D-Link: The worst NAS – DNS-series

There is a saying “You get what you pay for”. Among many of the gadgets I have bought, there is no other product than a D-Link where this wouldn’t apply more.

I came across a cheap D-LINK DNS-313 network storage and thought I can at least put some of my SATA-drives to use.

The DNS-313 must be the worst device I have ever come across. Although the slot-loading case is a nice feature, everything else is just plain nasty:

After about 2 days of trying to convince the device to accept any hard-drive (theoretically I should be able to go up to 1 terabyte), I was not able to get this device installed. I have tried every version of firmware, tried to install via local LAN, through a switch, through a router. I then partitioned the device the same way the installation program does it and created the boot-images. In all occasions I was unsuccessful as the device kept on hanging or stopped responding.

The DNS-313 is in my opinion one of the most unreliable devices and considering that D-Link wants you to put your precious data on this piece of junk, I strongly urge everyone to steer clear of the D-Link DNS-series (the multi-bay devices are no different).

If you want to get a real NAS, then rather go with a Synology or a QNAP.