HP 3-in-1 NAS Docking Station?

HP part # EM537UT

Has anyone used this docking station? Good/Bad experiences? I just ordered it with an nc8430 - I have seen no end-user reviews anywhere, but it sounds pretty useful.

thanks

 

Hi,

Actually I'm also considering getting one so if you have the time (and received it) could you perhaps post a review or at least your impressions?

Thanks,
Peter

 

OK, HP 3-in-one NAS Docking Station Brief Review:

I have had it for 2 days now - setup my new nc8430, then setup the D.S./NAS. The NAS feels very solid, and I am using it as a monitor stand with no worries with a 19" LCD. Any larger LCD, or certainly a CRT won't work. I like how compact it is, and the laptop fits easily and snugly into it. (see attached photos, and pardon the low camera quality of my Q phone.) There is a slight incline when the laptop is docked, and this helps the airflow around the base of the laptop. Without an external monitor the unit works very well too.

It has a good bit of I/O, mostly in the back, which may not be so exciting for some. Note that there is 1 powered usb on the left, and there is a multibay II and an expresscard slot. More importantly, there are 2 usb ports on the right side that are for devices that you would like to network, either a HD or a printer. I have not used the printer sharing capabilities because I already have a jetdirect box on my network. Note that there is an rj-45 jack on the NAS and it will need an ip address, different from the laptop's. By default it will take dhcp. When docked, the laptop has it's own ip address and the NAS has another, using the same ethernet on the NAS (cool!).

I have a small network here at home consisting of a 2003 server, a 2000 laptop, XP home laptop, 98 desktop (don't laugh, it's still working great), couple of other intermittent computers as needed, network printer/scanner, etc...

After connecting the laptop to the DS, all of the standard connections worked with no input on my part out of the box - laptop power, video, usb, keyboard/mouse, etc... real plug & play (I have not tested the modem yet). To configure the NAS you have to use the browser of the connected laptop. I believe, although I am not sure, you cannot use the NAS without at least once connecting a laptop and doing an intial configuration.

The NAS has it's own OS in ROM (which is firmware upgradeable, although I have not done that yet). In the basic browser app you can configure shares and permissions, but the built-in 160gb hd is already configured as a single partition, and as far as I could tell, is not formatable. Encryption is an option for all volumes on the NAS.

I connected a 320gb usb maxtor, and the NAS recognized it right away. I decided to spilt the drive into 3 partitions and have 3 separate shares, with varying security. This caused a problem, and required me to disconnect the Maxtor and reconnect for it to be recognized again. Maybe I need to upgrade the firmware, but it would not let me partition this drive. So I kept it as one big partition and created 3 shares, which works for me.

Note that all drives on the NAS must be mapped as network drives, even on the docked laptop. The NAS drives are available to the network even if the laptop is off or undocked. In fact you cannot turn off the NAS, other than unplugging it.

There is a very slight hum and some minor vibration from the unit; nothing too bad. I configured the drives to power down after a short period of inactivity and the noise essentially goes away when they are powered down. Of course it takes a few seconds for them to power back up again when you access them, but it is a minor delay in my opinion.

I checked the connectivity from each of my networked machines and it works without a hiccup. You can also configure the NAS to be an ftp and an http server for file access, with a few security options. I tested this remotely and it worked flawlessly, transferring 500mb of data in about 1.5 hours with no complaints or restarts. Of course you will want to think a bit before opening up your firewall for this feature. The NAS also has a dynamic DNS config page, should you be so inclined (I have not tested this).


Pros:
solid construction
clever design
good amount of I/O ports
expandable
ftp and http server built in
simple setup

Cons:
not able to partition large external drives
slight hum
some might consider it expensive, but I think it is a good deal considering the features


Bottom line: Simple, easily expandable NAS and a nice docking station with some great features for a pretty decent price. I am very happy with my purchase. I give it 2 thumbs up.

 

lol another Pros should be LCD block. I personally also think the dock is well worth it.

 

What I was looking forward to might not work with this docking station - I was hoping to see the drive show automatically in My Computer when I dock. This is not the case! I also don't understand why I need Client for Microsoft Networks in order to make this work. My laptop is used in NetWare/Linux/Unix environment both at work and at home and this is the second time HP is failing us "free radicals" (the first was with their fingerprint reader which also doesn't work in Linux and not even in Windows unless you have the Microsoft Client installed).

