My Experience with eTRAYz (NAS)

[itarus]

Hi guys! I have been thinking of buying the eTrayz for last couple of months but the mixed reviews here and elsewhere have left me confused. I have a few of questions the answers to which may help me take the final decision:

1. If I were to buy eTrayz, does the Indian reseller of xtreamer sell eTrayz in India (their website doesn't mention eTrayz anywhere)? If yes, what would be the approximate price?

2. If I can't get it in India, can I buy it from xtreamer's online shop? (This may be a noobish question but the thing is that I have never purchased anything online in foreign currency though I do have an international credit card)

3. If I buy it online using my Credit Card, will there be any customs duty or any other form of charge applied to the package, over and above the 99+25 euros charged by xtreamer?

4. My sister stays in Netherlands and is coming to India next month (June 2010). Will it make any difference in cost (and delivery time) if I ask her to buy it there and bring it with her in June?

5. Overall, is eTrayz worth it? I have read some bad reviews particularly in terms of difficulties in setting it up, exaggeration of supported functionalities and poor support from the xtreamer team. But then the price is so very attractive that it is making me ignore the shortcomings, at least as long as it works simply as a NAS (with preferably bittorrent functionality).

The reason I am looking for a NAS type storage is because I already have two external hard disks with each requiring a separate power supply. So, when I want to connect all of them to my laptop, I end up getting surrounded by 10 different cables due to which I have reduced my usage of those hard disks. I am mainly looking for a cheap and simple but "expandable" solution to store my movies (Xvid and 720p HDs) and may be a few MP3s. I plan to buy a 1 TB WD hard disk to put it in the NAS which should give me enough space for the next 1.5 to 2 years (based on my current disk filling rate). Is NAS the correct solution that I am looking for?

Thanks in advance

 

[ashishkesarwani]

1. If I were to buy eTrayz, does the Indian reseller of xtreamer sell eTrayz in India (their website doesn't mention eTrayz anywhere)? If yes, what would be the approximate price?

2. If I can't get it in India, can I buy it from xtreamer's online shop? (This may be a noobish question but the thing is that I have never purchased anything online in foreign currency though I do have an international credit card)

3. If I buy it online using my Credit Card, will there be any customs duty or any other form of charge applied to the package, over and above the 99+25 euros charged by xtreamer?

4. My sister stays in Netherlands and is coming to India next month (June 2010). Will it make any difference in cost (and delivery time) if I ask her to buy it there and bring it with her in June?

5. Overall, is eTrayz worth it? I have read some bad reviews particularly in terms of difficulties in setting it up, exaggeration of supported functionalities and poor support from the xtreamer team. But then the price is so very attractive that it is making me ignore the shortcomings, at least as long as it works simply as a NAS (with preferably bittorrent functionality).

The reason I am looking for a NAS type storage is because I already have two external hard disks with each requiring a separate power supply. So, when I want to connect all of them to my laptop, I end up getting surrounded by 10 different cables due to which I have reduced my usage of those hard disks. I am mainly looking for a cheap and simple but "expandable" solution to store my movies (Xvid and 720p HDs) and may be a few MP3s. I plan to buy a 1 TB WD hard disk to put it in the NAS which should give me enough space for the next 1.5 to 2 years (based on my current disk filling rate). Is NAS the correct solution that I am looking for?

Thanks in advance

1. Yes the Indian distributer of Xtreamer i.e Xtreamer India Private Limited or Mr. Sumit Kumar do sell it here you can find his contact information on Xtreamer India also there is another Xtreamer site which lists all the dealers information as well as the prices of Xtreamer as well as etrayz on it and that is www.xtreamerindia.com

2. Yes, you can always buy it from the international online shop @ Xtreamer.Net - Home and you can make the payment there through your credit card, but remember that here you would not be able to get any warranty support from their India distributer.

3. It depends on your luck, but generally whenever a consignment crosses 5K mark then you should expect a customs duty charged @36% on it.

