Cisco-Linksys WRT600N Linksys Ultra RangePlus Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link
by Linksys
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Cisco-Linksys WRT600N Linksys Ultra RangePlus Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link
Customer Review: Almost Perfect
Summary: 4 Stars
I have had several wireless routers over the years, both Netgear and Linksys.
I developed problems with my internet connection. All PCs in my house would sometimes get a very slow connection. The problem had to be the modem or the router. I had my eye on the new "pre-N" routers for quite a while, and decided this was as good an excuse as any to buy a new router. (It turns out the problem was with my Modem, but that's another story.) I especially liked the WRT600N because it is the first unit to offer two independent radios -- one for 2.4 GHz and another one for 5 GHz.
The first thing I did was plug in the router and try configuring it with the Easy-Start CD. Not surprisingly, this did not work. The Easy-Start CD is a good idea, but if anything goes wrong, it gives very little indication of where things went wrong and what the problem might be.
I called Linksys tech support, and had a remarkably good experience. The technician spoke excellent English and was very knowledgeable. He didn't even try to play with the Easy-Start program, but immediately jumped into manual configuration. It didn't take long to find that I picked up a bad Ethernet cable. After that, configuration went quickly. To his credit, the technician recommended I configure WPA security. I didn't do it because I am in a semi-rural area. The technician told me that the SSID for the 5GHz and 2.4 GHz radios had to be the same. I later found out this is not true. It makes a difference because it's much easier to tell which frequency your PC is using if the SSIDs are different.
About a month later, I decided to use the USB disk drive option. I had a 200GB USB disk which I use for backup. I map it through file explorer and copy the files I want to back up. I wanted to be able to do this with any of the three laptop PCs in the house. I was able to connect the disk drive without any technical support. The trick is to work backwards through the configuration. Go to Storage / Administration FIRST. Configure the users. Then configure the groups. Then you can go to Storage / Disk and create your share folder. Then you will be able to map the share folder in Windows file explorer.
EDIT for USB disk drive: After many months, I gave up on the USB disk drive. It would work for several weeks, then stop working. The best solution I could find is to turn off the router, unplug the disk drive USB cable, turn the router back on, then plug in the disk drive. It's easy enough, but it got to be a pain. I ended up mounting the USB disk to the bottom of my desk, so I can plug it directly into my laptop.
A couple of days after configuring the disk, I lost the disk connection and could not map my share folder. This time I used "chat" Tech Support. Again, the technician was knowledgeable. She successfully got my share folder mapped. She also suggested I use a different SSID for the two radios, which makes controlling the frequency the PC uses to connect to the router much easier.
The disk connection is still far from perfect. The problem seems to be with Windows. If I suspend my computer, then turn it back on; Windows tries to connect to the disk drive before the wireless network is up. It declares the drive not available. After that, things are ugly. I finally resolved the problem by *not* clicking "re-connect at log on". When I want to back up some files, I connect the drive, back up, and disconnect. It's hardly an ideal solution, but it works very reliably.
Like many Linksys products, the WRT600N runs a little warm. But I keep it out in the open. Heat has not been a problem.
I use the 2.4 GHz radio and a "G" connection with an older Dell and an older Sony laptop, both running Windows XP, SP2. I also have a 2.4 GHz Linksys G Wireless Print Server. I use the 5 GHz radio with an "N" connection with Dell XPS M1330; which dual-boots to Vista and XP. After several months of use, the router works very well with all.
My caveats:
* Both Linksys technicians recommended I configure the radio band to "Wide" instead of "Auto". I set the 5 GHz radio to "Wide" and the 2.4 GHz radio to "Auto" I haven't had any problems. Even when I connect my new Dell to 2.4 GHz using an "N" connection, everything seems to play together nicely. But given the Linksys advice, your mileage may vary.
* The USB disk drive share folder works well. Groups, users, and passwords all work fine. But Windows has difficulty managing drives that automatically connect over a wireless connection.
* I do not use Media Server, FTP server, QoS, or encryption. I can't say how well any of these features work.
* Linksys should offer better instructions on how to manually configure their routers, perhaps on their web site.
Customer Review: Great Wireless Connectivty, Limited Storage Link Capability
Summary: 2 Stars
I've had this router for several days, and generally am pleased with the wireless connectivity, using Wireless-N to my laptop (HP Pavilion with built-in Wireless-N card) Speeds have varied from 108 Mbps to 270 Mbps, sitting about 30 feet away from the router in another room. However, I am VERY disappointed in the Storage Link implementation, thinking that this would provide a Network Attached Storage solution without having to buy one of the expensive NAS boxes. If you are thinking like me about NAS, this is NOT the solution!!! Most of the reviews on this site don't go into much detail on the Storage Link feature, so I just bought this thing figuring I could make it work the way I wanted. Big mistake! Here are the details:
1. Router firmware version 1.0.36 Build 4 (one release up from what is currently on Linksys' web site.
2. Connected Western Digital My Book 750GB USB 2.0 external drive, first formatted via computer to NTFS, and then plugged in to the router's USB port.
