ARGOSY - HD363N - Network Storage

[quisoc]

First, I'm sorry for my english
I'm trying the beta firmware
I've benn trying other firmwares, and the only that permited workin
fine was the 04-0317
My HD comes with NETHD05-0607, and I have the problem of th
"desconection" from the net
First I tried 04-0317 and it's work ok. Then, I'd tried SNAS05-060
and I had the error again. I wanted to install other firmware, an
when I tried it I received a error message. I had to return t
factory configuration BUT the NAS firmware still here, only change
the IP and the Administrator login and pass.
Finally I installed the beta fw and for now it's all ok

 

[quisoc]

OH!! Beta fw worked fine UNTIL now. I received again the same messag
error. I flashed the 04-... fw, and ofr now it's all ok
I'm from Catalonia, in Europe. There is a possibility that the device
aren't equal in USA than in Europe

 

[winux]

I just looked at a review on Tom's Networking on the Iomega NAS 200d,
and it charted some comparisons on write speed amongst several other
NAS units. I noticed the Tritton unit (same as Argosy) comes in
third--and the Iomega and the second place charter (Synopsis, or
something like that--Canadian and Euro only, it seems), barely beat
out the Tritton/Argosy. I would like to say I thought a previous
review from Tom's shot down the performance on the unit, but it looks
like they re-tested. I am now very happy I got the cheapest and
fastest unit.

I can't wait until they make it faster, if possible!

Oh, I looked at their read chart, and they are pretty low still, but I
think write perfomance is more important--I am BACKING up files and
STORING files, and reading them is not a big thing for me all the
time.

 

[jliss]

:evil:

The product is immature. I've been debugging it for months and
unfortunately I purchased it from an technically challenged and
obnoxious ebay supplier. I flashed the beta firmware and noted that I
needed to format the disk for it to be used. But of course formatting
is not really formatting, perhaps just an initialization of the FAT ?
The firmware corrupts outlook pst files and times out after copying
many small files and before it times out the copies get real slow.
But more good news, the end user documentation leaves a lot to be
desired. I'd like to know what the telnet commands do and where they
were programmed (somewhere in China ? using what standards). I have a
linksys 54G network, about 5 active PC's and the drive is connected
directly to the router. Stay away from this product.

 

[ukcobra]

Using the latest firmware my device appears to behave itself, with
250GB Maxtor 16M drive

Using Beyond Compare does improve things, although I'd still like t
see what other softare people use successfully

I have no timeouts copying files, or noticed any corruption

 

[quisoc]

And what's firmware you use

 

[mrmagoo]

Hi

I`ve been following the comments here and was wondering how users ar
finding the quality of the BETA firmware? Any issues worth noting

I`m in the market for a low cost NAS box so that I can use it t
automatically backup my Win2K box which itself is being used t
backup my other PC`s on my home network. Because what I`m backing u
is so important, I would like to build in redundant backups with thi
HD363N being one of two backup services

 

[stefflow]

I was almost ready to throw in the towel on my HD363N+300GB Seagate
since connecting clients via 802.11g wireless is my only option.
Stock firmware, 04-0317 and 05-0607 versions all caused mid copy
stalls.

fixuser's beta firmware has stabilized
things so I'm writing a 3 GB video file now without a problem. Write
performance could be better. How are others measuring throughput?

Thanks for the firmware, [b:3e6d34fff6]fixuser [/b:3e6d34fff6].

Connected via Linksys WRT54G running Sveasoft Talisman 1.05.

 

[ukcobra]

I am using NetHDD005-0607 firmware

 

[Maximus1234]

Hi Guys

Thank you all for a very informative thread (espacially fixuser)!
bought my HD636N today and have read your thread here and I hav
learnt a lot. Now I have two questions

1. My device seem to have firmware version NetHDD005-0601, is this
new version? On Argosy's website the download says NetHDD004-0317
have they forgotten to update the download

2. Where do I get the Beta fw? The link posted here doesn't work an
more

/

 

[winux]

Maximus

Depending on which brand you have (Argosy or Tritton) depends on th
firmware you can get. Argosy seems slow, and Tritton seems fast.
couldn't get the link to work either, so maybe they took it down o
moved it

 

[Maximus1234]

I saw somewhere here in the thread that the fan didn't wind down an
stop when the drive went to sleep, I just wanted to tell you tha
mine does