4. Thats your choice entirely as you can ask your sister to bring it along in her personal baggage and in that case you can save the customs part for sure.

5. Yes it has its share of bugs and problems which are bound to be solved with future firmware upgrades but looking at the feature count and usefulnesss of this device then its definitely worth every peny. Its the perfect solution to all your problems. Go get it.

 

[itarus]

Thanks a lot Ashish! So I will ask my sister to bring it then.....however, while surfing through the net for last 4 hours (!!), I suddenly realized that the XtreamerPro has also come out and it combines the features of Xtreamer Media Player and eTrayz into a single piece of hardware and it costs only 174 euros......so, has anybody here got a chance to check it out?

P.S.: I wasn't looking for a HD media player as of now because I have a very pathetic 14" TV (!) but was planning to setup the entire NAS+Media Player system with a 26 to 32" LCD TV over the next 12 months...but the XtreamerPro features have just left my mouth wide open! Any feedback on the XtreamerPro would be highly appreciated.

 

[ashishkesarwani]

.....however, while surfing through the net for last 4 hours (!!), I suddenly realized that the XtreamerPro has also come out and it combines the features of Xtreamer Media Player and eTrayz into a single piece of hardware and it costs only 174 euros......so, has anybody here got a chance to check it out?

P.S.: I wasn't looking for a HD media player as of now because I have a very pathetic 14" TV (!) but was planning to setup the entire NAS+Media Player system with a 26 to 32" LCD TV over the next 12 months...but the XtreamerPro features have just left my mouth wide open! Any feedback on the XtreamerPro would be highly appreciated.

Xtreamer Pro doesn't have the same set of features as Xtreamer and Etrayz together, it just has the same chassis on which etrayz has been built and has the option of putting 2 x 2 Tb 3.5" Hdd inside, otherwise with standalone etrayz unit you have the option of torrent downloading as well as assessing it from outside of your home network, also one of the biggest advantage of the etrayz is that everyone in your home as well as your friends outside can access the same, offcourse with your permission.

 

[santhosh]

Ashish has said it all, it does have its bugs and workarounds for those bugs. It is a great product at its price point. I am happy with my purchase. If you can wait till June, you can ask your sister to get it from Netherlands, but you will not have any warranty.

 

[nv.trading]

We can provide you one. Please check your PM.

 

[itarus]

I spent yesterday night digging through the limitations and plus points of XtreamerPro and the truth is that it hasn't started shipping yet. So effectively, there are no "real" reviews available. Information is only available for the features advertised by Xtreamer (which may be overstated based on the company's history) and the speculation thereof. In terms of buying a media player, I can surely do that some time later (when I finally buy a good TV). And I may actually get more functionality in lesser price later.

So, for the time-being, eTRAYz it is then.

Thanks again!

 

[noking]

Hi friends,
Purchased a e-trayz yesterday,i have a few doubts can some one pl guide/help..
1)Can i use 2 HDDs with Data and use both of them or only 1 can be used and the second one is for mirroring the 1st disk.
2)Can i use slave usb at back of E-trays and connect it to Xtreamer and watch my stuff on XMP.

Reagrds..

 

[Ketan]

1> Primarily (without making it too complex) you can use two modes, one is 'Single Volume' another is 'Mirror'. With single volume, you can use entire space (both the disks) to store data. With Mirror, you can use one disk for data and second will be used for redundency.
2> I have not tried this, Logically, it should work. Connect the slave disk, you should be able to access that from eTrayz, now go to extreamer and see if you can still access that drive.

 

[noking]

@ketan i have a 1.5Tb hdd with data,does e-trayz do a reformat of the disk while using 1st time or i can use the same without reformatting the HDD,if does reformat than i will have to take a backup of around 1.4tb. first beforse inserting Hdd into E-trayz

 

[ashishkesarwani]

@ketan i have a 1.5Tb hdd with data,does e-trayz do a reformat of the disk while using 1st time or i can use the same without reformatting the HDD,if does reformat than i will have to take a backup of around 1.4tb. first beforse inserting Hdd into E-trayz

Whenever you install disks for the first time to etrayz then it formats the same and install the operating system onto it, so if you have data onto that hdd of yours then its recommended to take a backup of the same before putting the same inside the cabinet.

