If you’re looking into some home network storage and is always craving for more space, check out this dual-bay Gigabit NAS Server from Edimax.
Been looking for some network storage solution for some time now but since I already got an external HDD, an Apple TV and HDX 1000 NMT (that’s a total of 1.5TB of storage), I never found any more use for a NAS.
However, the Edimax NS-2502 SATA NAS Server some some pretty nifty features that’s making me reconsider. Not only is it a network storage device, it’s also an iTunes Server, Media Server and BitTorrent client. That means you can download your torrents directly into the server without the need for a computer.
The NS-2502 has two drive bays so you can get as much as 4 terabytes (2×2TB) in there. The NAS hooks up to your router via RJ45 (LAN cable). The device can be managed via the browser in a password-protected local IP.
It also comes with a USB port in the front so you can actually attach another USB device there and copy the entire contents into the NAS with a single push of the button. It supports a number of file formats –CIFS, NTFS, FAT16, FAT32, ext2, ext3 file systems.
The NAS isn’t cheap by any means and retails for about Php7,350 without the HDD.
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Cool… I want one! =p
Woah… why not just buy/assemble an atom rig? its power consumption is still around 40W even with the HDD included and you can even do more stuff plus its not that big either. You’d probably spend 8-10K depending on the size of HDD you include. More worth the money imho.
Hi Yuga,
Can you kindly explain how this NAS Server can download Torrent files without using a PC?
Thanks.
Twitter: sylv3rblade
replied on Sep 3rd, 2009 at 12:51 pm (4)
Hmm.. I’m opting for a pogoplug ($100) + a 1 TB USB hard drive as a much cheaper option for NAS.
@Prokopio – like the HDX 1000 NMT and the Popcorn Hour, this NAS has a torrent client that is connected to the internet and can directly store and manage the torrent files into the HDD. There’s a web UI you can use to monitor it.
Twitter: jhayrocas
replied on Sep 3rd, 2009 at 2:15 pm (6)
Quite pricey, but the features are really tempting. It’s nice to know there are other brands aside from WD and SeaGate.
Twitter: ramfree17
replied on Sep 3rd, 2009 at 3:15 pm (7)
+1 on what sylv3rblade mentioned but I asked my friend in the US to buy the Marvell SheevaPlug (basis for the PogoPlug) since that comes with Ubuntu Jaunty by default.
But this can be a front runner for locally available multi-purpose NAS units.
ciao!
Where can I buy this one?
A device labeled as a “SATA NAS”? Don’t want the reference on this one.
hehe, “SATA NAS”, sounds someone familiar. If you’re looking for a cheaper bittorrent client, there are wireless routers out there which you can load custom firmwares (tomato, an embedded linux system for example) and bittorrent clients. These routers have USB so you just have to plug an external USB disk drive for the storage.
Hi
Since yesterday i was browsing for an affordable NAS
The only one that got my attention after reading lots of reviews was the Netgear Readynas Duo, but that is not cheap at all
Now i found this but i see that there are n o reviews on it, probably is pretty new
Still i would like to know how good or how bad it performs.(transfer rates, stability in operations, i saw that has no cooling fan)
Since you have one, could you be so kind to do a more extensive review on it(I know Edimax to be a company that has good quality products, but the price difference from Edimax to Netgear is very high)
Thanx in advance
PS Excuse my English cause I’m from Romania
and where could I buy that?
The DLink DNS-323 NAS has been in our shores for quite some time and it falls in the same price range.
http://www.rsun.com.ph/blog/?p=233
Like the Edimax NS-2502, it has 2 drive bays, supports giga speeds, and has a built-in torrent client.
I think the features that make the DNS-323 better is its built-in fan and firmware support.
Twitter: sylv3rblade
replied on Sep 7th, 2009 at 9:59 am (14)
@john
Dlink’s offering looks like a solid build.
@Erin
I would’ve mentioned the sheevaplug but I haven’t got any experience with it, unlike the pogoplug (which we use in the office for our clients).
what is the throughput rate transfer using ntfs ?
anyony knows? anyone can test?
