Author Topic: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware  (Read 6106 times)

drmemory

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Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« on: August 04, 2009, 09:45:34 AM »

Please use this post for suggesting features in future firmware revisions of Terastations. Be sure to specify which Terastation, when posting.

For FW fixes, use a different post - this post is only for suggesting new features. 

 

No restrictions to geographical region - please state which country you are in/where you purchased your product.

Message Edited by drmemory on 08-05-2009 04:16 PM

rinthos

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #1 on: August 04, 2009, 11:06:16 PM »
   

You ask and you shall receive:

Terastation III and Terastation Duo

 

  • Support for third-pary drives (perhaps a Buffalo tested list) and allow for dynamic raid group expansion etc.
  • Filesystem (share) level quotas (not just user-based).
  • System event logging to audit who makes what changes via the NAS Web Gui.
  • Improve encryption performance.
    • Also for encryption, no 'key' or passphrase is allowed, so we can't add any part to the encryption, it's based on buffalo's private key solution which causes some compliance issues for us.
  • Security Camera integration (w/ Axis network cameras for example).
  • Ability to view system resource utilization (CPU + Ram + Disk I/O etc).
    • Hard to tell why we are bottle-necking.  If it's CPU/RAM we could reduce # of consistant users etc, but we have no visibility into this.  Performance monitoring doesn't exist...
  • Make Diskspin work correctly and allow times to be set (or at least offer options, i.e. 5 mins, 45 mins, 30 mins, etc).
  • Provide monitoring statistics for HDD's.  Would be nice to know if they are nearing threasholds so we can request replacements in a PROACTIVE manner! :)
  • ITunes server configuration/capabilities would be nice, in additional to more configuration options for the media server (i.e. more of the twonky functionality).
  • Improve USB drive performance.
  • Nice summary screen for storage capacity, perhaps a usage history, would be great!

 

Hope this is the type of feedback you were looking for.  If not, will try to revise as appropriate.

 

As a question, regardless of my suggestions, is there any timeframe where we'll see the Terastation III and Duo receive some improvements/enhancements of this scale?

 

 Thanks!


drmemory

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2009, 04:00:20 PM »
Yes, this is perfect. I don't have a timetable, but the more customers that second your suggestions, the more the weight each suggestion has with the engineers in Japan.

PCPiranha

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2009, 04:38:44 PM »
I'm not sure if I count, but Rinthos has helped us with testing and different issues.  I would second most, if not all of his requests if it helps.

samsam

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #4 on: August 07, 2009, 03:23:37 AM »
   

TeraStation III: Compressed and/or archived backup.

 

The user could select whether to create the backup as: a) normal filesystem  b) gzipped,  c) tarred 

 

Also, the backup screen could use a little bit of more information. For example, it would be easy to show the "estimated" destination folder on the backup drive.  For example: The backup will be at //Backup/_backups/Somedirectory or //Backup/yyyymmddhhmm/.


rinthos

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #5 on: August 07, 2009, 08:33:18 AM »
   

@PCPiranha,

 

Appreciate the support, thanks! 

 

@All,

 

The ideas I listed are generated are a mix of business requirements, but also some personal ones in there (since I do use some systems for 'testing' the entertainment value is there).

 

 

@samsam,

You just triggered a few more for me (work related), and +1 to your backup options.

 

In addition:

  • A -Restore/Recovery- feature.  It's nice that we can backup, but would be great to be able to restore/recover.  After all, why do we backup? :)
  • Snapshots and snapshot browsing capabilities and recoveries would be great to compliment backups.  Removes the need for host agent/application installations in many situations.

 

 

Thanks again.


rinthos

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2009, 07:45:57 PM »
   

Just 1 thing to add as I'd just found out.

 

Please do not remove the Drive Spindown feature and instead please get it to work properly.

 

For Information Technology today, there is a strong push toward 'Green' (The Green datacenter, reducing your carbon footprint. reduce heat, reduce power costs, etc), however the business still demands 'availability'.

 

With the alternative option (timed-shutdown) it solves the 'Green' side, but it hurts the 'Availability', and in many cases isn't acceptable for us.

 

Thanks.

---


windcrusader

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #7 on: August 26, 2009, 09:23:56 PM »
   I would be good if all future firmware revisions for the Terastation allow advanced users to SSH to the linux shell. This would allow for some advanced customisation by tech savy users. Of course you could disable shell access by default and make the disclaimer that by accessing the Terastation this way you risk bricking the unit/destroying data etc etc. This should be enough of a deterrent for the 'beginner' user.

PCPiranha

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #8 on: October 26, 2009, 03:23:29 PM »

A request **bleep**-navigation" rel="nofollow" href="../../../../../user/viewprofilepage/user-id/6044" target="_self">gmradiator (which I happen to like as well) for a way to properly unmount an external HDD from a Terastation without having to shut down the unit.  Some of the linkstations have the function button that you can press to unmount it, but the TSs do not.


mdkrush

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2009, 10:27:04 AM »
   

I have a terrastation live and I just want it to sleep or spin down the hard drive... Please... I dont care if ti takes 5 min to tart back up, just as long as it sleeps or spins down drives... I have been turring it off and back on when I need it...


SpotMaker

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware - Stronger AD passwords.
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2009, 08:31:07 AM »
   

Model:  TS-XLD64

Firmware version: 1.06

 

Our Active Directory domain requires "strong" passwords.  All of our administrative passwords are designed to be very strong, with "punctuation" characters like "#", or ";", etc.  Some of them even have "alt" characters in them that must be entered by holding down the "alt" key and typing in the decimal value of the character.

 

When joining an Active Directory domain, the TeraStation filters the password, unnecessarly, and forbids any characters other than alphas, numerals, "-" and "_".

 

If you try to enter an administrative network password that contains other characters (even though they are valid passwords as windows administrators) you get the following error message:

 

The Administrator Password contains at least one invalid character.
The Administrator Password may include 256 alphanumerical characters, a hyphen `-`, and an underscore `_`.

And, then, the TeraStation doesn't even attempt to join the AD domain.

There's no reason to attempt to "filter" the Administrator's password when joining an NT or AD domain.  Simply let the password be whatever it is.

Plenty of Window's passwords contain characters outside of that limited set that the TeraStation enforces.

Thanks,

Mark

 


olvi

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #11 on: November 21, 2009, 03:28:31 AM »
   

Iam using cpanel-like tool to administrate my servers and users. So it would be great feature to add/modify users/shares from remote computer with commandline tool. Or enable ssh for admin user to execute specific commands.

 


tmm0f5

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #12 on: November 21, 2009, 11:28:51 AM »
   

TeraStation III

 

Agreed with the majority already listed.  Spefically iTunes server configuration/capabilities, summary screens, monitoring statistics.

 

My addition refers to Web Access.  A few simple additions.  Videos work perfectly with inline streaming in the browser.  Photos are okay, but a slideshow option for a folder would be nice.  Music needs a lot of work, but a simple playlist function would be sufficient.  Having to play an album one track at a time is a bummer.  May a play folder option?

 

Thank you so much.  Love the NAS so far!

-Tim


drmemory

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Re: Wishlist for Terastation Firmware
« Reply #13 on: December 31, 2009, 03:58:52 PM »

for new ideas, please now use the Idea Exchange Board.