NetGear Storage Central SC101: Feedback

[johnbullas]

Following the complete failure of a 20GB WD IDE HDD that sneaked through my backup procedures, I went out and bought a NetGear Storage Central SC101 along with two Hitachi 250GB IDE HDDs and now have a 250GB network shared storage device and what seems to be a pretty simple interface to administer the RAID mirrored disks which are sub-divided into 3 drives 150GB, 50GB and the remainder for three users.

I avoided the 2x250GB bundled MaxStor IDE drives offered as a package at

http://www.Novatech.co.uk

as I have had two of these progressively fail with intensive use.. paid more to get Hitachis from elsewhere....

The bundled backup procedures SmartSync Pro is looking after regularly backing up the "scratch" area ( defined as the desktop) on the local disk on each machine ( for faster read/write access) and the Eudora (mailfolder not APP) directory on each as this again is pretty I/O intensive and the 100MB LAN might slow it down?

Each machine now has "my documents" configured as root on a drive letter accessible disk on the SC101.

SO....... Have any forum members experienced this device in use, it looks to be a real easy way to offer some degree of security to intermediate users looking for a painless way to save data?

 

[rvnguy]

The 'NetGear' NAS device is one of many NAS devices available that for the most part perform the same hardware function.

Differences in software management utilities provide for ease of use/management.

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[johnbullas]

Netgear SC101 NAS ISSUES: A DHCP conflict that had not really raised its ugly head on the 100Mb wired/54g wireless netwrok at home... It became an issue with drive access, it was solved by forcing the range of IPs for the ADSL Router to stay within a range including the WAP ( the WAP has DHCP for the wireless network now configured to the IPs above the manually configured IP for the WAP which lies at the upper limit of the DHCP range for the ADSL Router to assign

Sure enough the three flashes ..... three flashes of the gren light on the SC101 hihlighted the problem!

The problem manifested itself in missing drives, mirror failure messages etc etc everything you might expect with drives "playing up"

The SC101 system is now running 100% backing up the desktops of both machines to the respective mirrored drives on the 2 250Gb Hitachi HDDs ....

Will keep up the reports!!!

FB

 

[rvnguy]

You should investigate using only one DCHP device with static IP's for devices like the NAS & WAP which can be defined in the router tables/config for DCHP.

This generally prevents these types of conflicts/problems.



rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[johnbullas]

the WAP dhcp will only allocate 10.0.0.21 up

the router 10.0.0.4 to 10.0.0.20

10.0.0.20 is the WAP

will the WAP still be able to allocate IPs to wireless devices if it has its DHCP disabled?

 

[rvnguy]

The router DHCP will handle all assignments except that you should set router DHCP to assign/reserve IP's for the NAS and the WAP, i.e. reserve 10.0.0.4 & 10.0.0.5 and set the NAS as one & the WAP as the other.

But if the method you are using works without problems just keep this in case.

The NAS should be static so that mapings are always able to find it like after a reset.

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[johnbullas]

How can I get the DHCP to set fixed IPs for the NAS and router and assign IPs dynamically for others? by MAC addresses to ID the devices ? the router is an epic router (generic one) gotthe manual as PDF

 

[rvnguy]

I am not familiar with the Epic brand...but there should e a web based configruation utility...something like 192.168.0.1 and there you would find the DCHP config and assign static IP's to specific MAC devices.

Also in the WAP setup you would disable it as DCHP

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[johnbullas]

got the web interface ok!

Manual is here:

http://www.soton.ac.uk/~johnb/download/Epic router User Guide.pdf

Can't see any reference on the web interface to set IPs based on MAC addresses, correct me if I am mistaken....


John

 

[johnbullas]

MAC Addresses, DNS Names and Fixed IPs
======================================

To save on the problems associated with the seperate wireless access point and ADSL modem router, I sold my Buffalo g54 Airstation for 20 quid more than I paid for, the adsl router for the same as I paid for it and for 50 quid got a combined WAP and ADSL router/hub (3Com device #3crwdr100a-72 Nb: default settings changed!)...

and 2 free PCMCIA 54g cards thrown in (Misco.co.uk)

This ADSL Router/WAP prompts me for the MAC address and IP pairs to FIX device IPs based on their MAC addresses....

