alecs

Edimax NS-2502 review

A couple of weeks ago I’ve bought a Network Attached Storage (Edimax NS-2502) with 2 additional HDDs (WD10EAVS). The complete tech specs for the NAS can be found at http://www.edimax.com/en/produce_detail.php?pd_id=272&pl1_id=18&pl2_id=75, so I’m going to jump straight to the review.

First of all, the price is quite small compared to similar solutions from D-Link. Unfortunately so is the quality of the product.

Hardware-wise it is pretty OK. It doesn’t have any special design (like LaCie). Also, there are no screws for opening the case. The bad part is the loud fan situated underneath the unit that doesn’t have a variable speed. If you are planning on keeping it in the bedroom think again. Also, the front LEDs are pretty bright.

package

front view

rear view

bottom view

HDD2 slot open

one of the 2 HDDs

Web management

Here comes the bad part. The web UI works fine until you start using the torrent download. This made all the pages load very slow. For some unknown reason the torrents were also extremely slow. The speed of any torrent would not exceed 50KB/s at all and of the time the torrents would simply refuse to start. This was happening on the same router where a standard PC would reach speeds up to 1MB/s.

web interface

torrent management

crappy English

The file and FTP server both worked fine. I didn’t experience any problems even when the torrents were active.

Solving the torrent issue

I found the solution on a thread from the official Edimax forums. You basically have to upgrade the firmware with one from a different product.

I’m going to explain the steps I took to upgrade the firmware. Please back up any important data you might have stored in the NS unit. Also note that should you do this upgrade, you are doing it at your own risk.

I downloaded the firmware version 1.3.6tw from http://www.planex.net/download/nas/mzk-nas02sg.htm.
After extracting the archive there were 2 important files there: images_1.3.6TW.bin and btmodule.bin.
I used the first one to upgrade the firmware. After doing this I was unable to access the Web UI (the default IP had changed). However it wasn’t the 192.168.2.5 from the original factory settings, it was now changed to 192.168.1.100 (there is a short setup guide for the Planex product where this is mentioned). For some reason none of these IPs worked until I pressed both the release and copy buttons for 5 seconds (this is to reset the unit to factory defaults). Now the new firmware had default settings and I was able to access the Web UI at 192.168.1.100.
new web interface
I had a RAID1 configuration before the upgrade so I went to the Tools panel and rebuilt it without any problems. All the data from the HDDs remained intact.
In the BitTorrent panel you have to upload the second file, btmodule.bin. Now only specify a default download directory and everything is set. There is a button there that will launch a separate window to manage your torrents. It looks good, it’s updated via AJAX and works well.
the new BitTorrent client
There is a new Print Server panel present but I don’t know if it actually works. Also note that the LEDs will be mixed up with this new firmware because the product it was intended for has a different LED layout. Don’t rely on what they display now.

One more thing: I had problems with the internet connection on the unit (both on the original and new firmware and both web download and torrent download) when the IP was not set to be obtained automatically.

I have not tested any of the following, either because I don’t care or don’t need them:

iTunes server
media server
print server (found on the new firmware)
connecting external HDDs or Flash Sticks via the 2 USB ports

Conclusion

A cheap product. I haven’t seen a worse interface on any other piece of hardware I had. However, with this new firmware I hope it will be more stable in which case the investment was worth it.

This was my first experience with a product from Edimax and it was a bad one. They created a really bad web interface with lots of bugs. I don’t think I’ll ever buy anything from them ever again, even if it means paying an extra buck.

18 Comments to “Edimax NS-2502 review”

markdj 20 January 2010 at 2:05 am #

What a crappy review, if I wanted a rant I would have gone somewhere else, like to a blog post, oh hold on a minute..

…oops :-)

Apart from the bittorrent sucking the resources of the edimax then, it worked flawlessly?

And you had about 10 BT running, 4 active I see…

What would be more useful is if you tested the speed of transfer of small and large files to the nas and reading from it on a gigabit lan using ftp and smb transferring protocols.

Also, a measurement of the loudness of the fan in comparison to e.g. your pc, or dB levels with and without the hard disks running in the NAS.
alecs 20 January 2010 at 6:06 am #

Thanks for the appreciation… but after having to deal with dumb products and crappy firmwares you don’t feel the need to write a fair review.

Actually the bittorent wasn’t the only issue. I had to frequently restart the NAS because all the servers (file, web, ftp) would stop responding for no reason. After installing the firmware from planex I don’t remember doing that even once.

I don’t have a gigabit router on my network so it wouldn’t be fair to test transfer speeds.

