Zyxel NAS325 - not getting anywhere fast :-(

[Northernman]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and NAS so apologies for my ignorance.

I decided to buy a NAS and the Zyxel 325 recently as it seemed to fit the bill re: spec and price so bought it and a 2TB WD Green drive to go with it. The idea behind the purchase was to act as a backup device, media streamer and most importantly to be able to access files from work. 5 days on I have finally managed to get my files transferred (very very slowly) and I am now able to stream video to my TV but that's about all.

Problem 1 - I can't seem to access the administration page using the NAS starter utility from my desktop PC to change settings, although I can access it from my laptop using the same IP address which puzzles me.

Problem 2 - alongside it's use as a basic media server, as a teacher I also wanted to access my files remotely i.e. from work if my portable drive ever failed but I'm at a complete loss as to how to do this. I have looked at Polkast and Dropbox as options but thought there must be a secure way to access my drive directly using it's IP address and a login.

The instructions supplied are sparse to say the least and the downloadable user guide is 400+ pages and although I've tried to work out what is going wrong I'm still baffled - help me please before I go mad

Many thanks in advance
Mike

 

[stevech]

Hi, I'm new to the forum and NAS so apologies for my ignorance.

I decided to buy a NAS and the Zyxel 325 recently as it seemed to fit the bill re: spec and price so bought it and a 2TB WD Green drive to go with it. The idea behind the purchase was to act as a backup device, media streamer and most importantly to be able to access files from work. 5 days on I have finally managed to get my files transferred (very very slowly) and I am now able to stream video to my TV but that's about all.

Problem 1 - I can't seem to access the administration page using the NAS starter utility from my desktop PC to change settings, although I can access it from my laptop using the same IP address which puzzles me.
>>> PC's software firewall blocking?

Problem 2 - alongside it's use as a basic media server, as a teacher I also wanted to access my files remotely i.e. from work if my portable drive ever failed but I'm at a complete loss as to how to do this. I have looked at Polkast and Dropbox as options but thought there must be a secure way to access my drive directly using it's IP address and a login.

The instructions supplied are sparse to say the least and the downloadable user guide is 400+ pages and although I've tried to work out what is going wrong I'm still baffled - help me please before I go mad
>>>Any decent NAS will allow remote access via a special program on the PC/smart phone, and also via a web browser, with HTTPS as an option. With poor instructions, your best bet is to get tech support to talk you though it, or get help from their user forum. Or we here can help, with a link to the user manual.
Many thanks in advance
Mike

see responses interspersed above

 

[Northernman]

Hi, thanks for the reply and your suggestions.

Problem 1 - I tried disabling the firewall completely but still no luck with accessing the administration page.

Problem 2 - I emailed Zyxel support on Monday but still haven't received a reply unfortunately . Here is a link to the instruction manual if it helps :

ftp://ftp.zyxel.com/NSA325/user_guide/NSA325_.pdf



Many thanks

 

[stevech]

Funny they name the product with a model name of NSA325 rather than NAS325, and they use the term NSA all over the docs. Hmm, "NSA" is an acronym I wouldn't want in my system, being in the US (grin).

So- the starter program runs on windows and discovers the NAS via MAC address probing. Using your laptop - which can find the NAS using their starter program... set the NAS's static IP address to an address that your router WILL NOT use. (and that leads to setting up the router properly). In the starter program, as on page 42, set this manually assigned IP address and LAN gateway and mask. Now reboot the NAS, the router, and the PC that has trouble. See if the PC, with firewall blocking off, will run the starter program.

Alternative: Don't use the Starter program after setting the IP address, as above. Instead, use your web browser and the web server in the NAS, as described on page 42, paragraph 4.2.2. They tell you to enter a name for the NAS into the browser. I'd say you'd be better to enter the LAN IP address, such as
http://192.168.1.250 (or whatever IP you chose via the Laptop/starter program, and have your router configured to not include .250 in the DHCP server range for your router. There's another way to do this, simpler, talked about below).

Your web browser should then connect to the NAS (NSA?) and probably ask you for a login/password. See 4.3 of the manual. "The default username and password are ‘admin’ and ‘1234’ respectively". You should change that soon.

