Lg n4b1

[claykin]

Tim

I'm surprised you reached out to test this model. Competition is always good, but I have a hard time believing that Lucky Goldstar will take this seriously.

My 2 cents.

 

[thiggins]

LG reached out to SmallNetBuilder and I went ahead with the review because it is the only NAS that provides an optical backup option, which some people are looking for.

I have the same concern as to whether LG is in the market to stay and have discussed that with LG. Time will tell.

 

[boerner]

I know you mentioned you were giving LG some time to address issues with the unit and add information to their website. Having looked at the website I haven't seen anything updated to include the deivce.

Do you still plan to publish the review?

There is one review of the unit on newegg.com (from a confirmed buyer) but he/she seems concerned by the general lack of support in the U.S. as well.

 

[thiggins]

I have told LG that I am not going to publish a full review. They have not delivered on their plans to get a U.S. support site up or issue new firmware that fixes the problems that I found.

At this point, I can't say that LG is serious about the NAS market.

 

[Unregistered]

firmware?

I can't get the newer firmware to install. And on one LG site, its a broken link.
(the LG site is dismal.) Any outside sites for it?

And the manual states to change the admin PW, but there is NO way to do so.

 

[claykin]

I can't get the newer firmware to install. And on one LG site, its a broken link.
(the LG site is dismal.) Any outside sites for it?

And the manual states to change the admin PW, but there is NO way to do so.

.2898 firmware? If so, try this: http://www.lgcommercial.com/content/downloads/zip/n4b1_2898.tar.zip

List of changes:

V2898 Firmware - June 2009

--------------------------
Additional functions added
--------------------------
- Rsync function: Ability to backup to another NAS on the network.
- UPnP function: help router settings.
- Configuration Backup to Local PC: Allows you to download your NAS configuration to your PC so you can restore it later if needed.
- Scheduled back up history: Copies the backup history to the disc when performing a backup. Previously the backup history was only stored on the NAS.
- Added status indicator while initializing to the LCD and web interface.

----------------------------------
Improvements to existing functions
----------------------------------

- Improved the hibernation functionality.
- Fixed problem where SAMBA could make, but not read, folders with special characters.
- Improved IP setting functionality when not using HDCP.

---------------------
Limitations & Notices
---------------------

- Multisession disc formats are not supported for Image Backup. Discs formatted for scheduled backups are not supported for image backup.
- When using a DVD-R DL disc, the image file written to the disc will be 8Gb even if the data is not that large. Therefore, the disc may take longer to write than you expect it to.

 

[Unregistered]

Thanks, but that file fails too.

If I uzip it, I get errors. If I send it over it fails on the NAS too.

I'll try contacting LG *again*

 

[andermic]

In the review article it was stated:

"The N4B1 turned in an average RAID 5 write performance using a Gigabit Ethernet connection of 26.8 MB/s for file sizes between 32 MB and 4 GB, with cached behavior not included in the average calculation. Average RAID 5 read performance was slightly lower, measuring 26.2 MB/s with the same conditions.

File copy performance using a Vista SP1 client under the same conditions (RAID 5, Gigabit LAN) measured significantly lower for write at 11.7 MB/s, but about the same for read at 26.6 MB/s. Both results ranked the N4B1 last or next-to-last in the RAID 5 File Copy charts."

I'm getting the same 11.7 MB/s from my Windows 7 box. What did you do to get the 26.8 MB/s transfer rate? I think 11.7 MB/s is fairly dismal, at best.

 

[thiggins]

I'm getting the same 11.7 MB/s from my Windows 7 box. What did you do to get the 26.8 MB/s transfer rate? I think 11.7 MB/s is fairly dismal, at best.

Nothing, other than using a Gigabit Ethernet connection.

 

[Bongo]

Updates

Any updates on this model? Has it been released? If so, in what markets? Don't see it on the USA website, and on the global one, the links to the specs don't work.

Any other models released lately with backup media built-in or available for physical connection?

 

[thiggins]

LG has gotten their act together a bit more on the web side of things. But they still don't have very extensive online support and no forums.
New web home is here.

The two drive models are the latest. No new four drive.

 

[Lalato]

What a great looking device... saddled with a craptacular website. If LG actually got to a point where they had good support with a decent forum community, I would consider it as I'm currently in the market for something like this.

 

[LHeruska]

LG NAS Update

Well I have had my NAS in production for about a month so far, configured with 4 1.5TB Seagate drives. I was happy to have found the latest update on this site and installed it without any issue. For the unit itself I have to say compared to other NAS units I have in use at work - this unit is performing perfectly with one little annoyance. Seems when the drives "sleep" the unit will not send out it's daily report. I've proven this by making sure the unit was busy doing something at the time of the report and on every occurrence I receive the report. On days when there is no activity - no report. Personally I'll save the power and leave the drives on sleep mode.

I have to agree that the write times are rather slow for 1 gig ethernet but I still prefer this unit over the thequs

Lou

 

[fotoryder]

firmware upgrade

I've been running my LG N4B1 with a single 1TB drive for over 6 months now, and would describe it as uneventful, which is great.

There is a new firmware which appears to implement NFS file sharing, among other things. The support site is available from the Canadian web site, but navigating from the product pages to the firmware support and update web page is convoluted. Here's the a link to the firmware page for version 4284.
http://lgknowledgebase.com/kb/index.php?View=entry&EntryID=6319

 

[fotoryder]

firmware upgrade - completed

The firmware upgrade completed without incident. Applying the upgrade ran several minutes, and the reboot took several more minutes ( a bit more than 5 minutes for the reboot), and then the NAS came back up. The web administration menu looks the same, and unfortunately I can't see any settings for NFS, nor can I find a description of the firmware changes that mentions NFS, so maybe that was wishful thinking.

Anyway, it completed the upgrade without incident, and you'll have to to go refill your coffee cup while it runs.

 

[fotoryder]

firmware upgrade - serious problems

Be very cautious about installing this upgrade. Although it installed without incident, I have been unable to reestablish any of my network drive connections.

The Windows network drive connections that had been working are no longer working, and I have been unable to establish a connection from Linux. In addition the ComnoSub Backup functions are no longer able to establish connections that had been reestablished automatically when the Windows PCs rebooted.

I can connect using the web interface, and the admin functions are working. However, when I logged into the NAS several hours after the upgrade, I could no longer find the SMB setup under the Network Server options. This now lists FTP and AFP (Mac File Sharing). There are now several new setting under the Service section of the menu that I don't recall, including RSYNC, Time Machine, and NFS. I'm attempting to reestablish my shared folders under NFS, bu so far unsuccessfully.

Be cautious about installing this upgrade!

 

[fotoryder]

firmware update

I need to update this thread.

I was able to re-establish my shares to the NAS, both from Windows and Linux. Apparently it took the NAS a while to complete the firmware upgrade. I think I may have had to run the upgrade twice.

In the end I now have access to the NAS from both Windows and Linux. Linux uses NFS to access the files, and Windows uses traditional Windows shares. Other than the issues during the firmware upgrade the NAS has been running uneventfully.