…a rough view

LG NAS N2B1/N2R1 review

September 21st, 2010 Posted in gadgets, review, software

I recently bought myself a NAS (network attached storage) unit through an incredible offer offered to my sister from her place of work. Starting 2010, many Danes have to pay a “multimedia tax” if they are provided access by their employer to various multimedia e.g. phone, computer, internet access. Because of this, many companies are trying to make provide some cool multimedia to their employees so the employee maximizes the personal value of the multimedia tax they have to pay anyway (because a company paid phone or laptop are pretty common – at least in the type of jobs me and many of my friends hold) – it’s a very cheap way for the company to offer such fringe benefits.

Since my sister didn’t want to take advantage of the incredible offer, I wanted to! So for 113 DKK (~US$20) a month for 24 months, I got to choose a retail Windows7 Home Premium license, an Apple Airport Express (.N version), an Apple Magic Mouse and LG NAS N2B1 equipped with two 1TB drives (so 2TB of storage). Not bad ‘ey?

the LG NAS N2B1/N2R1

Actually it originally started because I wanted to buy the Xtreamer eTRAYz to complement my Xtreamer 2.5″ – my media player, which I have written extensively about before(part 1, part 2, and part 3) and to have a safe place both me and Julie could access our music, photographs and videos from independently of whether using any of the 4 four computers in our home. At the time of purchase I had access to the Xtreamer eTRAYz for just €59(+€20 shipping)(~$80+27 shipping). On top of that I would also have to invest in two 1TB drives, which would set me back another at least another €200 (~$275). And I wouldn’t get the sweep, no interest, no fees, 24 month payment period.

What works well?

FIRST of all, if you get one, be SURE to download the newest firmware (v2557 as of writing) and install that to the unit before doing any other setup, as there is a MOUNTAIN of difference in operation between the firmware the unit came with and the 2557 one, at least that was the case with mine. Just as a teaser, one of the features implmemented in the new firmware that was not present in the older one my unit came with was mounting the built-in BluRay drive using iSCSI and the ability to send external links to my friends of the files on the unit. So it was definitely worth to upgrade the firmware before getting started.

Some of the features I really like are are (in no particular order):

RAID setup:The RAID setup can be setup a number of ways, and luckily exactly the way I like it. I have split the NAS into two partitions using RAID1+JBOD. The 2TB have be split into a ~300GB partition mirrored RAID1 partition for sensitive data such as photographs and our music collection that we would be VERY sorry to lose, and a 1.4TB JBOD parition for videos. Now my unit came with two 1TB drives installed, but you could easily put in two 2TB drives if you need more space

Torrent client: The torrent client has a very pleasent webinterface that looks eerily similar to the webinterface of uTorrent and works quite well. It supports uPNP to open ports, so speed is pretty good. The benefit for me is that I can have the LG NAS running all night without having to have any PCs turned on, saving on electricity (as the in-use electricity consumption is ~42watts, and with standby @ ~12watts. Adding torrents is as easy as feeding the torrent URL to the clinet through and “add torrent” button in the interface and the LG NAS will download the torrent file and start the torrent download. Pretty sweet (some readers might remember me bashing the MVix Ultio implementation of the torrent feature to be EXTREMELY poor and bascially unusable due to the fac that you had to download the .torrent file to a PC and then upload it yourself to the MVix Ultio. Also on the Ultio you couldn’t set the port the torrent cliens use and there was no mention on whether it supported uPNP). I’ve installed an extension in my Chrome web browser called Remote Transmission so all .torrent files I click while browsing are automatically sent to the LG NAS for download.

DDNS service: The DDNS service works as advertised. After setup on the unit, it will allow you to access the webinterface (and thereby all the files as well) on the unit, as well as adding torrent URLs easily on the go. It might not be the hottest feature to promote, but it’s one of the features I am fond of, and because it is built-in into the unit itself, it ensures it’s always updated correctly even if your IP is changed while you are not at home.

iTunes server: Sure, the iTunes server implementation does not allow for playlists, but it’s a minor thing. It autoscapes the iTunes folder where all the music is located every five minutes and adds any new files. I should mention that it is a little annoying that all music have to be in the speific iTunes folder for it to be scaped by the iTunes server, so I actually have my music both on the RAID1 partition and have it mirrored in the iTunes folder on the JBOD partition (luckily the mirroring of folders is something that can be setup to happen automatically on the LG NAS).

