Comments on: Edimax NS-2502 SATA NAS Server

By: Jesse

Jesse — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 01:16:48 +0000

Hello all and thanks to everyone for their posts – I have the 2502 and the dismal support from Edimax has been very frustrating, I’d almost given up hope and resigned to the fact that I’ve just wasted my money on this device.

I wish I’d found these posts before starting up my device, I’m having awful problems with it. I can usually fix things myself (when the issue is not too advanced) but no joy so far after 7 days of attempts. I hope someone here might be able to advise.

I have two x 1TB sata drives installed correctly, I’ve run through the entire set-up process, exactly as detailed in the Storage Server Wizard software. It formatted the drives, I set up the password and name and then I hit problems – the drives did not appear on my computer as detailed in the instructions.

I followed the hard reset instructions to run through the process again, and now I get the same message with the software every time; the software recognises the device as shown on the initial screen with IP 192.168.2.5, as detailed in the instructions. I key in the default 1234 password, then the same recurring issue occurs;

The screen ‘verifying password’ is displayed, as in the instructions, and then after about 3 mins I get a screen stating the message along the lines that there has been ‘an unexpected connection problem, please reset the device and repeat the storage wizard software’; which I’ve tried over 20 times and the same thing occurs.

I now see that the default firmware that comes with the device is not that great, but I have no idea how I can upgrade the firmware when I cannotmaccess the UI.

I’ve tried connecting the server to my computer using USB but my comput does not recognise it.

My computer still recognises the device every time when connect to my Draytek router.

I think I need to upgrade the firmware, which I was hoping could be done with independent softwar but I haven’t found anything that can do this.

The lights on the router display that everything is fine.

The purpose of me buying this router is for my small office so that I can set-up a VPN and access my work folders from home and other places.

I’m completely stuck; I have spoken with Edimax support on the phone (on a very crackly line which I presume is in Taiwan). Friendly but unable to help. I have also been in touch via email, but the support is not helpful and I’m no closer to solving the issue.

I’m so pleased to have found this forum, after many hours of searching for solutions online! I find the posts here extremely helpful and I will try assigning different IP ranges on my router so that I can try to access the device using a browser.

I will also check out Planex and see if there is a way of resolving this problem.

Thanks to everyone for all of this helpful information, if anyone has any advice I would be most grateful, this is the biggest problem I have ever encountered and I’m close to giving up. I will try everyhing suggested here and hopefully have some luck.

Many thanks

Jesse

By: Jerome

Jerome — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:49:35 +0000

try http://www.qnap.com for specs

but the slowest QNAP NAS works faster than 100mb/s network so you need a gigabit network to max out the transfer speed.

for entry level, TS-210 is a good thing to consider.

By: StuartE

StuartE — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:37:09 +0000

Have been searching around and I have decided it will be that or I use my current old PC as a a storage device and I will put something cheap together for myself.
Is there a particuar QNAS which is a good media server, does decent transfer rates and isn’t too expensive?

By: Jerome

Jerome — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 18:34:42 +0000

try QNAP’s, it can do 90mb/s over the gigabit network.

By: StuartE

StuartE — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:16:11 +0000

I finally lost patients with the edimax ns2502 drive lastnight when copying 12x300mb files to it and was getting 3Mb a second.
I tried to do the flashing of the firmware with the Planex one. Started it off, waited for about a hour and I had no message saying it was successful or not.
Rebooted it and now all that happens is the power led flashes steadily. Tried holding the 2 buttons, that just makes the front lights flash up and down. Tried all the IP addresses listed here but non work. I think its dead.
I have an eeprom burner but its more hastle to unsolder the chip and solder a new one in.

This is truely a terrible NAS box, very slow performance, I had to rename all my AVI to .WMV or .MP4 for my xbox to read it, the media sharing just listed all my 700mp3s in 1 huge list making it usless.

Any final suggestions I can try?

By: Shaun

Shaun — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:50:10 +0000

DEAD. need a tool to reflash the eeprom.

By: Fada

Fada — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 09:27:07 +0000

Try:
Reset (copy and relase button put for 5 sec)
and connect with router.
And because lanuch the Installation wizzard programme.

If nas don’t work, try connect out the bay1 (or bay2, i dont remember good) hard drive.
The second flashion smashd my bay1 (or bay2) hard disk file system (If was this, dont format disk, you can save data).

By: Shaun

Shaun — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:35:15 +0000

Should be edimax 0.61. it was Planex. Now i have nothing. The led’s are all off.

By: Fada

Fada — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:33:31 +0000

What is the old firmware?
What firmware have you on your NAS now? Edimax or planex? Sorry, if the questions is crazy.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:26:47 +0000

Tried flashing with old firmware. now the lights just flash for a second the one beep and nothing on telnet. now what. where can i get a step by step to force a reflash to the device.

By: Fada

Fada — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:22:41 +0000

First step: Do on PC 11. step on 12. page in this:
http://www.planex.net/pdf/nas/MZK-NAS01-02SG_Manual_V1.0_Eng.pdf
You make all config on 12-13-14-15-16. page.
Second: Connect the nas to PC. (NAS-PC, not with router)
Go in browser 192.168.1.100 and setting Nas.

The rates (Edimax firmware):
with ext2-ext3 (with JBOD) file system 8-10 MB/sec, with wifi only 6-7 MB/sec (Edimax BR-6574n router)
with NTFS file system only 0-3 MB/sec

I flashd my nas in half year and next this process (after 5 hour suffing) flashd I the old firmware (Edimax).