I was able to configure NAS without connecting the laptop to the base (Did this on purpose because I don't like depending on a single piece of hardware and don't like to use software drivers if I don't have to). Everything worked from the network and it is a reasonably good NAS, however, I wonder about these things:

1. Does docking the laptop give you higher connection speed than connecting from the network? I was a bit surprised with slow copying speed which I attribute to my slow 100 Mb network. I will buy a 1 Gb switch and see whether that increases the bandwidth.
2. Do the software drivers give you any extra features I'm not seeing in my description above?

Thank you murphydome for your post.

 

zarkon -

I have not tried the DS with any other OS than XP Pro, and it's a pretty standard install. As a NAS you should be able to map to the share using straight IP. So as long as you can restore a network connection automatically, it should be there, regardless of OS or NOS client. But I have not looked into this at all. It ain't broke, so I'm not going to fix it... yet...

1. I have not actually clinically tested this, but it seems very clear to me that docking the laptop gives a similar connection speed to an external usb drive (i.e. pretty fast). Using it as a NAS from other workstions gives me the same speed as any other LAN connection. There is always some lag when accessing the drive after it has gone to sleep - maybe your powersave settings need adjustment?

2. I believe the drivers give you some additional functionality when using the HP backup software. Other than that, I think you are not missing anything.

 

Thank you again. I'm using Windows with it most of the time and my questions were mostly rhetorical because while I'm on Windows I can't connect to the share unless I install Client for Microsoft Windows.

My experience with docked connection speed matches yours, and the transfer rate also seems to have been similar when doing it on my network since I installed the previously mentioned 1 Gb mini switch. Just a subjective experience, because I didn't use any scientific methods to measure and compare these.

 

Thanks all for the postings was a great help. One more question. On a windows network, thee NAS shows up in network neighborhood.

One can hide a work station or server from being visible, by doing so at command prompt: net config server /hidden:yes

Is there any way to hide the NAS from showing up in network neighborhood on a domain ?

Much appreciate your help thanks in advance

 

Dear Sirs, you are my last chance to solve my problems between HP nc8430 and DS NAS 3-in-1.
The nc8430 is used with XP pro sp2 and it is connected to the office LAN and, if is it needed with wifi connections, with a domain, user name and psw.
When I'm at home I use it as administrator with a wifi connection to internet. I bought in office the DS and after a lot of test I was able to see the internal 160GB hd, I saw that it work with an IP address (factory configuration) that it is different from the nc8430 LAN IP (10.0.0.117) . I made some personalization in the HD and I made some backups. Now, after some weeks and without modification in pc configuration, I don't see more the DS HD and, not only, the PC when docked don't work in the LAN (no with cable LAN and no with WIFI connection), it work perfectly when not docked.
I try with HP active chat but ... no result if not they said me to try to re install the DS drive with the CD but ... I didn't receive any CD with the DS.
Can you help me to solve this problem and, if possible to clarify me if with the DS there are some CD or not?

Many, many thanks in advance.

 

link to firmware and software that comes on cd , this for xp pro
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...sId=1849378&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=1093

 

Many thanks Jerry66 for the link but are in that files the NAS Utility and driver? or only firmware upgrade and backup software?

 

thebackup software is all that came with my nas , i included the firmware , that was not on the disk . as far as i know there are no utility/driver for the nas . and the backup software was already installed on my computer .
the Nas set itself up when i started it , lan line must be installed before starting , after that NAS did everything automaticly

 

ok Jerry66, at this point I think that the problem is on my nc8430 pc; I'll format the pc so that I restart everything from zero so I think that I'll be able to understand if the problem is on notebook or in the NAS.
Many thanks again.

 

I tink you need the updated backup software on your comp to use dock . i'll try to find manual

 

Hello,

is it possible to replace the 160 GB HDD with a new, e. g., 500 GB HDD?
Would it work if you just copy the hidden partition?

 

yes , but only supports 450gb hd there is a hack here
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1183344

good luck . of course no more warranty , but more drive space !

 

Hi,

How do I initially set this up? I used it a few years ago. I have since then moved, and the manual is in storage. I tried 192.168.0.1 and it brings up my router.

Thanks