/
(The man who still can't find the Beta fw

 

[fixuser]

I've been running the Tritton Beta since I first got it, and it stil
has two issues

1) Outloo
With the Beta, I can access Outlook's PST files, but a
jliss noted it does tend to corrupt the
... requiring repair with the Inbox Repair Tool. Funny thing, I can'
repair the PST file while it remains on the NAS, I have to copy it t
a PC, run the repair, and then put it back onto the NAS before i
will work with Outlook again
Besides the file corruption issue, there is also a problem when th
connection to the NAS (as viewed from Outlook) appears to disconnect
generating a system error (can be viewed in the Event Viewer). Thi
doesn't seem to cause the file corruption, as even with this error
can continue working in Outlook at times

2) Moving small directories
I've tried lots of test cases with the Beta, moving, copying
streaming files and directories. I have no problems expect whe
copying directories from the NAS to a PC. It appears if a director
having more than 23-24 files will cause the file transfer to lock up
and eventually report that "The specified network name is no longe
available."
If I revert back to the 05-0607 firmware, I have no problem with thes
directories

[b:a23372dafb]winux[/b:a23372dafb]
You mention the type (Tritton, Argosy) of device will determine whic
firmware you can use. I don't know that there is a limitation. I'v
been able to flash all the firmwares we've gotten from both Tritto
and Argosy onto my NAS

[b:a23372dafb]Maximus1234[/b:a23372dafb]
Welcome to the discussion. I'm curious about the Argosy 05-060
firmware. They had sent me a Beta 05-0607 firmware back in th
middle of July which appeared VERY similar to the Tritton 05-060
firmware release. Can you check if file times and dates are correc
(not rouned to the nearest minutes, and not 100 years added to file
before 2000) on your 05-0601 NAS
I wasn't sure how long Tritton would leave the Beta firmware availabl
on the web, as they had also said they expected to release anothe
Beta soon ... say within a couple weeks (I'm waiting patiently).
But, if you want the 06 Beta, Private Message (PM) me and we ca
setup an email transfer

[b:a23372dafb]quisoc[/b:a23372dafb]
If you could telnet into your device (see notes I posted earlier i
this thread), and see what the 'sys' command tells you, we might b
able to see if the device you receieve in Europe is different fro
those else where. The description of my device said: 000E Spee
125Mh

Lastly, just a curious note about Argosy, every time I send the
updates on firmware issues, they always report back that they wil
forward the issues onto their staff in Taiwan and keep me posted o
any new releases. However, the more I checked into Argosy's othe
web sites: Argosy Taiwan
Argosy Europe, I see n
mention of this product, or any support for it. The product onl
seems to appear on the US web site. I'm not sure what this means
just found it somewhat odd

 

[microchip]

The Tritton beta is no longer available on their site(the link posted
by fixuser), but the downloads page still has the old firmware. Does
anybody know if they're releasing an update? I am definitely having
the wireless issues. Works fine wired, wireless I get disconnects to
the NAS but nothing else.

MC

 

[tommie]

I found this at Argosy:
http://www.argosyusa.net/driver/Argosy-NetHDD006-0804.zip
The version number is similar to the Tritton beta.

 

[Maximus1234]

There is no adding of years with my fw, but the truncating of seconds
still remain. I transfered a file stamped 1991-06-05 18:55:56 and it
ended up with the stamp 1991-06-05 18:55:00.

I tried a couple of other files as well with the same result.

I am curious about the new fw that popped up here, the
Argosy-NetHDD006-0804. Has anyone tried it?

 

[microchip]

tommiewrote
I found this at Argosy

http://www.argosyusa.net/driver/Argosy-NetHDD006-0804.zi
The version number is similar to the Tritton beta

Does upgrading to this firmware require you to reformat the drive lik
some of the older firmwares

 

[fixuser]

I've just finished testing the Argosy 06-0804 firmware for the las
hour. It appears very, very similar to the Tritton 06-0804 with on
improvement ... it appears to properly handle the file creation date
A previous problem with the firmwares was that the file creation dat
would change when being modified. Tritton had thought it wa
corrected in their 06-0804 beta, but it was not. It appears th
Argosy version has been updated to no longer change the creatio
date