3. Got everything set up properly including shared folders on external drive, user access, permissions, etc, and mapped network drives on laptop (Vista Home Premium) and desktop (XP Home) computers, so far so good.
4. Attempted (twice) a drive image backup of laptop using StorageCraft ShadowProtect Desktop 3.2 (latest release). Backup completed (44GB), and I could see the file on the external network drive, but file was corrupt and failed verification.
5. After much research, decided to re-format the external network drive using the router's formatting capability. Discovered that router will only format using FAT32, but proceeded anyhow, and again successfully set up shared folders, user access, permissions, etc.
6. Since FAT32 will not address files larger than 4 GB, decided to abandon a drive image backup, so tried a files-and-folders backup from the laptop using Genie Backup Manager Home 8.0. This was successful as long as I didn't try to back up so many files and folders that the resulting file was larger than 4GB.
7. Also copied individual files and folders over to external drive with no problem, but had to exclude a video file that was slightly larger than 4 GB.
8. Re-formatted the external network drive to NTFS again using the computer, and tried another files-and-folders backup from the laptop using Genie, this time purposely selecting enough files to push the backup file size over 4 GB. This should have worked since the drive was formatted to NTFS, but the backup failed twice.
Conclusion: Storage Link implementation only allows basic capability to move files and folders less than 4 GB in size due to it's FAT32 format limitation, and is totally unsuitable for using automated backup software to backup large numbers of files or do drive imaging to the network drive. So if all you want to do is move files manually to the network drive, and don't have any huge files larger than 4 GB, and don't care about automated backups, then Storage Link seems to work OK. However, IMHO, this is WAY too limiting, and does not even come close to a NAS solution. I'm returning my router today, because it is hard to tell when a firmware upgrade might be released that would remove these serious limitations. There are cheaper Wireless-N routers out there without this Storage Link (non)capability.
Customer Review: It's a long read but worth it...... *thumbs down*
Summary: 3 Stars
First let me start by saying, Linksys customer service is the WORST of any company I have ever dealt with (I'll get back to this later). I'm still on the fence about this product. My primary reason for buying this router (already had the perfectly working wrt300 series, which I highly recommend over this product) was because I needed an extra port (secondary was because I liked the new black finish of the product lol at least I'm being honest) and since I was using an external hard drive in one of the ports I figured the USB storage connection on this model would be perfect, oh how wrong I was. First, let me say I'm pretty tech savvy, that being said, installation of this product was a NIGHTMARE to say the least. The router wasn't allowing access AT ALL so I had to input the M.A.C address of EVERY wireless device in my home to gain access. I cant express in words how unbelievably annoying that process was. Then, when I finally got everything running (2 Hours later), I started to experience ALOT of disconnection issues and the router wasn't recognizing anything plugged into the USB slot. Since I've dealt with connection issues before, I knew it was probably a firmware issue so I decided to go to the Linksys site to get the latest firmware. To my surprise, the firmware already installed was later than the firmware on the site. SO I decided to call the infamous Linksys customer service. *sigh* The FIRST rep was such an idiot I'm not gonna even bother with the details of that conversation. Let's just say he didn't know what an external hard drive was. The SECOND rep seemed more knowledgeable (which wasn't that difficult) but ended up being just as bad. She told me that even though the firmware I had was the later version that I should still use the one from the site since there weren't any "bugs" in that version. That seemed to make sense so we proceeded to go step by step until we hit a brick wall. The firmware would install until it reached th 50% mark and would fail. At this point, the router is inoperable cause theres no firmware since it deleted the old one and the new one couldn't install. The only thing the rep could say was "Oh" lol then told me to hold and then we "MYSTERIOUSLY" got disconnected after being on the phone for 35 mins. If I wasn't savvy enough to just factory restore the product myself I probably would've lost my mind. As of right now I'm too lazy to send this back for a new one cause its obviously defective but I will soon enough. I gave it a 3 star rating (since I cant give 2.5)cause the dual band is a really cool feature. When connected to my Mac you can really see the difference with the 5.0 speed (depending on your ISP) when downloading from the internet. My final advice is, even though the dual range is cool, its not that big of a difference to make up for all the headaches, get the model prior to this one, it works much better.Customer Review: Excellent Speed/Options, could use better set up and NAS
Summary: 4 Stars
I purchased the WRT600N based on a review in a popular PC magazine comparison. I have been using the router for about a month now and use the wired connections (PC and Roku M1001 digital audio receiver), wireless connections (laptop), and USB port (hard drive attached).