DLNA: DLNA support was the original big-ticket feature I wanted, so that all videos I have will play on the Xtreamer with ease, and it works as advertised. I shold recommend to anyone contemmplating setup this up to invest in a .N wireless router, as the files can take some time to start if you are ona a .G wireless network (hooray for the Airport Express I mentioned in the beginning of this post).

What should be updated/What am I missing

If you go to any of the NAS pages (e.g. here), they will tell you that the LG NAS (both the N2B1 and N4B1 versions) does not perform well speedwise compared to comparative units from QNAP or Synology, but from my perspective, as I will be accessing the unit wirelessly, that shouldn’t be an issue. In a wired setup built for performance it might matter, but I am currently able to stream movies, music and watch photographs. But something to keep in mind if you are contemplating buying such a unit.

Apart from that, there are a couple of things I would briefly mention (and hope people from LG, working on updating the LG NAS, read) the following:

  • I haven’t gotten webDAV to work at all. Whenever I try to mount it in Windows, it does not allow me to authenticate. I have a sneaking suspecision it has something to do with my skills more than the unit, as I am able to mount webDAV in Firefox and Chrome. Would be a killer feature to have if I ever got it to work. (update – fixed – don’t know what happened, but it works now)
  • While the torrent client works great, all the torrent sites seems to be moving towards MAGNET links and using DHT to get files instead of .torrent files download, which the LG NAS does not support. Support for this is important for me. (*sigh*, the unit still uses v1.92 even though v2.x of Transmission is out)
  • FTP does not seem to accept connections from outside the network. Again this has probably more to do with my skills, as I am able to get a connection to the FTP, but the FTP always sends out the internal IP, and no matter if I use passive/active connections from the ftp client, it doesn’t solve the issue (if you know how to solve it, let me know) (update – fixed in the latest firmware v2557)
  • As I mentioned , the iTunes Server only adds songs located in the /service/itunes partition located on the JBOD partition, so I have to have them in two places
  • I wish I would be able to to sync folders/drives on the LG NAS to e.g. external FTP servers or webdav folder. Mirroring folders is also implemented on the LG NAS, so it would be nice if this feature was expanded to include external folders/ftps/webdavs.
  • It would also be nice if the LG NAS supported downloading newsgroup files (using NZB files for example), in the same web interface as the torrent client. I doubt this will be implemented though, as the LG NAS is not thought to be an enthusiast type device, and I don’t know anyone non-enthusiats/nerds using newsgroup servers and NZBs..heck I don’t know any non-nerds who even know what NZBs are. Competing units from QNAP and Synology does this.

That’s it. All in all I love my LG NAS. I have a few gripes, but technology is never made by people who think exactly as I do (Apple comes though), so I can accept less than perfection, and the LG NAS is a bargin @ less than €200/$280 over two years with no interest or fees.

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  1. 46 Responses to “LG NAS N2B1/N2R1 review”

  2. By Roy on Sep 29, 2010

    FTP Question..I still cannot get it to work. I upgraded to firmware v2557 and It will connect put it will not list the directories, eventually it times out. any advice?

  3. By barelyadraft on Sep 29, 2010

    @Roy: Yeah, it’s probably because you have active transfer mode listen instead of passive (or reverse, I forget).

    Also, make sure you activate UPnP (to forward the port) and DDNS in settings and connect to .lgnas.com (and use port 21) and you should be golden!

    UNRELATED (but warranted b*tching): an annoying thing I’ve noticed since updating to firmware v2557 is that the login “time out” every 40min, which means I can’t have Transmission browser interface open all the time…*sigh* There should be a setting where one could change the timeout (…to never)!

  4. By david on Oct 27, 2010

    iam thinking about buying one of these nas drives, just as a media home hub, to stream movies to my tv and stream music through maybe a squeezebox, ive heard that the streaming feature isent that good, as anyone got any feedack regarding this?

    regards
    david

  5. By Brian on Oct 28, 2010

    I picked this unit up last week, with one of my priorities being able to rip and burn DVD’s (including blu-ray) via the iSCSI connection from my laptop over my GE backbone. The great news is that it works fine (although the MS iSCSI initiator is a little finicky, and it’s not going to win any speed competitions).

