D-Link DSM-G600 NAS
Because of the expected performance hit using Adobe CS and CS2 products with a new Intel-powered Mac, I’ve been looking for some way to use my dual G5 PowerMac to work with my Adobe files. The obvious answer to making those files available to every machine I own was to relocate them to a network drive, so I’ve been looking for some kind of Network Attached Storage case so I could use some spare hard drives I already own. I wanted something with a Gigabit Ethernet interface, so I decided to give the D-Link DSM-G600 a shot. I bought it for $129.99 at our local Fry’s Electronics.
The DSM-G600 mounts a single ultra-ATA hard disk inside its case, and it’s capable of handling a hard disk up to 400GB in size. I mounted a 160GB Maxtor Ultra-ATA hard drive in the case. The drive snaps into a metal brace that uses a single case screw to fasten the drive into it. I jumpered the drive as a Master; according to the DSN-G600 instructions, you can jumper the drive as a Master or as Cable Select. The power connector snaps into place easily on the back of the drive but pushes up against the case fan, though I didn’t see or hear any other sign of interference. The IDE interface cable had to be twisted, folded, and pushed down slightly on top of the drive to get it to fit without interfering with the case. Those were the only two connectors to mount; once that’s done, the top of the case was snapped back on and the case was secured via two screws in its rear.
With the DSM-G600 sitting horizontally, the hard drive vibrated against the case and buzzed annoyingly. Luckily, the buzz went away when I sat the drive on its side so the ports and status lights were vertical. I am running it in that configuration, though there was nothing in the drive literature that addressed doing so, one way or the other. I did not investigate where the buzz was coming from, but I suspect it has to do with the hard drive mounts, i.e., using pins for three of its four mounting points. Screws would have worked a lot better.
The rear of the DSM sported a Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports for mounting external drives, a place to plug in the small power brick that powers the device, and a stub to mount the unit’s wireless antenna on. I mounted the unit’s antenna but did not turn on the wireless portion of the unit via its software or its web interface since I planned on running via the Gigabit Ethernet port. I plugged the DSM into a 5 port Gigabit D-Link Ethernet switch and the configured the device following a procedure at D-Link’s support website. It had me configure the device as DHCP with a manual IP address.
When I brought the device up on the network, both the Macs and my Windows XP machine saw it easily. For the Macs, it shows up as a “shortcut” to the drive labeled “DSM-G600” in the Network portion of Finder. Double-clicking on the icon accesses the drive using SMB and brings up a small window asking you what partition you want to access, i..e, “web page” or “HDD_a”. The latter is the hard drive. The Windows XP machine required me to map the drive but it was easily found and mounted.
Transfer rates were initially very slow. I thought at first it might have to do with the file format system the drive was using which D-Link identified as EXT2 or EXT3. The Windows XP PC identified the file system as NTFS. In any case, there did not appear to be an easy way to format the drive with some other file system. I pressed back into the web-based configuration tool and changed the IP address set-up from DHCP to Static IP, matching the address up with the one suggested in the D-Link support materials. I also changed out the short Ethernet cable that came with the drive and put in a Cat 6 cable that I bought at Fry’s. The transfer rates improved, though they still do not seem as fast as those attained by the Macs when I transfer files between themselves. I make sure when I turn on my network I power this drive up before anything else so the router assigns the other IP addresses around the DSM. The drive’s power button, by the way, is a small black rectangle on the front of the drive.
I’m happy with this set-up so far. It’s nice being able to get to all my Adobe and Paperport files from any Mac in the house. I’m thinking about copying my major iPhoto library out to the drive so I can access it from any machine. I won’t be handicapped now by my upcoming Intel Mac’s slow Rosetta performance. If I want to move faster, I simply move over to my dual G5 PowerMac. It’s also let me set up folders for my wife and a folder we can use to store shared project files the other can access at their convenience.
