noise is no issue, then Rev A is fine.

In addition to resolving the Fan Control issue, we also changed the power supply fan. Rev B also features improved LED.

For those of you in Europe, APAC and the Lands Down Under, I will have news on retailers for you in a few days.

DLNA/UPNP Plug-in Scan issues

Two issues exist in the current build 01.01.0000.05 of the DLNA Plug-in:

1. Scan process halts when a “bad” media file is encountered. The scan engine was being way too “tight” and would abort on bad media. For reference, about 75% of all media has metadata errors and or encoding errors that should prevent the file from playback on any media player (software or hardware). Just about every MP will ignore most errors and playback the file. I have been able to reproduce this will several pieces of media from customers and others I know. Myself, I have never had this problem as I encode all of my own Divx and MKV/H.264 Content and all of my music comes from my own CD’s or is purchased from Amazon MP3 store or Rhapsody MP3 Store. The majority of the bad content comes from the internet or friends (unknown source – therefore integrity of files is questionable). The scan engine has been updated to ignore this condition. A beta version (v01.01.0000.06) will be posted later this week. If you want the version sooner, please email me at billyh@promise.com.

If you continue to experience problems with the scan engine stopping (so far our testing has been good), please contact me so we can work on the issue together.

2. Scan Engine was not optimized for very large libraries. Response times became an issue with the limited power of the SoC used in the NAS and cause the engine to stop. This has pretty much been resolved in v01.01.0000.06. Again, will be posted later this week and I can be contacted to receive earlier.

NOTE: Remove OLD VERSION FIRST, then install new version.

I will post more shortly on the next Service Release and details on the NS4600(performance is damn good) and our first DAS, the DS4300efu (quad interface – USB 2.0, eSATA and Firewire 400/800).

 

[PromiseNasDude]

I am download stuff after install the edonkey/torrent plugin.

But how does it work? Does it share my files as I am download like a regular torrent client or does it just download and not share?

No word on the replacements yet.

No sharing enabled in current version. We are working on exposing new features and settings.. I will need to get back to you on upload features.

Replacement update has been posted a few post before this one..

Thanks.

 

[PromiseNasDude]

I am replacing a windowsxp box with a shared drive with the NS4300N. Both are on the same windows domain. I am an adminstrator on the windows machine.

How do I copy the files from the windows machine to the PromiseNAS while keeping the permissions/acl the same? I've tried robocopy and permcopy without much success. I could try and mention all the ways it doesn't work, but I can't be the first person to do this, so I'll only go into a few details.

There's about 70 users that have various permissions to various folders, and everyone else on the domain (several thousand) has no access. This is all configured already on the windows machine, so I'd like to just copy it over as is.

I would like to make it as its own folder so I made a new share from PASM which makes it a folder in the root directory when I open the NAS with \\NAME, but if I right click on it, doesn't let me do much if anything. So as a test I've tried making it as a subdirectory, then I kinda can change permissions manually with right click, but not everything seems to behave consistently, and even if it does, I'd have to do this for every friggen folder and subfolder which would take weeks.

Basically robocopy gives me "Access Denied" when I use the switch to copy ACLs, and permcopy only works on shares, not subdirectories of shares. I tried both ways, one gives an error message 123 and the other error 5.

Unfortunately you will need to copy the data and applie read-write access on the NAS. File Permissions are not a mirror of the OS File Permission Heirarchy. If you want to control the permissions from Windows I suggest using Active Directory which will allow you to manage the NAS under AD as the Domain Administrator.

Thanks.

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Hi all, I just succeeded in joining NS4300N this way:

I created a new admininstrator like account with "root" as username and with a password made of only letters, because PromiseNAsDude said "We have a special character issue and a workaround, and I assumed that issue was not actually got fixed
Btw.. I DONT know if both things (having a "root" account and a no special char password) are mandatory.. It was 3 a.m. when I figured it. Not it works and i follow the rule If work, dont fix.
I can now see all AD usersa and group andre user management in WebPASM
Hope it helps

Hmm interesting.. Special Characters issue was resolved in SR5.. I will have this checked..

Thanks..

 

[dokoder]

creating folder with no passwort?

Hello ,

Is it possible to create a new folder without passwort on the NS4300N?
SmartNavi ask always for a passwort.
Because i use a mediaplayer (Verbatim Media Sation) i need a folder without passwort for playing VOB-files from the NS4300N.

Thanks a lot for your help

dokoder


P.S.:I upgraded to the latest firmware.

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Hello ,

Is it possible to create a new folder without passwort on the NS4300N?
SmartNavi ask always for a passwort.
Because i use a mediaplayer (Verbatim Media Sation) i need a folder without passwort for playing VOB-files from the NS4300N.

Thanks a lot for your help

dokoder


P.S.:I upgraded to the latest firmware.

Hi Dokoder, this is NOT possible at the moment but I am working to see if we can add in next service release. I have had requests many times for this feature. We are planning SR now, in a week or two, I should be able to provide an answer.