By: Shaun

Shaun — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:36:20 +0000

Still stuffed. Cant even find the MAC on my network. Got the device open. Its pluged into my pc via serail interface. But it just displays garbage in teraterm. what must the baud rate be and other settings. Desperate now

By: Fada

Fada — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 07:22:08 +0000

No problem. Don’t worry.
Just, do 7.-11. step on 10-16 page.
If the nas work (with computer connection), you go on 192.168.1.100 and in the main menü/network setting you on “Obtain an IP address automatically”.
Planex Nas’s first start process is crazy.
(Sorry, I am bad in english.)

By: Shaun

Shaun — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 05:49:49 +0000

I think it is bricked. Think the flash failed. if i hold the 2 buttons it does nothing. Can i use a DRL-3P to reflash the unit.

By: Fada

Fada — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:38:00 +0000

You must do the first start process.
http://www.planex.net/pdf/nas/MZK-NAS01-02SG_Manual_V1.0_Eng.pdf

By: Shaun

Shaun — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:42:10 +0000

Please can someone help. I flashed my NS-2505 with the planex 1.3.4. The device rebooted and now the power led just blinks. Don`t know what to do.

By: Vitaliy

Vitaliy — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:37:10 +0000

HI! Could you answer the one question? This NAS format internal disk only in ext2. But I don’t want use this ancient file system, because I need the safe storage of my data, not the speed of file transferring. How can I format internal hard drive in ext3 or NTFS with ns-2502? I have 0.73 firmware version. I have read about JBOD function in this forum. One man said that with JBOD I can choose file system, is it true? I have one hard drive and I don’t want to risk and buy another one for experiment. I want know can I choose file system with JBOD function? Sorry for my mistakes in English

By: Mishu

Mishu — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 19:14:05 +0000

Did you formated the HDD or built the RAID? If yes try to reset the NAS(from the web interface) then try again.

By: Milan Popovic

Milan Popovic — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 18:12:39 +0000

Hi,

I’ve installed the newest Planex firmware 1.4.1 on my Edimax 2502, but I can’t install the btmodule.bin. Why? The error message is

BitTorrent install fault.
File system error.

What can I do to fix this? In the previous firmware it was also the same.
I would be glad if anyone can help me.

Sincerly

Milan Popovic

By: John

John — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:53:54 +0000

Mishu.
Thank you.
Could you provide links in English if possible.
What is the discover tool called? (filename)

By: Mishu

Mishu — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:36:42 +0000

To all new owners: if you don’t see the NAS is because your computer IP address is in a different range than the NAS one. Use the discover tool to see what is the address than change the computer one to match the class. After this change the NAS address to a new one from your home class address than restart the NAS. My advice is to install the PLANEX firmware (I put the download link in my previous post) which works better than the EDIMAX ones. Don’t forget to download also the PLANEX discover tool to see what is it’s address !

By: John

John — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:16:52 +0000

Johan,
Sorry if you thought I didnt appreciate your comment.

I was just pointing out that the device is supposed to be “PnP” via network, and is not cheap either.
I could have bought 2 external disks (WD Mybook, etc) for less.
I was hoping that I could use RAID and by mirroring the 2 disks, provide resilience for my backups.
If I could even ping and identify the IP the device is using it might help connecting to it to configure the perm IP address.

Regards

By: Johan

Johan — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:43:26 +0000

I agree the people at edimax could put more effort into developing decent products.
And decent firmware, that actually works as advertised, i still can’t get the Bittorrent client to work :S

I just thought I’d tell you my experience, and what solved my problems.
It may or may not be helpful for you, it can’t hurt to try, right?
Otherwise, maybe the next person who ends up google’ing this page might find it useful.

Good luck though

By: John

John — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 09:32:29 +0000

Johan,
You missed the main point:
IT CANNOT EVEN SEE THE DISKS INSIDE !

The TOP 3 LED are lit correctly, but NO HDD LED

So, if it cannot be pinged, webbed, and does not show HDD there MUST be something wrong with the device.

Apart from which. If a MFC printer and a WD Mybook both work correctly off my 3Com hub, as do 2 PC, then why should I have to change IP addressing??

Have you been to edimax site, their Support option is pretty awful isnt it.

By: Johan

Johan — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:26:36 +0000

Hey John,
Before demanding a refund, you might want to hear my experience with this device.

I have a router that is a DHCP server in my network.
The router assigns 192.168.222.x addresses.
When the software that was provided with the device couldn’t find the device, I tried changing the router’s way of assigning IP addresses to match the IP address that the device should have given itself.
For example: if the manual states that the IP address of the device is 192.168.123.1 then it might be a good idea to change your router settings so it will assign IP addresses in the 192.168.123.x range.
It worked for me, hope this helps

By: John

John — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:52:42 +0000

I just bought one of these NS-2502 thinking hey great all the PC’s in the house can backup to 1 mirror set for security.
NAH. Installed it as per manual, and using many years of installing DELL/Compaq servers.
The software provided cant find the unit, even though all LED present and correct.
Also it cant see either 1 or 2 drives installed.

Going to demand refund and get a Mybookworld device at least they work out of the box.

By: Mishu

Mishu — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:07:17 +0000

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!

By: Sab

Sab — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 02:57:40 +0000

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

By: Andy

Andy — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:03:12 +0000

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.

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:20:37 +0000

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