Cisco-Linksys Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives NSLU2
by Linksys
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List Price: Our Price: $45.00 You Save: $145.00 (76%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives NSLU2
Customer Review: Needs work, but otherwise very good
Summary: 4 Stars
I connected my ntfs drives to the usb ports, and while streaming mpeg2 videos, the connection would break in under a minute. I reflashed the firmware from Linksys (even thought the device already has the latest), and the connection problem went away.
Reading from ntfs drives is decent. I was able to stream two 10 mbit/sec videos to two different computers without any skips or hickups. Writing to ntfs drives, however, is VERY problematic. Doing a lot of heavy writing to the disk causes the device to crash, requiring a reboot and also causing your disk to become inconsistent. Even though linksys claims to support ntfs, it's practically unusable unless the drives are pre-loaded and you don't plan on putting any more files on it.
The default linksys firmware does not support unicode filenames. If you have filenames with asian character sets (chinese, japanese, korean, etc), they will be replaced with underscores (_). To get around this, you need to use a different firmware like unslung or openslug, and upgrade to samba 3.
You can also use a usb hub to connect more than two hard drives, and they will show up as hdd_1_1_1, hdd_1_2_1, hdd_1_3_1 instead of 'disk 1' and 'disk 2'. Some of the features like backup and scandisk assumes that you're only connecting a maximum of 2 drives, so using a hub will make these tools useless-- you'll have to use a real computer to scan for errors.
Customer Review: Linksys storage link is the cure for LAN storage woes
Summary: 5 Stars
Last week I purchased the linksys storage link. This product is an excellent example or a device that does not try to be all things to all people. Essentially, it is an tiny computer or embeded device with a tiny os that runs code that provides SMB or Windows file sharing. It is 100% compatible with windows, linux, or mac as long as you dont have a personal firewall installed.Installation is simple.
1. Unbox device
2. Use CD-ROM to set up address, if you have dhcp this is not neccesary
3. Connect drive
4. Format drive via web interface
5. Set any password information
6. Add Users and permissions
7. Enjoy
This is not as complicated as it sounds. The manual is excellent and not neccesary for anyone who is vaguely familiar with file sharing. Performance is excellent. On fast ethernet I was transferring 100 meg files in less than a minute. Over slower networks such as wireless your performance will suffer. This is not the devices fault.
THE BEAUTY OF THIS DEVICE IS NO DRIVERS ARE NECCESARY AS LONG AS YOU HAVE CLIENT FOR MS NETWORKS TURNED ON WHICH IT USUALLY IS. Other NAS drives require you load a proprietary driver, linksys, got it right.
- If you are having performance issues check to make sure that the device is running full duplex when plugged to a switch and half duplex when running to a hub. Over wireless it will be slow, that is the nature of wireless generally speaking.
Customer Review: Almost perfect
Summary: 5 Stars
I've tried the buffalo linkstation. Although most of the reviews I read said that it had more options and a better thought out interface, lacked a ton of features. The buffalo system only had folder level security. I called tech support stating that I couldn't set permission for one user to write to a file and another to only read. Buffalo said that wasn't possible.
Here we are now. I've had the linksys for a week now. Permissions are so easy and you can achieve the impossible of the buffalo system mentioned above. I've also turned a computer for work into a windows 2003 server...what a pain in the *ss. The linksys unit is amazing. I've got a over 10 users at work who never back up important data. The linksys unit logs on to thier computer and backs up a shared folder, even if it's password protected, and backs it up to a secure shared folder only accessed by them.
Here's the 'Almost Perfect' part. I tried using it to share our Act! database but it was too slow. I've seen from tomsnetworking.com that it's possibly only comparible to a 500 mhz pc. I'm not too worried about it though since I can share that on a spare pc. Hopefully Linksys will correct the speeds down the road with a firmware update as well. It seems there is a problem with the box even communicating with a usb 2.0 drive in the first place.
Get it and don't wast your time with the buffalo system.
Customer Review: Good product for your own customization
Summary: 4 Stars
I've used it as a NFS server for my home network. Here are the reasons why I recommend for potential buyers:
1. Thanks to all contributors that make it easy to customize this product. Please try to search "NSLU2 linux" for further information. If you would like to make a cheap file server with existing USB external harddrives, this is a good choice. I chose Debian/NSLU2 because I'm more familiar with Debian system.
2. Once customized, you can connect USB hubs to it, which expands the limits of the total number of USB harddrivs you can connect. Good for future expansion.
3. Once Debian works, NSLU2 serves as a stand-alone linux "PC". Though it has little RAM, I use it to download large files by "wget". You don't need fancy machines to do such simple jobs for you. Just this NSLU2 serves your well.
4. There would be no supporting problem for file system once you install Debian/NSLU2. It recognizes EXT3, NTFS, FAT32. Every other PC can mount its filesystem with either NFS or samba support.
5. The only drawback is its network connection speed: only 100Mbps Ethernet. The download speed I could have in my home networking is about 10~15Mbps roughly. It is still faster than my DSL, so audio/video streaming shouldn't be a problem for the purpose of home media server.
Again, my experience is a good one because I intended to customize it.
Customer Review: Dirty Little Secret: It's a Linux box!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
The "Slug" (the affectionate name for the NSLU2) is a small wonder in the world of Linux "PCs". As a dedicated Win32 guy, I was looking for a small PC to replace the power-hogging IBM M-Pro that I used successfully over the last year as a Firefly media server.
When I read about the micro-Linux implementations for the Slug, I got pretty excited... and with good reason. If you fancy yourself as PC literate, it's a super-simple process to install "Unslung 6.10-b" or Debian Linux on this machine, alongside the Linksys firmware. This gives you a fully functional network storage link _and_ a fully functional tiny Unix PC that can run a webserver, or a media server like Firefly. Rmember, the poor thing only has 32mb of RAM, so it's not going to run Photoshop... but as a utility box for server-side apps, it's a miracle!
It's amazing the first time you telnet into the modified Slug and see a Unix/Linux shell prompt. And wow, Firefly 1696-svn runs like a charm and, in my environment, serves up 6,800 320kb MP3s and FLAC files. It also transcodes FLAC seamlessly to 44.1khz WAV for playback on my Roku Soundbridges...
Super good bargain for anyone who needs a network disk server, and an even better deal for anyone with solid computer skills who needs a web or media server. I hear it's been discontinued, so buy one today before they are all gone!!! -ds