In section 4.4.5.1 it tells you how to create shared folders.
This presumes you've setup the drives -what form of RAID or independent volumes (non-RAID) you've previously elected, etc.

Now your into the explore and learn. I suggest you don't load a lot of data on to the NAS until you understand your RAID/volume and other choices, so you don't have to reformat/re-load all the data due to changing your strategy.

Hope this helps.

The root problem is that the PC doesn't run the discovery part of the starter program. This can happen if the PC is not wired directly to the router's LAN port and the NAS is on the same LAN ports of the router. Or both PC and NAS are on the same ethernet switch. It has to do with MAC layer packets the starter program uses to find the NAS, not yet knowing its IP address. And out of the box, the NAS probably uses DHCP to ask your router for a >Temporary< IP address on the LAN.

 

[Northernman]

Many thanks for your reply again. I've tried to set the IP to static, reboot and disable the firewall but the desktop still refuses to allow me to access the admin or file browser options. I can access it via my HTC mobile and laptop using the IP address so I could probably live with that if I have to. What I can't seem to figure out is how to access the NAS remotely, i.e. from work, is there a "simple" way of configuring the NAS to allow me to do this?

Best regards
Mike

 

[stevech]

remote access via the internet requires your router have port forwarding on certain ports. The user manual should detail this. If not, we can help.

My skimming of the manual says it assumes that you the user is experienced at such things. Not a very well written manual.

 

[Northernman]

My skimming of the manual says it assumes that you the user is experienced at such things. Not a very well written manual.

I'm glad it wasn't just me then . If I get any response from Zyxel I'll post the solution on here for future reference. I'll check the router manual re: port forwarding and see if I can sort it out from there. I've built and repaired my own PCs for years and thought installing the NAs should be straight forward - clearly not .

Thanks again for your help,
Mike

 

[tipstir]

I have this model, did you load the CD or install the software on your PC. This gives you access to the the device and to set it up. Must run the software on your PC so you can setup the static IP address, admin or user password format the 2 WD drives you have installed. The device works great.

Web Server
Media Server
File Server

Lots of features. You'll to download the updated patches too.

The CD and software on the PC is just use for setup. Next time you use the admin through your web browser to get into the device.

 

[stevech]

I have this model, did you load the CD or install the software on your PC. This gives you access to the the device and to set it up. Must run the software on your PC so you can setup the static IP address, admin or user password format the 2 WD drives you have installed. The device works great.

Web Server
Media Server
File Server

Lots of features. You'll to download the updated patches too.

The CD and software on the PC is just use for setup. Next time you use the admin through your web browser to get into the device.

See posting #5 in this thread.

 

[tipstir]

See posting #5 in this thread.

See post #9 required the software to be installed on PC to setup the device. Sync with the device. Anyway if the OP is okay with his setup. But others should know to install the software on the PC to get it working smoothly.

 

[stevech]

don't have to install their software.
in factory default, it'll get a DHCP address from the router. Login to router, look at what LAN address was assigned. Use that from the browser to login to NAS and configure the desired static IP.

 

[Northernman]

I have this model, did you load the CD or install the software on your PC. This gives you access to the the device and to set it up. Must run the software on your PC so you can setup the static IP address, admin or user password format the 2 WD drives you have installed. The device works great.

Web Server
Media Server
File Server

Lots of features. You'll to download the updated patches too.

The CD and software on the PC is just use for setup. Next time you use the admin through your web browser to get into the device.

Thanks for your reply. I installed the software on my PC from the start but cannot access the admin page through my browser on my desktop machine, the screen is blank. In addition, I can view my video and photo folders but the file browser option does not display and just hangs. I can access these features from my laptop and mobile phone though. Which patches do you mean, the firmware is currently 4.5 AAAJ.1?

Cheers

 

[stevech]

Thanks for your reply. I installed the software on my PC from the start but cannot access the admin page through my browser on my desktop machine, the screen is blank. In addition, I can view my video and photo folders but the file browser option does not display and just hangs. I can access these features from my laptop and mobile phone though. Which patches do you mean, the firmware is currently 4.5 AAAJ.1?

Cheers

Your desktop have the same operating system and revision as the laptop?
Both use wired LAN connection?

 

[Northernman]

Hi, laptop is wireless and uses XP, desktop wired and Windows 8 - possible problem do you think?