João Eduardo
Hey gus I have one of these units. All in all it seems really good apart from I can’t get the torrent client working
As for reliability, I’ve only had it for a few days but it seems pretty good; I went to bed leaving it to transfer about 500gb of data. I think it took about 4-5 hours to transfer it all which doesn’t seeem too bad and it didn’t lose connection at all.
Can anybody give me any advice on how to get the torrent client going? It won’t connect to any peers
I’ve tried multiple torrents from both public and private trackers. Tried changing/opening different ports for it and have tested them online ok…
I know it connects to the net fine because http downloads work OK (very fast actually)
Overall I’m very happy with the box and I’m sure it’s something I’m overlooking in my setup. Any advice would be excellent
Hi there! I’ve been using the NAS model NS-2502 for more than a year…
I installed 2Tb in it and since the 1st time i turned in ON last year June 2008 i never turned it OFF and the device is still up and running. I’ve been downloading alot of movies, mp3’s and photos without letting my computer to be turned on always.
The Edimax website says max of 2x 1TB HDD. I want to put 2x 2TB drives into it. Can you confirm that it works with 2x 2TB drives.THX
QNAP NAS is quite good and readily available locally, comes in 1 bay to 8 bays
QNAP in more than 4 bays can do RAID 6, for 4 bays it can do Raid 5
Do anyone know if you can connect a printer to it an use it as a network printer (print server) as well?
I got it and my complains are so far:
1. Inability to save settings if you switch off device and DHCP doesn’t work so you have to run Windows Wizard again and again.
2. Removal of Torrents in BT Download doesn’t work on neither Internet Explorer, Firefox or Safari , has it even ever been tested?
3. USB connected hard drives not recognised most of the time.
4. If trying to transfer data to attached usb drive over WiFi the transfer fails (large files)
I too have this drive with a pair of 2 500mb drives. I can confirm that
1). Bittorrent does not work if at all.
2). EDIMAX Support is none existant.
3). I would not buy this sh@t again if I had my chance over.
Buy from a more reputable brand that actually releases working firmware and provides support.
FYI I only manage to get bittorrent working by switching of pnp on my router and changing the default port range. Even then I can only get one torrent working at a time and the others all say downloading but do jack all. The one that does work works at a snails pace and I can download 10 times quicker from my desktop client using another client on different ports.
EDIMAX are assh@les who do not tets their products or provide support.
Oh and before anybody asks …. yes I do enable port forwarding to the EDIMAX Device for the new port range I select. In fact the only time I managed to trigger the bittorrent client to work is when I switched off upnp and enabled a DMZ Device on my Network (it was not even the EDIMAX Device) and that seemed to kick something into life.
I then disabled the DMZ Device and the one torrent started to download. I left upnp off, ao that is my best bet so far. so try that.
Also the software has a real dumb ass way of creating shares in that it constantly overwrites the name you choose by inserting RAID_ in the path.
dont waste your time buying this rubbish, learn from my mistakes and spend your money elsewhere.
Go to the EDIMAX Polish site (www.edimax.pl) and download a newer (and way better!) firmware 0.72 which will change your actual impression about this product. Enjoy!
I too am interested in the transfer rates of this unit and also if the unit can accept 2x 2TB SATA drives as opposed to the reported 2x 1TB SATA drives. If anyone can help with these questions I’d be very grateful.
By the way, if you go here – http://edimax.ie/en/support_detail.php?pd_id=260&pl1_id=17#02 you can get the latest firmware for this unit dated the 20-10-2009.
Ohh, for anyone wondering…I’ve found some transfer rates but it doesn’t specify what filesystem has been used – http://www.hardware.info/en-US/productdb/bGlkbJiWmJXKZ8g/viewproductspecs/Edimax_Gigabit_Fast_Ethernet_2Bay_SATA_NAS_Server_NS2502/
The tarnsfer rates don’t look particularly great…
@Jethro the firmware 0.61d is the version that came on the NAS from the factory (I think is the first firmware they released), on the Polish site I’ve mentioned you can find the latest version 0.72 which rocks comparing with the initial one.
I had a look at the firmware that you mentioned on the polish Edimax site and the 0.72 firmware is dated the 27-08-2009. The firmware I posted is from 20-10-2009. I think that they may release different firmware versions for different regions.
