D-Link DIR-313 N/w Storage Enclosure

It is a 1-bay network storage enclosure that can even be accessed via

Internet. Once fitted with 3.5” SATA drive one can use this device as external

storage using USB 2.0 connection or NAS using Gigabit Ethernet connection.

However, one cannot use this device both as network storage and external storage

drive as only one connector is available at a time (USB 2.0 or Gigabit Ethernet

connection). In our setup we used Seagate's Barracuda 7200.7 ST3120827AS 120 GB

hard drive. We used this drive as network storage by connecting it to our local

network. We installed this device on a Windows machine and performed hardware

installation, formatted hard drive and mapped the hard drive to the network.

Features that make it worthy are a built-in FTP server, iTune server and UPnP AV

server. To start these servers visit 192.168.3.93 and click on 'Advanced' on the

top, then click on 'FTP Server' on left. Now define category and folders that

can be accessed over FTP and click on 'Start FTP Server' button at bottom.

Similarly enable UPnP AV and iTune server from the same page; this will enable

sharing of iTunes over network plus enabling UpnP devices to directly stream

audio and video files from the storage device.

Bottomline: The device lets you convert simple HDDs to NAS with

features like FTP access over Internet.