PROBLEM....

Using a trial of ManageEngine OpUtils 3.2 (Mac Address Scan) I can see the MAC addresses for all the active devices BUT the SC101 appears to return the SAME MAC address both of the two IPs it has been allocated!!! (two discrete drives)

The admin screen on the router likewise doesn't show them owning to this fact?

Question(s)

#1 How do you fix two IPs for 2 devices using the SAME MAC???

OR how do you establish the real (different) MACs for the SC101 drives

#2 How do you set a DNS name for a peripheral device as it would be nice to be able to recognise a peripheral on the network other than by its MAC address...this question refers to the wireless print server router/modem and SC101 drives, all of which had "no reverse response" given....

Feel like the ethernet equivalent of Christopher Columbus here

FB

 

[rvnguy]

Probably a good move on the combo device

two Hitachi 250GB IDE HDDs and now have a 250GB network shared storage device and what seems to be a pretty simple interface to administer the RAID mirrored disks

Now you have confused me. Your SC101 has drives mirrored and should appear to ethernet as a single device. One does not address hd's directly as they have no MAC addy. The SC101 has a MAC and can be assigned a static IP. One then does not use the MAC after setup, but uses the IP or through an OS like Win, relates a sharename to a device. i.e. your PC has a NIC with a MAC addy and is assigned an IP. When you share say the 'C' & 'D' drives they do not have differing IP's but share the PC's IP via the name of the share you establish. From then on it is the name you use.

I do not believe you should have assigned 2 IP's to the SC101. I would use the software (if needed to see the SC101) that came with the SC101 to establish visibility to your PC and go from there.

Likewise, the print server, assign a static IP and locate & share it in the OS, no need for the MAC.

The MAC is only used by the Router/DCHP to link the device to an IP.

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[johnbullas]

Understood, the device has two IPs assigned as discovered in the LAN sniffer but one MAC Address (the device MAC), the router/modem allows fixed IP addressing but I now see it can't assign 2 fixed IPs as "something" is doing that assignment not the DCHP server in the router...

The Lexmark wireless print server is now the only device on the LAN with a fixed IP !!!!

Just "backing back up" the files I moved onto the SC 101 onto a local disc drive prior to pressing the SC101 reset button which I am assured "will not reset any drives or data on the drives"... good enough reason to back it up somewhere vbefore pressing the button eh? Jeez it takes a while to copy 25 GB

It appears that two identical disc drives ( like the two Hitachi 250GB IDES wot I have in my SC101) can only be told apart by rebooting the sc101 with only one drive in , renaming that drive, restart with the second drive in and renaming that one

Regards

FB

 

[rvnguy]

It appears that two identical disc drives ( like the two Hitachi 250GB IDES wot I have in my SC101) can only be told apart by rebooting the sc101 with only one drive in

Still confused here...As mirrored, why do they have to appear as distinct??

Hope the remaming sequence you found helps

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[johnbullas]

despite the mirroring the two IDE devices are still individual drives (Nb: cable select not master or slave) and since the SC101 can be configured to have non mirrored drives on either IDE devices AND mirrored ones you could have 3 drives e,f & G on one IDE and h, i & J on the other, mirrored drives appear as single entities on "my computer" but would be mirrored "amongst" the non mirrored drives split between the two IDE drives...

confused?

John

 

[johnbullas]

** UPDATE **

When all attempts failed to make "my computer" show the drives when they WERE not even seen by the NetGear administration application (but the occupied space WAS)....

Removal (uninstall) of all removable protocols from the netwrok adaptor settings made them visible again

PC had evolved from Win98SE to Win2kpro to XPPro and appeaed ot have retained some less than desirable settings from the past

A fresh build XPPro had no such problems

John

 

[rvnguy]

Might be time to backup and do a clean install???

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all