Otherwise, it appears to have all the other improvements the Tritto
06-0804 beta did. Those include
1. Administrator name is updated on the Home Page when changed
2. Passwords to Shared Folders now properly monitor for cas
(upper,lower) when mapping a drive and when creating the password
3. Files dated before 2000 no longer add 100 years when copied to th
NAS
4. File times are no longer rounded to the minute, they show to th
second. NOTE: FAT32 file system only tracks file times to an eve
number of seconds, 2 second intervals, so don't be surprised if yo
see a file time of 33 seconds change to 32 or 34 seconds. Anyon
running backup software should allow for +/- 1 second variation

However, this release from Argosy has the same issues I found with th
beta from Tritton, in that I still have the same issues using it wit
Outlook, and when copying folders with more than 23-24 files from th
NAS to a PC, it locks up. This issue with the folders is a killer fo
me ... makes it useless for sharing files across the network to othe
machines

Also, these two releases from Tritton and Argosy do not allow the FT
port to be changed from 21. This was supposed to be an added featur
of the Tritton 5-0607 release. Argosy never formally released
firmware with this feature

microchip
I've only formatted the drive once. I've moved back and forth betwee
all the firmwares and never been required to format the drive again
so I can't say for certain, but if you have updated your device t
use the 5-0607 firmware, and formated the drive I doubt you'll hav
to do it again. With the 5-0607, the default cluster size became 3
kB (prior to 5-0607 it was an option you could change, now no longe
an option). I believe all firmwares released after 5-0607 will us
the 32 kB cluster size, so there shouldn't be a reason for the driv
to be formatted again

 

[dilettante]

Finally got my hands on a couple of the Argosy units recently, and
think I'm beginning to see where some of the limitations come int
play

SNAS05-0607 (Tritton) is the most recent firmware I've tried so far

Simple file copying hasn't been bad, as long as there aren't multipl
sessions (simultaneous operations) going - even between the NAS bo
and a single client PC. Things can crawl with two or more goin
though

Where performance really falls down seems to be random operations an
rapid short file creation/deletion. I haven't tried PST files yet
but Jet ("Access") databases can really crawl, especially on quer
operations against even a small database

I haven't experienced data corruption, just some really sa
performance. Some of this can be moderated by keeping databas
connections open throughout a session instead of using the generall
more scalable and reliable open-act-close technique. Som
significant performance (responsiveness) penalty is expected with th
latter technique of course... but this is ridiculous

I attribute most of this to the tiny (or no) disk cache in the NAS bo
along with an SMB implementation no better (or worse?) than SAMB
offers. Basically these devices have to be viewed as "tape drives.

I'd thought people viewing these things as backup devices to be a bi
unsophisticated. The truth seems to be that this may be the onl
real target application for these machines

For comparison I took an old computer here that has a Celeron 400 an
128MB of RAM, and installed and patched up (as much as I can at thi
point, support being what it is) Windows 95 OSR 2.1 as a dumb fil
server of the type these units represent - share level passwords.
stripped out (avoided installing) any protocols but TCP/IP an
Windows file/print sharing, and did a few disk cache tweaks bu
nothing out of the ordinary

To really be fair I probably ought to be using a 486 with 16 MB o
something... but realistically that's a doorstop today. Almos
nobody would bother running one, and a machine of the specs I'
testing is a nearly free item today as a used computer goes

Needless to say, the Win95 box runs rings around the Argosy/Tritto
box. None of the headaches with Jet either. Response is smooth an
fast, even with NetMeeting RDS running (as a remote-admin tool). I
would be trivial to connect a parallel printer and/or a couple of US
printers, put in 3 hard drives and an optical drive, etc

This is an old slimline Dell Optiplex, and runs cool and quiet
though it is obviously more bulky than these tiny NAS devices.
Windows 95 or 98 are a bit pricier than a Linux/SMB combo for th
same hardware - but with none of the headaches or quirks

I really wanted these things to work. I had high hopes. Right now
am having my doubts though. I'll give that beta firmware a shot bu
I suspect the real limitation is the hardware (RAM) available and th
resulting lack of disk cache

 

[dilettante]

Trying the Argosy 06-0804 firmware now

Still a little sluggish, but much better than prior firmware levels
even using a lot of Jet I/O. Significantly improved usability

I have to say they are doing something right now. I'll watch for fil
corruption

By the way, multiple simultaneous activities seem to operate mor
smoothly as well (i.e. playing an MP3 from the NAS while performin
Jet operations on an MDB)