 

[santhosh]

@ketan i have a 1.5Tb hdd with data,does e-trayz do a reformat of the disk while using 1st time or i can use the same without reformatting the HDD,if does reformat than i will have to take a backup of around 1.4tb. first beforse inserting Hdd into E-trayz

Unfortunately yes, it does a format not only for the first hard disk but also for the second hard disk. I had a tough time. Here is what I did:
1) Even I had around 1.2 Tb data on my 1.5tb hdd. Since I did not have any other empty space to copy, I bought another 1.5 tb hdd and inserted it into eTrayz. When I run the installer, etrayz formats it and installs its O/S (Linux). It creates some folders like Public_Drive, Etrayz_Drive etc.
2) Reading the install notes suggested that even the second drive will be formatted. So step 3.
3) Removed HDD from eTrayz and inserted it into my PC via standard Internal HDD Sata connections. Also attached my 1.5 tb hdd to my PC and copied all my data to the Public_Drive. Important you do this now, if not you'll copy 1+ tb data all your life over the network:lol:. This process took around 8 hours as I did it in batches and required monitoring. Best done on a weekend.
4) After ensuring that all my data is copied, I inserted both the hard disks into etrayz. Remember that the two drives are not interchangeable and have to be put in the correct slot. If I remember right, it is Slot A for the 1st hard disk containing O/S and Slot B for the second hard disk.
5) Now for the interesting bit. We are about to hit another technology limitation. When the second hard disk is installed, Etrayz converts from MBR(Master Boot Record) to GPT(Guid Partition Table) because we are now crossing the limit of MBR which is 2 gig. Now, you no longer have an easy way of copying your data. You have to go through the network. Removing the hard disk from eTrayz and inserting into PC(like we did in Step 3) will no longer work because XP does not understand GPT. You need Vista/Win7/Windows Server 2003(?)/RedHatLinux(not free like many other Linux flavours). I installed Win7, but Win7 does not recogonise ex2fs partition. There is a ext2IFS driver utility available for all versions of Windows but not yet for Win7.

So for me the wait continues. Not so much from the point of using etrayz but from the data copying standpoint. I have now upgraded my LAN to gigabit, but still very slow. I have also lost control over what goes into which Harddisk because the two 1.5 Tb Hard disks have now become one large 3 tb drive.

This is one thing that I wish eTrayz could have done better. They should have made the disks hot swappable by putting the O/S onto the chip. This is my first experience with a NAS, so not really sure if I am asking for too much.

Please note that I am not using RAID. I have configured in Extended mode which means I will get 3Tb of space using two 1.5 TB HDDs. Yup, I don't have a backup of my movies with me. But many of my friends have a copy and have been instructed not to delete anything. So, in a way I have a backup.

 

[thevortex]

Santhosh - there is a lot of negative feedback for the etrayz out in the market. What are your thoughts? I know you are reasonably satisfied with the product. But in particular I want to know if features such as torrent downloading and allied web services are all working out of the box with the latest firmware. Without those features I really dont see great value in the NAS as a solution. Also have you used any other NAS solution prior to the etrayz?

One other question - does the NAS have any issues writing to NTFS formatted drives? Most NMTs have this issue - so the data transfer is almost always one way. From your PC to the NMT and not the other way round. How does the etrayz fare in this area?

 

[ashishkesarwani]

there is a lot of negative feedback for the etrayz out in the market. What are your thoughts? I know you are reasonably satisfied with the product. But in particular I want to know if features such as torrent downloading and allied web services are all working out of the box with the latest firmware. Without those features I really dont see great value in the NAS as a solution. Also have you used any other NAS solution prior to the etrayz?