I could be wrong however and it may be an error on Edimax’s part…
0.72 broke streaming to PS3 for me.
Ramzez, what do think of the transfer rates of the unit. Do you stream any HD content from it?
Also, I’m just reading through the documentation on it and it mentions that the maximum file size for FAT32 and NTFS on this unit is 4GB!?!? I know that’s true of FAT32 but not of NTFS. Does anyone have files larger than 4GB on this unit while formatted as NTFS?
I am currently streaming 720p video content without any problems to a media player TVIX, I tried also 1080p yesterday and works fine (over Ethernet).
2 x 2TB Drives No Problem
Print Server No Problem
Files Larger than 4GB on NTFS no problem
Bittorrent no problem
Follow this link for a the correct firmware.
http://forum.edimax.pl/viewtopic.php?f=12&p=4566
Nice work Kurt…I’ll be definitely be buying 2 of these now. It’s funny that buying 2 of these is still a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a 4 bay NAS enclosure!
The topic from the Polish forum mentioned by Kurt was opned by me
!
I didn’t try HD, but was really disappointed the upload rate is not so good, the firmware is so so, it is quite noisy. Bittorent is about 7-10 times slower then on pc, so I have sold mine and ordered QNAP.
The support only replied to my email once and sent me a 0.72b firmware, although it fixed some of the problems it was extremely slow to access any menus and as mentioned earlier ps3 streaming didn’t work after about 20 minutes of watching a video.
if speed is important, you may want to consider qnap, thecus, synology or netgear’s high level NAS.
on gigabit network they can transfer as fast as 85mb/s, and can be much faster than local HD if you use iSCSI.
I copy files to this NAS with Windows Explorer with 7-8 MB/s over the Ethernet cable and with 5-6 MB through the FTP protocol. I bought a Gigabit Wireless router Linksys WRT320 so after I will replace the CAT5 cables with CAT6 the speed will increase. I have 2×1 TB Caviar Green EADS disks inside so they are not so speedy but overall I am pleased with the performance for this price. If they will fix the BitTorrent client (which is important for me) I will have no complaints anymore!
Can anyone confirm for me that you are able to format the internal drives in this unit as NTFS? I really don’t want to use EXT2, EXT3, FAT 16 or FAT 32…
If you want RAID you cannot select NTFS, it is only one option: autopartition and format. If you use JBOD you can choose any file system.
Thanks Mishu!
on NAS it will be ext2 ext3 or ext4 since NAS are mostly running on Linux system. The latest one are now in ext4.
mishu, doubt you will see any negligible improvement when you change your cable from cat5 to cat6 since the bottleneck is on your NAS.
i’m on cat5 and i can transfer 700mb file in 5 seconds.
I am not convinced you are right because the NAS network card is Gigabit so when all my cables will be CAT6 and all my networked devices are conected by Gigabit network cards the speed will increase significantly. About your transfer speeds over CAT5, what router are you using, a Gigabit one and your PC network card is Gigabit?
theoretical limit of 1 gigabit network is
1000Mbps / 8 = 125MBps, that’s 125 megabyte per second
so the bottleneck is in your NAS’ system.
You can check this
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/component/option,com_nas/Itemid,190
which compares different NAS
I have here firmware version .73, post your email here if you want that latest firmware version.
Great, here is my address mihai.margineanu@gmail.com but if the file is bigger than 10 MB it will not pass. Maybe you can give me the web site where from I can download it. Thanks a lot!
Hey Otie, I would love a bash at the new firmware please. its chrisdj [at] chrisdj.plus.net
Thanx
Hi Otie, could you email that 0.73 firmware to me please? My email address is cbx2000 [at] hotmail dot com. Thanks! Am interested to see what changes this firmware has.
There are no significant differences between 0.72 and 0.73. At least I didn’t saw any so I went back the Planex firmware which is so good comparing with the Edimax version.
Ok Mishu, thanks. I am running the planex firmware as well, and what a difference it made!!! Supports my 1.5TB drives, media server works, and just asmoother faster experience. I advise all edimax owners to change to planez, you lose some of the led fucntionality… but that is it. Now if I cn only getthe bittorrent client to work then it would be perfect.