Cheers

 

[stevech]

well, try hooking up the laptop via wired and see!

 

[Northernman]

Tried the laptop using Ethernet connection to modem and the admin page access is fine so it can't be router/OS related.

Do you think it could be something I'm missing with regard to firewall settings?

 

[stevech]

I have this correct, right?
Laptop does not access router's admin page via browser, if using WiFi.
If using ethernet/wired, it does work.

I assume laptop will access the Internet hosts but NOT the WiFi router. If this is not true, and laptop won't access the Internet, but laptop will say "connected" on WiFi, it's probably that the laptop and WiFi router don't have the same WiFi encryption mode/key. If this is the case, you'd see that your laptop times out on DHCP via WiFi and uses a LAN address of 169.x.xx.x. You can see that in the windows cmd window with the typed command of "ipconfig /all"

Another possibility, if the laptop won't access the Internet is that the laptop's WiFi config has a static IP address (automatic in DHCP settings is OFF).

Are we getting closer?

 

[tipstir]

Thanks for your reply. I installed the software on my PC from the start but cannot access the admin page through my browser on my desktop machine, the screen is blank. In addition, I can view my video and photo folders but the file browser option does not display and just hangs. I can access these features from my laptop and mobile phone though. Which patches do you mean, the firmware is currently 4.5 AAAJ.1?

Cheers

Has the software install and formatting everything 100%. The admin access through the web page? Which browser are you using also are you using Windows XP or 8 to access the admin web?

You can also test this if you have smartphone and download the software app from Android Play Store can give you access tot he NSA325.

Also I might note that you should have everything setup those the software which is pre-configuration. You can setup the Admin and static IP address through there. Must make sure that is setup correctly. Run the software configuration again. On one PC then on the other one have the browser up. See if you can sync the two.

Example: Admin Web access through Chrome Browser

http://192.168.x.xx/zyxel/loginwrap.html

sample of output on the browser without graphics

NSA325Language :
Enter Username/password and click to login.

UsernamePassword
( a maximum of 14 alphanumeric, printable characters, no single and double quotes )
Keep me logged in for two weeks
User Login
Administrator Login

Note:
Please turn on the Javascript and ActiveX control setting on Internet Explorer.

Also if you use Chrome Browser you also need to download the chrome plug-in for :
Windows Media Player HTML5 Extension for Chrome
http://www.interoperabilitybridges.com/wmp-extension-for-chrome

 

[Northernman]

I have this correct, right?
Laptop does not access router's admin page via browser, if using WiFi.
If using ethernet/wired, it does work.

I assume laptop will access the Internet hosts but NOT the WiFi router. If this is not true, and laptop won't access the Internet, but laptop will say "connected" on WiFi, it's probably that the laptop and WiFi router don't have the same WiFi encryption mode/key. If this is the case, you'd see that your laptop times out on DHCP via WiFi and uses a LAN address of 169.x.xx.x. You can see that in the windows cmd window with the typed command of "ipconfig /all"

Another possibility, if the laptop won't access the Internet is that the laptop's WiFi config has a static IP address (automatic in DHCP settings is OFF).

Are we getting closer?

Laptop will access Zyxel admin webpage via wireless or ethernet connection (wireless disabled) with no problems. Hence my suggestion that the problem lies with the the desktop machine (Windows 8 machine) which sees the NAS drive, allows me to open the NAS Starter Utility, but refuses to allow access to the Zyxel admin page, this machine is ethernet connected to the router.

 

[Northernman]

Has the software install and formatting everything 100%. The admin access through the web page? Which browser are you using also are you using Windows XP or 8 to access the admin web?

You can also test this if you have smartphone and download the software app from Android Play Store can give you access tot he NSA325.

Also I might note that you should have everything setup those the software which is pre-configuration. You can setup the Admin and static IP address through there. Must make sure that is setup correctly. Run the software configuration again. On one PC then on the other one have the browser up. See if you can sync the two.
QUOTE]

Thanks for your reply. Software seemed to install okay and I can access the admin page via smartphone browser and xp laptop but not Windows 8 desktop. The android app (zMedia) doesn't find the NAS although it had previously which is also a bit strange.

So much for me thinking this would be a simple set up