Finally, I don’t have noise measurement devices. My computer is also louder than the average machine so it’s no use comparing the two.
The HDDs are Western Digital Caviar Green. I doubt there is any significant difference with or without them running.
mixman 23 January 2010 at 10:18 am #

Hi Alecs,

In my opinion you bought a good price/performance product in the moment you did that firmware upgrade.
It seems that this device gave you some head aches – but look at it this way, it gave you the “ambition” to write this nice review and share it with us :)
Are you going to sell it?

@markdj: you’re so cool having a gigabitLAN at home, can I please get an autograph? pff.
alecs 24 January 2010 at 3:48 am #

@mixman, why should I sell it if it’s working fine? :)
Hamblingpc 28 January 2010 at 11:55 pm #

I just got mine working after a month. The Edimax support are fairly useless, asking stupid questions and delaying the process. I cannot get the NAS to stream with my xbox 360, and have no idea whether it should be able to or not. Basically, I wish I had bought a buffalo drive. You live and learn ay?
alecs 29 January 2010 at 5:03 am #

@Hamblingpc
In this case, the low price of the unit had a definite downside concerning quality. I won’t ever buy anything else from Edimax again, no matter how cheap it is.
jpo 12 February 2010 at 1:49 pm #

Can you connect this to a desktop like a regular USB drive?
alecs 12 February 2010 at 4:34 pm #

@jpo no you can’t. The unit has 2 USB ports, but they are used to connect additional storage TO the NAS.
Someone 17 March 2010 at 5:55 pm #

This thing sucks! Nothing is working like it should… Max. transfer rates are 400kb/s – 1,5mb/s with a gigabit LAN. Tested different firmwares which made things even worse… HDD’s are a 2tb Hitachi and a 360gb Caviar Blue.
It doesn’t matter if I just use one of them or in a different order or whataver.
Sorry for that bad english… :)
richt 23 May 2010 at 10:43 pm #

Wow, so wish i had read this review first, the firmware on this thing really is rubbish.
Aparently its “linux compatible” but it has no NFS (cifs is a windows thing that Linux _can_ be compatible with)

You can create permissions for shares, but each one is read or write access per share not per user??

Its a Linux device but it forces you to call the share ‘C:/’ WTF?

I have updated to the latest firmware (1.4.2) but this is only available on the .jp site and the support site is only in polish.

I would strongly recoment to every one, pay the extra 10% for a better device. Edimax sux!
Renato 12 June 2010 at 11:31 am #

Ehm.. any help ? i just tried to upgrade with the last firmware from planex.. but now after a reset my nas wont’ work at all.. the power led of the nas keep flashing.. any suggestion ?
i’m unable to connect to the nas.. i’m going mad :|
sysmac 14 June 2010 at 10:54 am #

Any idea how to access as “network drive” on XP. I can see without problem on Win7. Can only see sometimes on XP.

Regards
John
alecs 16 June 2010 at 8:52 pm #

@Renato try setting the router to give addresses starting with 192.168.1.*
Did you do the reset to factory settings thing after updating the firmware?

@sysmac I’m afraid I can’t help you here.

Try the forum at http://forum.edimax.pl/ (post a thread in English and hope someone is kind enough to answer)
Williep 11 December 2010 at 4:35 pm #

Hi Alecs,

I just upgraded my Edimax 2502 with the planex firmware 1.3.6tw. Everyting was going well until i wanted to get my raid1 back. You, and the manual, talk about rebuilding without losing data. I only have the choise format or not. I dont see any option that will preserve my existing data.

Any idee?

Regards

Willie
alecs 18 December 2010 at 1:04 pm #

@Williep
You should see RAID in Tools > Storage Tools.
I believe when you select to create RAID 1 you are asked if you want to copy HDD1 to HDD2 or vice versa (which is the same thing if you had RAID 1 before).
If you don’t see anything like this then you may want to connect the HDD to the PC and back up everything.
Williep 19 December 2010 at 5:46 pm #

Hi alecs,

I already desided to connect the HDD to my windows laptop. But because it is ext2 formatted, i could not see the drive. Then started i my laptop with a Knoppix cd.
i could mount the HDD and copy the data to a spare HDD. So i am ok again. Thanks for your time.
Sorin 3 April 2011 at 5:13 pm #

Is not a crappy review is a fair review and quite usefull, wish I have read it before buing this product. The noise and the ligths are as described.
axel 12 June 2011 at 9:58 pm #

I have had this drive running for 2 years with both sets of firmware. All I can say is dont buy this piece of s@it. Save up a bit more money and get a synology … this crap is simply poring money down a drain. Its performance sucks.