Thanks.

 

[dokoder]

Thanks a lot for your quick answer.

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Added comments regarding Fry's and Rev B to this post:

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showpost.php?p=8220&postcount=188

 

[Craig]

Unfortunately you will need to copy the data and applie read-write access on the NAS. File Permissions are not a mirror of the OS File Permission Heirarchy. If you want to control the permissions from Windows I suggest using Active Directory which will allow you to manage the NAS under AD as the Domain Administrator.

Thanks.

Forgive me, but I still don't understand. I am already using active directory... both the windows machine and the nas are joined to the same domain, however I am not the domain administrator (and can't get company IT department to give me the password - I asked!) However I am the administrator of the windows box and the owner/admin of the Smartstor NAS box which should be enough, and I am able to change permissions manually by right clicking on subdirectories (but not directories in root) on the NAS. (On the windows box I can do it on any directory, not just subdirectories of directories).

I have found a way to kinda do what I want, but it would take weeks and I can't imagine this would be the only way to do it. This method would require me to copy the windows share to a subfolder on the promise nas. Having it as a subfolder is a slight inconvenience, as it adds one more layer than necessary, but could deal with that if necessary. At that point, I would have to right click on each and every folder I have copied over and manually add up to ~70 users for each folder (based on whoever has access on the windows machine). Considering the fact that there is almost a TB of data in about a bazillion direcotires, this would take forever.

 

[andi68]

question concerning dlna plugin

hi,

i just got the ns2300n for 2 weeks now. what i tested for now, it seems to be the right thing for me.
i am using this little machine at home for backup and as a mediaserver. it is connted to my network via powerlan (devolo 200mbit). as i am in the "testphase" i only installed a 250mb sata drive, but 1tb wd caviar green power 24/7 just ordered.
the machine came with the first firmware installed. i copied a dvd (1:1 file structure) onto the hdd. i could watch the dvd on the pc and my hdx1080p mediaplayer perfectly.
then i upgraded to the newest firmwareand installed the newest dlna plugin onto it. the streaming of mp3 a test avi and a test mkv file works wonderful, but the dvd is not playing "good" anymore. it stops sometims, running very slow. i put the dvd into the dlna created movie folder and also into the shared folder of the nas, but it isnt playing via lan as before. it cannot be the powerlan connection i think, because the mkv file runs w/o any problems.
anyone got the same problem, or could help me?

thanx in advance
andi










8

 

[PromiseNasDude]

Forgive me, but I still don't understand. I am already using active directory... both the windows machine and the nas are joined to the same domain, however I am not the domain administrator (and can't get company IT department to give me the password - I asked!) However I am the administrator of the windows box and the owner/admin of the Smartstor NAS box which should be enough, and I am able to change permissions manually by right clicking on subdirectories (but not directories in root) on the NAS. (On the windows box I can do it on any directory, not just subdirectories of directories).

I have found a way to kinda do what I want, but it would take weeks and I can't imagine this would be the only way to do it. This method would require me to copy the windows share to a subfolder on the promise nas. Having it as a subfolder is a slight inconvenience, as it adds one more layer than necessary, but could deal with that if necessary. At that point, I would have to right click on each and every folder I have copied over and manually add up to ~70 users for each folder (based on whoever has access on the windows machine). Considering the fact that there is almost a TB of data in about a bazillion direcotires, this would take forever.

Hi Craig, (need to clarify) you have domain administrator rights to the NAS (which is joined to the AD)?

 

[PromiseNasDude]

hi,

i just got the ns2300n for 2 weeks now. what i tested for now, it seems to be the right thing for me.
i am using this little machine at home for backup and as a mediaserver. it is connted to my network via powerlan (devolo 200mbit). as i am in the "testphase" i only installed a 250mb sata drive, but 1tb wd caviar green power 24/7 just ordered.
the machine came with the first firmware installed. i copied a dvd (1:1 file structure) onto the hdd. i could watch the dvd on the pc and my hdx1080p mediaplayer perfectly.
then i upgraded to the newest firmwareand installed the newest dlna plugin onto it. the streaming of mp3 a test avi and a test mkv file works wonderful, but the dvd is not playing "good" anymore. it stops sometims, running very slow. i put the dvd into the dlna created movie folder and also into the shared folder of the nas, but it isnt playing via lan as before. it cannot be the powerlan connection i think, because the mkv file runs w/o any problems.
anyone got the same problem, or could help me?

thanx in advance
andi










8

What DMP are you using for Playback? To recap, both SMB and DLNA sharing exhibit performance issue? I have seen strange Powerlan issues with other customers. Build 6 of the DLNA resolves some issues with response times (send me a PM for access) but since you are experiencing problems via SMB shares, something else is going on.

Thanks.

 

[andi68]

hi pnd,

i use a win xp pc and a nmt by hdx (1080p, compareable to popcorn hour a110).
it happens on both machines dlna dvd structure playback wont work. via network access it stops, runs slow,etc.

thanx
andi