    Can someone show me an example of how to download a torrent with the LG? I loaded 2557 firmware on it when I first got it (it had something REALLY old loaded on), but I’ll be darned if I can get it to download a torrent, which was one reason I was interested in it.

    I get an “upload” torrent option, but not a “download” torrent option…what am I missing?

    TIA!
    Brian

    PS – David I also have the LG BX580 blu-ray 3D DVD player and using it’s built-in DLNA interface I’ve been able to stream (even play a blu-ray rip) just about everything I’ve loaded onto the LG NAS over 802.11N to my DVD player>TV. It works well. I’m thinking I’ll just start doing all MKV files for my video library and have everything on tap via the DVD player remote.

  6. By barelyadraft on Oct 28, 2010

    @Brian: you are supposed to upload the “.torrent” file to the NAS for it to start downloading the content of the “.torrent” file.

    If you are using Chrome, I advise you to use the extension “Remote Transmission” and if you are using Firefox, use the addon called “Autotrans”, so automate the process, so you only have to click the .torrent file/magnet link on a website for it to automatically put the download onto the LG NAS. Works like a charm (especially the extension for Chrome)

  7. By Bejay on Oct 30, 2010

    Hi,
    Just came across your post, and would like to ask somebody who seems to know all there is to know about the LGNAS – so appreciate your knowledge.

    I have had my BluRay LGNAS with 2TB for just over a month and reasonably happy with it, but like some of the other posts here I thought the ‘torrent’ downloads while my PC is off would be a nice feature to have. However, although I have it working it is REALLY slow downloads – on a good day the highest download rate I have achieved is 130KB. No more, and therefore stopped using it until I saw your post and thought maybe time to revisit this and see why. So, I have just uploded 3 more torrents to see what sort of speed I am getting and so far only getting this:

    File 1 reports “tracker returned an error: Requested download not authorised for use by this tracker” – although it is downloading anyway, but slowly at 58KB/s and only downloading from 4 out of 9 peers. I have downloaed the same file via my PC and is a very popular download with 1000s of peers/seeders.

    File 2 Similar to the above but no reference to “….not authorised for use etc” but again reports downloading for 8 out of 15 peers at a rate of 1.15KB/s

    So not sure why and would like some help.

    There is one other issue I have to with the DDNS, again I have this set-up and can access the LG via the Internet. However it seems it loses this connection, I have to go back into the LG as ‘admin’ and ‘apply; the DDNS option again. Also the UPnP radio button is always not set and need to hit the “enable” every time – very confusing to know why???

    Sorry it is long winded, but if I can get those sorted out I will be a happy boy.

    Thanks Bejay

  8. By Joe on Nov 2, 2010

    Can you use the nas to play normal dvds over the network? When I click on the cdrom of the open network folder cyberlink doesn’t play the disc. Any ideas why or a solution please? Thanks

  9. By monitorgeek on Nov 4, 2010

    thanks for your information. I currently use N1T1 and my first NAS. but I can’t say whether this is good or bad.
    BTW, Have you seen LG NAS video? :D
    This is so funny and brilliant video.
    http://networkmonitor.lge.com/us/product/hardware/network-monitor-nas.jsp

  10. By COguy on Nov 14, 2010

    Hello
    I just purchased a N2B1DD1 and am in the process of setting it up. I am trying to update the firmware to 2557 but am having trouble. Every time I browse to the .bin and upgrade, the screen on the NAS says ‘F/W Updating..’ and it does nothing. after about 10 minutes it goes back to the LG NAS screen. When I restart the NAS and log into the web interface the firmware is still the same. I have disabled my firewalls on the PC and on the router and still am unable to upgrade the firmware. Any suggestions?

    Thanks.