I have to say, even with the Planex firmware on this unit the network speed I’m getting is very disapointing. I have this connected to a gigabit Edimax router and am copying over 400GB of files from an Asus client also with a gigabit network port. The max speed I get is 15MB/s. What’s the point in having a gigabit network port on the Edimax if it’s never going to reach the speed it was designed for.
Also, with the Planex firmware I’m using 2x 1.5TB Samsung Spinpoint HDDs. With RAID0 enabled it’s only showing me a total size of 745GB. It’s really odd. I should be seeing at least 2.7 – 2.8 TB. If I can’t figure this out both of the units I bought will be going back to the shop and I’ll think I’ll hold out for a bit longer and get a 4 bay NAS that supports EXT4 natively.
Has anyone use it with RAID-1 and checked whether when we replace a Hard Disk, it get’s rebuild properly?
/Nalin
With thew planex firmware is all ok except the media server.
Infact i’m able to view only WMV file and MPG… but if i try to put AVI file on the NAS i’m not able to see them.
Can you tell me if you have the same problems?
Merry Crhistmas and Happy New Year!!!
Hi,
can anybody confirm that two 2TB drives in RAID1 mirror works in this unit?
Hi,
I am using the 0.73 firmware of the edimax.pl site and running 2 x 1.5TB drives in RAID 1 fine, so I assume the 2TB should work as well. The 0.73 firmware gives you JBOD option as well, so I think that should allow all of your space.
Hi Everyone, I have some question, I had updated the Nas 2502 Firmware by planex 1.3.6tw and it crashed, non responding at all only led light is on, and lan light, others are off
please advice if any of you expirienced the same problem failure with NAS Edimax.
regads
Hi, I tried to upgrade firmware to 0.73 from edimax.pl, I think it works better then default one but I am not able to add torrents by Download Manager installed on PC. Any suggestions? Is there newer version of Download Manager?
I gave up f*king with Edimax firmwares, it’s terrible nothing works. Switched to Planex one, which was mentioned here and it’s really 300% better then edimax one so don’t be affraid od installing it. Few notes about it from me:
1) when you upgrade your old firmware to planex, all your settings will be overwitten including disconnecting your storage setting, so backup all your files before start
2) if you didn’t make backup of your files (as I didn’t) and installed planex FW you can use this howto to restore files by using PC with booted live linux:
http://www.howtoforge.com/recover_data_from_raid_lvm_partitions
3) there are two files in package first one (images_1.3.6TW.bin) is the firmware file, second one (btmodule.bin) is bittorrent client module and it’s installed separately after flashing firmware not to internal memory but directly on your harddisks, so you have to re-install it every time you change your drives
4) after installing planex firmware you have to press both buttons on the front panel of device till it beeps, it reset your device configuration and you will be able to access web interface on IP address 192.168.1.100
That’s all till now, tomorrow I’ll get 2*2TB western digital green drives, so wait for my future reply
So I have recently installed two Western Digital Green drives on ns-2502 with planex firmware. There was no problem to create RAID1 (mirror). Syncing of these huge drives took about 24 hours to finish.
Bittorrent client from planex is really best web application I have ever seed, every time you check it, you can see all information about everything, it’s really fast, absolutely other thing then edimax client is.
Transfer speed are great and enough for me, there is no problem to transfer files 12MB/s on 100MBit network. I haven’t tested stuff on Gigabit, but I think that it won’t be much faster, because software RAID depends on CPU speed.
As somebody mentioned, LEDs are wrong, but not so badly. Disk state is shown on 5th and 6th LED instead of 6th and 7th. Other LEDs are not very important to me, so I had no reason to test them.
I think that Edimax NS-2502 with planex firmware is the best and cheapest solution for storing home data and dowloading stuff from torrent. Really recommend it.
Hi. Last week I bought an Edimax NS-2502 and a HD Seagate 1,5T. First problem: the application don’t format the HD. It doesn’t matter. I connected the HD to my PC and format with Windows XP (NTFS). Now it’s ok (File server, FTP, BT, media server), but the transfer rate was about 5 Mbps (reading) and 1,5 Mbps (writing). I’ve got a NIC Gigabit and I use a direct connection with a crossover cable.
