After running the D-Link DNS-320 for a while, I decided to shift fonz’s fun_plug (ffp) to run off the USB drive instead of the hard disk. Some benefits of doing so are:
- Reduce mechanical wear and tear – I frequently access the DNS-320 via ssh and by doing so, the disk spins up. By shifting the ffp onto the USB drive, the disks do not spin up as much and hence lesser mechanical wear and tear
- Power saving – I assume lesser disk spinups translate to marginal power savings in the long run
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Better late than never, D-Link released a beta firmware to address the incompatibility issue with OS X Lion. The beta firmware 2.02 B01 can be found on D-Link Forums. Both Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) and Time Machine (TM) are working as it should on the DNS-320 with Lion.
A little history about the AFP and TM issue can be found here. Basically, Lion’s AFP is using a different security mechanism, hence breaking AFP support for quite a fair bit of NAS. I put up a workaround sometime back before D-Link came up with theirs.
Give the beta firmware a shot and continue with your Time Machine backup!
The Apple File Protocol (AFP) stopped working the day I upgraded to OS X Lion. Network shares on the NAS (DNS-320, ReadyNAS Duo) can no longer be browsed through AFP because none of them supports AFP 3.X calls and the authentication standards required by Lion.
I need a fix fast! Why? My iMac’s 1TB Seagate HDD got recalled and I needed Time Machine (TM) to work before the tech guy replace it on site.
(Re)setup my compiling environment, this time for the DNS-320. Did some compiling, wrote some shell scripts and Time Machine (on OS X Lion) is working with my D-Link DNS-320 once again. Well, it still throws some CNIB warning messages when accessing the share but at least it works now. The CNIB issue is fixed with help from Ben Archer.
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Good things come in small packages
Finally got the Apple TV2 (ATV2) after much deliberation. Always wanted to watch online videos on the big screen as the A.C.Ryan PlayOn!HD lack the online video playing feature.
What is the Apple TV?
The Apple TV is a media player that is well integrated with iOS devices. You can use AirPlay to stream from your iOS devices over the wireless N. You can also play HD movies, rent TV shows (Netflix), watch YouTube and even stream iTunes music and photos from your computer.
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I guess you have heard about Advanced Format hard disks – large capacities hard disks that utilizes 4KB data sectors instead of 512B sectors. Advanced Format uses storage surface area more efficiently, allowing manufacturers to roll out higher density disk platters. This is because 4KB (4096B) with ECC block takes far less real estate on the disk platter than eight 512B with ECC blocks.
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The change in the location of hard disk mounting point in the DNS-320 broke fonz’s fun_plug. fonz’s fun_plug was created to run on earlier D-Link NAS (DNS-313, DNS-323, DNS-343) whose Volume_1 was mounted at /mnt/HD_a2. In DNS-320′s case, Volume_1 was actually mounted on /mnt/HD/HD_a2.
This change in mounting point also broke some of the packages created earlier as rely on /mnt/HD_a2 for storage. Transmission Bittorrent client (transmissionbt) is one of the packages that won’t run on the DNS-320 out of the box.
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