  11. By JoshSmith on Nov 30, 2010

    LG site has changed.
    http://networkmonitor.lge.com/us/product/d-series/network-monitor-nas.jsp

  12. By barelyadraft on Dec 2, 2010

    @Joe: you cannot use the LG NAS to play DVDs over the network unfortunately. What you can do it setup the iSCSI Connector on the LG NAS and on your computer, so you have a drive on your computer, but I am not sure if that will make it possible for you to play DVDs. I 90% sure it will However, setting up iSCSI can be a bit tricky, but look in your manual!
    Keep in mind that BluRay DVDs you will not work, however, at least according to the documentation (only CDs and regular DVDs work over iSCSI, not BluRay).

  13. By barelyadraft on Dec 2, 2010

    @Bejay:

    ad torrent: You probably haven’t opened the port being used by the torrent client and/or you don’t have UPnP enabled on your router. One of those two things should do the trick. Mine is running smooth and maxing out my connection. In the web torrent interface (Transmission) settings you can see (and change) what port the client should use and then you should setup the port fowarding on your router (or just enable UPnP on the router and in the LG NAS settings)

    regarding your tracker problems: This is probably just GUI stuff. It is probably because the torrent has references to a private tracker you are not authorised to use, but since the torrent file also includes references to public trackers it will still download and get peers from those.

    ad DDNS issues: This seems like a problem unrelated to the LG NAS. At least this is working great for me. Try to update the firmware (they have just released a new firmware v2569 I believe it is called).

  14. By barelyadraft on Dec 2, 2010

    @david: I haven’t had any issues streaming files related to the LG NAS. The only issues I have encountered are related to the wireless network I stream over. When cabled I have been able to stream everything I have on it. on my wireless .N connection, 720p files work reliably (haven’t tried 1080p so can’t say for sure it works).

  15. By Ilari on Dec 4, 2010

    @barelyadraft Unlike you said, you _can_ watch blu-ray movies from N2B1′s blu-ray through iscsi. Some movies work without any problems, but with AnyDVD HD every movie I tried, worked. The PowerDVD 8 that came with the NAS is outdated, but once you start it, it tells you there’s an update available. It definetly plays the blu-ray movies through network.

    Btw, with AnyDVD HD you can play DVD’s from you NAS on multiple computers at the same time. I’ve tried with to computers, but read somewhere that somebody had tried successfully with four. Haven’t tried with blu-rays yet, but I’m pretty sure those won’t play on more than one computer at a time.

  16. By jhol on Dec 5, 2010

    i´m thinking of buying the N2R1 but have a question for you guys
    i got recently a LG TV le8500 and would like to play DVD though the NAS directly to de TV. As there is no hdmi conector i suppose have to use the lan. Both NAS and TV has DLNA but im not sure if there is a way to watch DVD movies with the DVD player inside the N”R1(and without any computer) to the LG TV

  17. By barelyadraft on Dec 7, 2010

    @Jhol: sorry, I don’t believe you can do what you want with the BluRay DVD playback.

    What you can do, if you have a TV that can do DLNA (and both the TV and NAS are connected on the same LAN/WLAN), the TV can read all the video files from the NAS and play them

  18. By Rahan on Dec 8, 2010

    Hi
    Try to updadte m’y firmware and it’s very slow. So i stop it. I use chrome. Is it normal?
    Did i miss something?

  19. By barelyadraft on Dec 8, 2010

    no, the update takes about a minute or two. if you can cancel it, you probably haven’t started it, because when you update the unit becomes unresponsive for the minute or two.

  20. By Rahan on Dec 8, 2010

    You ‘re right. I can’t access to the nas by the web interface.
    But on the nas I can read F/W update. The extension have to be .bin or tar.gz?

  21. By barelyadraft on Dec 8, 2010

    @Rahan: extension must be .bin

  22. By Rahan on Dec 8, 2010

    I use chrome to download the firmware and receive a .sit. Perhaps it’s a problem. Trying to use firefox.

  23. By Rahan on Dec 8, 2010

    Have the same problem. No update is possible.

  24. By Rahan on Dec 8, 2010

    It’s the same problem @COguy have with the N2R1 nas. I try everything. No firewall on my mac. Litesnitch desactivate. Direct ethernet computer to nas. This nas is realy useless.

  25. By Rahan on Dec 8, 2010

    For @COguy I just understand the problem. You have to go to the web interface then volume then select your raid system to init your HDD.