One other question - does the NAS have any issues writing to NTFS formatted drives? Most NMTs have this issue - so the data transfer is almost always one way. From your PC to the NMT and not the other way round. How does the etrayz fare in this area?

Despite of all the negatives I find etrayz quite capable of doing what its suppose to do and that too at a fantastic price. Its works out of the box for torrent downloading and other web retaled services, and the experiences are bound to get better with time with bug fixes.

Now to your other question about data transfering its like you could do the same over the network from your computer as etrayz disks becomes your network disks and behaves like any ordinary disk on your computer but with a slower data transfer rate. On the computer screen these network drives are shown formatted as NTFS drives and work like that too.

 

[thevortex]

Ashish - pardon me for asking, but I have seen in more than one post that you say 'experiences are bound to get better with future firmwares'. What exactly are the issues that you face with the current firmware?

I am not interested in accessing my data over the net or allowing friends access to it over the internet as well. My interest in a NAS is to have redundant and secure storage of my media and other files as well as the ability to serve it through my system chain with no issues and double way throughput (PC->NAS as well as NAS->PC or media player). Of course and torrent downloading as well.

Does etrayz deliver on these counts well, would you say?

 

[santhosh]

Ashish - pardon me for asking, but I have seen in more than one post that you say 'experiences are bound to get better with future firmwares'. What exactly are the issues that you face with the current firmware?

Bala, let me try and answer this. Both Ashish and I own two products(Xtreamer and Etrayz) from the company Xtreamer. Tracking firmwares on the xtreamer forums and updating regularly has given me the faith that they(Xtreamer) are working to get issues fixed ASAP. The only glaring issue I am having right now is I am unable to use the web interface to copy data to an external HDD attached to the etrayz's USB port. It gives an option to export, but it tries to compress it for some reason and takes a long time (by which time I give up and cancel). I have read that this will be fixed soon. I can do this easily by using a PC as the medium. But I would like to initiate a copy and turn off the computer if I could.

I am not interested in accessing my data over the net or allowing friends access to it over the internet as well. My interest in a NAS is to have redundant and secure storage of my media and other files as well as the ability to serve it through my system chain with no issues and double way throughput (PC->NAS as well as NAS->PC or media player). Of course and torrent downloading as well.

Does etrayz deliver on these counts well, would you say?

Does all this easily and at a fantastic price too. Infact, the media player is optional and need not necessarily be Xtreamer, just a good to have it is.

 

[santhosh]

Ofcourse, I felt let down when Xtreamer announced that they will not be able to provide HD Audio pass through on Xtreamer although they had promised earlier. But, I am gonna need another NMT soon for my secondary rig in my bedroom. At that time, I will get the real thing - Popcorn Hour C200 for my HT and move the Xtreamer to my bedroom where I plan to have only a 2.0 or 2.1 Setup.

 

[ashishkesarwani]

There is also a startup bug with the etrayz, it affects when we start etrayz everytime after a complete shutdown, and at that time we have to turn it off as soon as its booted and then turn it back on after a 1 second delay, and at the second instance it gets booted, but this issue wouldn't effect if its on 24x7. Also the data transfer rate over the wifi network is not more than 10mbps which is a letdown in case of large chunk of data transfer.
Apart from the above mentioned issues I haven't had any problems with etrayz till now.

 

[santhosh]

Ashish, even I am facing similar problem. Have posted in detail link below, see if it is the same.

http://www.hifivision.com/what-should-i-buy/8665-post-your-latest-purchase-s-25.html#post133978

 

[ashishkesarwani]

Ashish, even I am facing similar problem. Have posted in detail link below, see if it is the same.

http://www.hifivision.com/what-should-i-buy/8665-post-your-latest-purchase-s-25.html#post133978

Yes its the same with most of the etrayz devices and not with HDD or our wifi network, the maximum data transfer rate which has been achived by Mavy on the Xtreamer forum is close to 22 Mbps but that too with certain changes to the settings on the Linux platform of which I am not too much aware, so all that information avaliable on that forum went over my head.