I changed firmware to Planex, but the transfer rate didn’t improve. Then, I tried to re-format the HD with the new firmware. It was ok (ext2). Now, I’m reading at 24 MBytes/s and writing at 12 MBytes/s.
Thanks
I think that you are really lucky if it goes as fast as 24MBytes/s, don’t expect better results because of slow CPU.
I am having the same difficulties as Ruslan
I tried to upgrade the firmware of my Edimax NS-2502 with the planex 1.3.6tw firmware.
Now I am unable to access the Web UI, I know the IP address should change but I can’t connect to 192.168.1.100, or 192.168.2.5 or 192.168.222.250 (the original IP before the firmware upgrade).
Now the device is useless, I can’t even restore it to the state it was in when I bought it, because I would need to use the Web UI.
I tried pressing the Copy and Release buttons simultaneously for over 5 seconds, and the device beeps, but the Web UI is still not accessible, even after I switched the device on and off…
Please help, this would be a really expensive experiment if my device is broken now
Hi Johan,
Its not broken, its just the planex firmware uses a different address than the edimax firmware. That got me too!!! I unfortunately cant remember what it was, as i use the dhcp client function now, but there is a planex manual available on their website. it is in there.
Good luck.
After installing the Planex firmware use their special client (you can download it from the same web page where you downloaded the firmware) for locating the NAS (it will show the new IP address). After that change your computer/laptop IP address to match the NAS IP in order to access it through the web UI. Good luck!
Hi,
Its ok guys no worries about Nas Server its a perfect device even if u changed the firmware dont worry.
Now the IP is changed from Edimax to Planex just use
other IP to access it from Enternet Explorer
192.168.1.100 cause previous was 192.168.2.100
good luck!
Hi everyone,
I finally got the NAS working again.
Turns out my router uses 192.168.222.x, and the nas uses 192.168.1.100
As soon as I configured my router to use the 192.168.1.x range, I was able to use the web UI.
Does anyone know how to install SSH support on this device? I read something about “fun plug” but I’m not sure what it is and where to get it.
Latest Official Edimax beta firmware.
*Supports 2TB drives
http://www.edimax.co.uk/Temp/NS-2502-firmware-0.72b.zip
And what about BT klient in new firmware? Any changes?
Nope, not even in 0.73b (which is a beta release) the BT is not working, forget about Edimax and install the Planex firmware.
Did anyone get the telnet to work on the edimax ns2502 with planex firmware installed?
It should be at port 1192 I think, but I can’t get it to work.
I am trying to modify the nas in the same way this article describes:
http://tungchingkai.blogspot.com/2008/12/pci-mzk-nas01sg-mzk-nas02sg-modding.html
Hi guys,
Just got myself one of these, installed the planex firware, went trough all the panic with not beeing able to connect it it afterwards
, fixed that, installed 2 x 1.5 TB HDDs in it, made my self a RAID 1… and i wanted to ask you: isn’t there a way to keep the RAID 1, and format the disks with NTFS?
It would be much easier then to just pop one out and connect it to a windows machine… should I ever want to do it.
Right now, I’m not so sure how I can copy access my data should the NAS break (god forbid).
Seb
I purchased one of these last year and after getting transfers of 500k/s on the original firmware I shelved it.
I tried the Planex firmware and got much better transfer speeds, 10-12mb/s but via wireless its like 100-200k/s which is unusable.
Also the media centre finally works but it doesn’t recognise Xvid or DivX in AVI format, which is just completley insane.
I think I’m just going to cut my losses an get a QNAP.
I have flashed my NAS using 0.73 from edimax.pl Now, it has turned into a brick
Is there a way of flashing the firmware back to what it was?
Cheers
Sab
Good news for the ones using the Planex firmware: there is new 1.4.1 version on the japanese site http://www.planex.co.jp/support/download/drive/accept/mzk-nas02sg/mzk-nas02sg_v141_zip.shtml (press the first left small button than in the next page the large left button). There are no obvious changes, howevere if someone see something new feel free to let us know!