  26. By Christian on Dec 15, 2010

    To the reviewer:
    The WebDAV work just fine. When you setup your folders, you need to check the WEBDAV box. (but it turn off the security for this folder)

  27. By KTP on Jan 8, 2011

    WebDAV has been worked on in the latest firmware 2569. I don’t use it, so can’t comment on improvements.

    I’m also (lately) seeing horrible Torrent Speeds. I got UPnP on both NAS and router, still slow. Even setting up ports manually makes no difference. It used to be fast, but now it’s really slow. Slow meaning, it takes weeks to download most files. uTorrent via PC is fast.

    Besides this i find the unit quite responsive, and disagree on the speed comments in the blog entry. This box isn’t any slower than most in this price range.

  28. By Mick on Jan 8, 2011

    I bought one of these 2 weeks ago.

    If you are into Linux they are brilliant, because you can change anything on them to work however you wish.

    They run Debian (Lenny) compiled for ARM (Armel) processor.
    The firmware .bin file is just a linux .tar.gz file renamed.
    Extract the firmware.tar.gz from inside and you have the whole file tree.

    I have added ssh, sftp, telnet and mc and can now access the USB, DVD, SDMMC, HDD etc directly, without bothering with the web interface.

    This means for instance that I can read any DVD or USB stick inserted and not just be limited to burning and backup respectively, via the web interface.
    Via apt I can update and install anything from the that Debian distribution.(space permitting)

    If you go to http://lg.threnor.de/ you can download custom firmwares for the NAS already built for you with various add ons.

    Great little server.

  29. By KTP on Jan 9, 2011

    @Mick

    I’d rather change my own firmware. Any way to open the stock FW? (the .BIN file)..

  30. By Mick on Jan 9, 2011

    Yeah, just as per previous, but you need to do it from Linux, no idea if Windoze has any idea what a tar archive is.

    Rename the .bin file to .tar.gz
    Open it with whatever archiving tool you use.

    At the first level are the scripts and a file called firmware.tar.gz
    Extract the contents of firmware.tar.gz and you have the complete system filetree.

    Add, alter as you wish.
    The web interface pages are in /var/www/en mostly.
    Make sure you use programs compiled for ‘armel’ not just ‘arm’ from the Debian / Lenny distribution.

    Then re-zip the filetree as firmware.tar.gz and replace the original.

    Usual caveats apply.

    If you want to be cautious, install the 2569t firmware from http://lg.threnor.de/, which definitely works, and having got shell access to the running system, reverse engineer the bits you don’t like – don’t want, run ‘apt-get update’ to bring the archive libraries up to date and install whatever else you want from the Debian repositories.

    That is how I started and then put my own package together.

    Regards

  31. By pdaddy on Jan 11, 2011

    I need some tech support guys. I have open ports 9090 and 9091. They show to be open. I noticed that ports 21 and 80 did not. I called my isp and they informed me that they could not open these ports without moving me to a business class account, and that is not happening. (32 down/2 up currently. business class 6 down/1 up) Is there a way, with the current firmware or a custom firmware to change the ports that the N2R1 needs to something that is not blocked by my isp?

  32. By Mick on Jan 12, 2011

    Hi
    Need to know exactly what you are trying to do.

    Ports 21 and 80 are bog standard ports for ftp and http respectively.

    If your ISP has closed those, then they intend to prevent you hosting anything useful on your computer as a server for some reason and I would change ISPs.

    You don’t need these ISP ports open for internal (LAN) access to the NAS, the firewall rules or whatever your router calls them will allow any computer on the LAN to access the NAS via ftp or http.

    You will need the ports open for external access or most likely DDNS in this case, as it runs through the ISP.

    The port that is listened to can be changed in the
    configuration files of proftpd the ftp server
    (/etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf)
    and lighttpd the http server
    (/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf & lighttp.ports)

    However this is just part of the story.

    The default web port has already been changed to 8000 to bring up the NAS web interface.
    If you enter 192.168.x.xxx:80 specifically, you will get the …/myweb user webspace rather than the interface.

    All ftp clients will use port 21 by default and all http traffic goes to http://nameofsite.com:80 by default, so external requests may still not get through unless the new non standard port is specified, which no one except you will know.

    I think I would ditch the ISP, don’t know where you are, 32Mb download speeds are just science fiction here in UK!