Pros: Excellent Speed (wired and wireless), ability to attach a USB drive, quick set up for basic functions
Cons: Quirky set up for WPA2 security and USB drive
Out of the box it was easy to set up the router for a wired and wireless network (WPA security) using the included software. I was replacing a Netgear wired router and the software helped me through that with no problem. The software also walks you through connecting wirelessly to the network through an executable file you download from the Linksys site (very helpful if you are not familiar with networks). The software included shows a status of your network, internet connection and other PCs, laptops, devices attached to the network.
However, to take full advantage of the router requires a more advanced understanding of networks and hence the reason for dropping the rating from 5 to 4 stars. Using the included Linksys software you cannot enable WPA2 security on the wireless network. Also, while you might think of the attached USB drive as a "device" the Linksys software does not recognize it as a device on the network like one might expect.
However, not to fail, by using the router's web interface it is not difficult to enable WPA2 security, see that the USB drive is connected, disable broadcast of your address, and enable only certain MAC/IP addresses to connect to the router thus increasing the wireless security to about as high a level as you can. The web interface is a little quirky in its usability though.
The only real issue I had with the router is connecting the USB drive. I had to use web chat to contact Linksys support twice. The first time I tried to connect the USB drive I could not see it on the network. Turns out the light on the router identifying a USB drive is connected was not lit. Unfortunately support had me reset the router but it didn't fix the problem. I found on the Internet that by attaching the USB drive and turning it on before powering up the router will take care of the issue and after doing that the USB light on the router was lit. Back to the PC and I still could not see the USB drive using the Linksys software so back to the support web chat. The person walked me to the web interface which showed that the USB drive was recognized by the router. Not sure why the included software would not show it but oh well, it is working.
Overall, I am very pleased with the purchase and would recommend this router to others. My experience level is advanced with respect to PCs and intermediate with respect to networks.
Customer Review: The good, The bad & The ugly
Summary: 4 Stars
I've been using this router for a good 3 months now. I am an IT professional, operating a large home network with lots of devices. Bought this router in the hopes of a more reliable router and network. It's Broadcom-based with 300Mhz CPU (fast for a router) and 32MB of memory (plenty for a router).
THE GOOD: excellent and reliable router with lots of memory and features - just make sure you upgrade the firmware. It has TWO radios, one 2.4Ghz, one 5Ghz, each configurable separately to do whatever you want. Very fast CPU allows for fast enough routing to send FAXES through my VoIP line! Lots of memory - you can use it for things like VPN, BitTorrent and VoIP, including all at the same time! Third-party firmware also available (DD-WRT) and working quite well, maybe even better than Linksys' own (no Wide-Channel support on 5Ghz band with DD-WRT).
THE BAD: Until recently this router had a very buggy firmware, which made this it next to useless. Make sure you update to the latest firmware - go to the US Linksys website regardless of where you are located and get it (only the US one has the latest firmware for some reason!?!?). The new firmware (build from March 2008) fixes most of these problems. The G-connectivity is shaky: I am still very unhappy with it. Connection becomes unreliable on my laptop (Apple PowerBook G4 12") when I move more than 4-5 meters away from the router. That's "unrerliable" for my use, most people might find it acceptable. Interestingly, other computers do not seem to suffer from this too much. The problem does not seem to improve by changing firmwares, it appears to be a hardware compatibility issue with certain older adapters. I ended up using my OLD router as a G-access point to solve the problem. The StorageLink is useless for my purposes - too slow, you can't beat a computer acting as a file server. You would think the USB port would also accept a printer, but sorry - no print server included. No support for IPv6 - none whatsoever. I find this surprising for a high-end router.
THE UGLY: Linksys' technical support is still being their useless selves. You can just pretend they don't exist. If you have a problem, search forums on the matter. DD-WRT's forum is very very valuable in this area.
CONCLUSION: What do you want from this router? A reliable router? Yes, you get that. Feature-rich? Yes, that too. I am sending FAXES through my VoIP line, very impressive! So far I haven't seen it crash on me, it does what it was meant to, as long as you upgrade to the very latest firmware - do it immediately! Very disappointing G connectivity from my computer to my router. StorageLink is useless, even if 300Mhz were enough for that, would you want to divert valuable resources from routing? I didn't think so.