Airlink 101 Office NAS — ANAS350

Updated: 6/2016

These units went to the local Goodwill in 2015. They were functioning when they went.

I have three Airlink 101 Office NASs, also known as the ANAS350. All three came with firmware version R4.00a2d. I currently have 2TB drives in two and a 1TB drive in the third. Before upgrading to large drives, I upgraded two to R4.00a7, the last firmware. The third, I upgraded to the 2TB drive while the original firmware was installed, and, it worked OK.

The first two upgrades were performed using the Firmware Upgrade page on the GUI. The third, I put into Recovery Mode and upgraded by tftp'ing the firmware. It was just a test; I had found instructions on the Internet some time ago and decided to see if they worked.

General Info

The ANAS350 has a Shutdown button on the front. To perform a proper shutdown, before powering-down, press the button for four seconds. When the four bottom lights flash on, then off, it is safe to shutdown the NAS.

There are both sata and pata interfaces. Two USB2 ports on the back can be used to extend capacity. As a USB host, the ports can not be used to connect to a computer.

The ANAS350 understands Fat/Fat32, Ext2 and NTFS, but NTFS is read-only. If a drive is formatted by the NAS, it is Ext2.

The NAS can be set to be a DHCP server, a DHCP client, Auto (server or client based on network), or static address. The default selection is Auto with the NAS address being 192.168.1.230. If it is on a network with a DHCP server, it gets an address from the server and the GUI is found at that address.

There is a cr1220 battery on the PCB. If the battery is removed for a short period, or the voltage is low, settings seem to be retained, but the clock stops working when the unit is switched off.

Files that were available from Airlink101

NAS_Utility.zip

NAS_Utility.exe - WindowsXP utility that presents the same screens as the NAS's GUI. It may still be possible to find this on the Airlink site.
www.airlink101.com/support/index.php?cmd=files&_a=download&id=314

ANAS350_400a7.zip

ANAS350_400a7.EXE. A WindowsXP firmware-upgrade utility. It may be possible to find this on the Wayback Machine.
web.archive.org/web/20080322183744/http://www.airlink101.com/support/index.php?cmd=files&_a=download&id=189

ANAS350_400a7_BIN.zip

ANAS350_400a7_BIN.BIN. The last firmware. It was removed from the Airlink101 site at some point and probably can't be found on the wayback machine.

Normal boot

  1. Power off. LAN port connected to local network.
  2. Press power button on back.
  3. Power and LAN lights on.
  4. HD Status, USB1, USB2 and Status/Backup lights on for a second then Off.
  5. HD R/W occssionally flashes.
  6. After ~40 seconds, HD Status and Status/Backup flash slowly—the NAS is ready.

Reset the NAS to defaults

Note: When resetting, hold buttons only until four bottom lights come on. Holding too long may result in firmware corruption.
  1. With unit on, press and hold Shutdown and Backup buttons for 6 seconds.
  2. HD Status, USB1, USB2 and Status/Backup lights on then flash.
  3. Lights go out - let it reboot.
  4. Default address will be 192.168.1.230.
  5. DHCP will be set to 'Auto'.
  6. Username/password will be reset to admin/admin.
  7. Workgroup will be set to WORKGROUP.

Firmware Upgrade using Recovery Mode

This is normally needed only if a GUI upgrade fails. I use Linux, but TFTP is available in Windows—the commands may be different.
(Keyboard entry in bold italics)
  1. Extract ANAS350_400a7_BIN.BIN and check the md5.
  2. Make sure computer is in DHCP mode.
  3. Disconnect computer from network, including wireless.
  4. Network-cable connect ANAS350 to computer.
  5. Press and hold the Shutdown and Backup buttons (on front) and power-up the NAS.
  6. Continue holding two buttons until four lower lights quick-flash (~3 seconds).
  7. Power and LAN lights on, bottom four quick flashing.
  8. Boot computer.
  9. Open terminal.
  10. $ ifconfig
  11. inet addr: should be 192.168.123.100.
  12. Open a web browser and go to 192.168.123.254.
  13. You should see a Recovery Mode page.
  14. Close the browser.
  15. In the terminal, navigate to the BIN's location.
  16. In the terminal:
    17. tftp -v -m binary
    mode set to octet
    (to) 192.168.123.254
    Connected to 192.168.123.254 (192.168.123.254), port 69
    tftp> status
    Connected to 192.168.123.254.
    Mode: octet Verbose: on Tracing: off
    Rexmt-interval: 5 seconds, Max-timeout: 25 seconds
    tftp> put ANAS350_400a7_BIN.BIN
    Wait for the transfer to complets—it returns: tftp
  17. The upload takes about a minute, with the four lights flashing occasionally. When the lights return to quick-flash, let it rest for a few seconds, then use the rear switch to turn it off.
  18. Turn it on and after ~40 seconds the HDD Status and Backup/Reset lights will flash and the unit is ready to use.
  19. The ANAS350 will be reset, so the address will be 192.168.1.230, it will will be a DHCP server, if necessary, and the user name/password will be admin/admin.
  20. If you connect it to a network with a DHCP server, the address will be assigned by that server.

Hard Drives

Here's the >500GB drives that I use or have tried.

I have formatted drives in both the NAS and on a computer using Linux and gparted (to Ext2). When NAS-formatted, the first sector will be 63, gparted will put the first sector at 2048 - the NAS doesn't seem to care.