A lot of people who like tech gadgets choose storage enclosures over plug-and-play NAS(Network Attached Storage) units because they comes with additional hardware customization options. Unfortunately I found that these “benefits'” outweigh the network administration and maintenance nightmares.

I have a popular NAS enclosure D-Link DNS-323 with two 1.5 TB WD hard drives installed as independent volumes. Recently I try to restrict access to the second volume using the DNS-323 built in user management interface. To my surprise after months of tying, I still haven’t found a way to restrict access to the volume or specific folders within it. The user account creation is very simple, but as soon as you restrict a part of your drive to a specific user, you will be denied access to that drive without asking for access credentials. The only way to get access to files is to reset the restriction back to “All” users from the user management interface.

After searching the net for several months finally I came to the conclusion that if you want to control access to files on your network, you are better off investing your money on a plug-and-play NAS like Western Digital My Book Live(hard drive(s) with a LAN connection) with bugs free user account interface than to use Storage enclosures. In addition to user account problems with my DNS-323, there are so many other issues such as incompatible hard drives will waste your time and energy. If a computer tech guy like myself find it hard to fix problems with enclosures, I am sure the average users will also face similar problems. If you are network administrator, you will save a lot of resources by buying a unit like WD Live over DNS-323.

Advice to anyone who is looking to install a NAS on your home or small office network; buy a plug-and-play ready to go NAS unit.