The DSM-G600 mounts a single ultra-ATA hard disk inside its case, and it’s capable of handling a hard disk up to 400GB in size. I mounted a 160GB Maxtor Ultra-ATA hard drive in the case. The drive snaps into a metal brace that uses a single case screw to fasten the drive into it. I jumpered the drive as a Master; according to the DSN-G600 instructions, you can jumper the drive as a Master or as Cable Select. The power connector snaps into place easily on the back of the drive but pushes up against the case fan, though I didn’t see or hear any other sign of interference. The IDE interface cable had to be twisted, folded, and pushed down slightly on top of the drive to get it to fit without interfering with the case. Those were the only two connectors to mount; once that’s done, the top of the case was snapped back on and the case was secured via two screws in its rear.
With the DSM-G600 sitting horizontally, the hard drive vibrated against the case and buzzed annoyingly. Luckily, the buzz went away when I sat the drive on its side so the ports and status lights were vertical. I am running it in that configuration, though there was nothing in the drive literature that addressed doing so, one way or the other. I did not investigate where the buzz was coming from, but I suspect it has to do with the hard drive mounts, i.e., using pins for three of its four mounting points. Screws would have worked a lot better.
The rear of the DSM sported a Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports for mounting external drives, a place to plug in the small power brick that powers the device, and a stub to mount the unit’s wireless antenna on. I mounted the unit’s antenna but did not turn on the wireless portion of the unit via its software or its web interface since I planned on running via the Gigabit Ethernet port. I plugged the DSM into a 5 port Gigabit D-Link Ethernet switch and the configured the device following a procedure at D-Link’s support website. It had me configure the device as DHCP with a manual IP address.
When I brought the device up on the network, both the Macs and my Windows XP machine saw it easily. For the Macs, it shows up as a “shortcut” to the drive labeled “DSM-G600” in the Network portion of Finder. Double-clicking on the icon accesses the drive using SMB and brings up a small window asking you what partition you want to access, i..e, “web page” or “HDD_a”. The latter is the hard drive. The Windows XP machine required me to map the drive but it was easily found and mounted.
Transfer rates were initially very slow. I thought at first it might have to do with the file format system the drive was using which D-Link identified as EXT2 or EXT3. The Windows XP PC identified the file system as NTFS. In any case, there did not appear to be an easy way to format the drive with some other file system. I pressed back into the web-based configuration tool and changed the IP address set-up from DHCP to Static IP, matching the address up with the one suggested in the D-Link support materials. I also changed out the short Ethernet cable that came with the drive and put in a Cat 6 cable that I bought at Fry’s. The transfer rates improved, though they still do not seem as fast as those attained by the Macs when I transfer files between themselves. I make sure when I turn on my network I power this drive up before anything else so the router assigns the other IP addresses around the DSM. The drive’s power button, by the way, is a small black rectangle on the front of the drive.
I’m happy with this set-up so far. It’s nice being able to get to all my Adobe and Paperport files from any Mac in the house. I’m thinking about copying my major iPhoto library out to the drive so I can access it from any machine. I won’t be handicapped now by my upcoming Intel Mac’s slow Rosetta performance. If I want to move faster, I simply move over to my dual G5 PowerMac. It’s also let me set up folders for my wife and a folder we can use to store shared project files the other can access at their convenience.
posted by Andy Foster at
5:42 PM
1 Comments:
I also purchased my DSM-G600 from Frys.. however I picked up a 500gb Seagate they had on sale at the time to put in the DSM. It worked great. I am just stating this since the blog said the DSM can use "up to 400gb". Also note.. there are 2 versions of the DSM. There shouldn't be too many version "A's" left on store shelves but just in case people can look on the box for the version "B" model. Version "B" fixes a lot of issues from the previous model. It's not possible for people with Version "A" to update to Version "B" because there are physical hardware changes. People should also make sure to flash to the latest bio's since this clears up some issues also. (like the 2gb file size limitation.)
By
Anonymous, at 2:19 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home