  33. By pdaddy on Jan 13, 2011

    @ Mick:
    Thanks for the response! I am new to some of this. I have played around with ssh and telnet a little. Is this the method to change the file properties? Can you give me a short tutorial on how to get to those files? I have looked around and cannot figure it out. Maybe I am missing a setting through the UI? Thanks again!

  34. By pdaddy on Jan 13, 2011

    Ok i figured it out using the service manager/text editor. I changed all 3 files to reflect open ports. I typed it in the address bar to show my ip:port. Still no luck.

  35. By Mick on Jan 13, 2011

    “I typed it in the address bar to show my ip:port. Still no luck.”

    If you are on the same network as the NAS, you don’t need to change ports.

    You are going to have to explain what you are trying to do.

  36. By pdaddy on Jan 14, 2011

    Basically just access the files from another state. I am going out of town in a few weeks.

  37. By Mick on Jan 15, 2011

    Ok I have tried some experiments using other ports with proftpd.
    I used port 1024 which I know is open because I use it for a WAN camera.

    I changed proftpd.conf , restarted proftpd and was able to connect with the NAS and log in via DDNS.

    However I could not get a directory listing because of this error it appears…
    ” Server sent passive reply with unroutable address. Using server address instead. ”

    Changing the port it binds to should work and I can’t find why it doesn’t.

    Port 21 works perfectly.

    Sorry can’t assist further, back to finding ISP who gives you normal port 21 and 80 access.

  38. By stuart on Jan 19, 2011

    Hi – this may seem a little bit of a strange question, but I’m considering an LG NAS and would like to know if I connect it to a machine via USB will it appear as a USB drive?

    The reason for the question is that we have several machines, one of which I’d like to act as a backup agent to an online service such as Backblaze. These services don’t like NAS’, so my thinking is that all the machines will access the NAS as a network mapped drive, whilst the machine running the online backup agent would connect via USB, circumventing the restriction.

    Is that possible with this?

    Thanks – Stuart

  39. By jsacco on Jan 29, 2011

    I’m a newbie. I just purchased the N2R1 after much research. It’s very quiet and I love the web interface. But the documentation is very, very limited. I can see the unit on my PS3, but can’t see any of my media files. And streaming movie files to another networked PC is slow and jittery.

    1) Where should I be storing the files?

    2) How do I improve the streaming quality?

    I have a new Linksys N router and all of my desktop clients are Macs.

  40. By KTP on Feb 11, 2011

    1) If you want to use DLNA (assuming since you’re using a PS3), you must store the files under the /service/DLNA share/folder. Outside of that, it doesn’t pick it up. It supports most formats, but not Matroska (.mkv) Sucks, but get mkv2vob program to convert.

    2) Use the gigabit connection, and not wifi. Else the NAS is more than quick enough to stream anything.

    Can’t help you with Macs, besides saying, I’m sorry. Get a real computer next time ;)

  41. By naga on Feb 19, 2011

    ANyone been able to fix the torrent on the NAS, or is it just painfully slow? I give up on it at this point…

  42. By Paul Nicolson on Feb 23, 2011

    I can no longer open web menu any ideas, firefox reports Oops! Firefox could not connect to 192.168.1.68

    I can open the folders to alter files.

    Please please help

  43. By jsacco on Feb 24, 2011

    I can drag and drop files into “volume 1″ but can’t into “service.” Also, I do not get an “upload” option when using the AjaXplorer File Viewer. How do I get the files into /service/DLNA folder?

  44. By jsacco on Feb 24, 2011

    Also, .avi plays fine on PS3 and .mkv is better, but I can convert any content to .avi with iSkySoft.

  45. By KTP on Apr 22, 2011

    ANyone have problems after the newest firmware? It seriously fucked up my nas after a while its really slow..and actually cannot be accessed without a hard reboot.

  46. By KTP on Apr 23, 2011

    Turned out to be the selective mirroring making the drives go completely mental (100% hd activity)…and never stopping.. Had to disable it.

  47. By Jon Shurtleff on Oct 17, 2011

    Anyone still listening? I have one of these things where I have somehow locked myself out of the admin account. I have another account which I made admin but I only get the short menu so I cannot change the password of the admin account. Any ideas?

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