Cisco-Linksys Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives NSLU2 by Linksys
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Digital camera reviews of Cisco-Linksys Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives NSLU2
Digital camera Review: Be aware of one major flaw.
Summary: 2 Stars
Hi,
I got this device to work, and for basic file and mpg storage, it works OK.
A couple of caveats.
1: make sure that your computer is communicating on the network at '100 full duplex', otherwise the NSLU2 will hit you with a 'path too deep' problem. If your home network has a switch - most do - then you will know that basic network switches are very bad at choosing communication speed, and the network will become a 'notwork.'
2: Major flaw. The NSLU2 autonegotiates (as confirmed by Cisco/Linksys) it's connection speed on the home network. So, place even 1 switch between it and your PC, and performance goes down like a lead balloon. As MPEG and VOB files all require a minimum of 10Mbps to work adequately, if you attempt to play one of these from the device attached to the NSLU2 (in my case the recommended Maxtor One Touch) the video display will be very bad, at best.
If you do want to play video over the home network then I recommend avoiding this product until the teckies at Cisco/Linksys modify the firmware to allow the user to set network negotiation speeds.
Digital camera Review: Best backup system I've ever owened.. Hack This!
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchase this device after a harddrive crashed.
- I cannot live without this product.
- This device is where I have all of my personal information.
- Hackers may hack my personal computer to pieces but the can not get at the network storage device because it is turned off 90% of the time.
- I only use it when I'm at home, so the harddrive is primary storage and I use Microsoft "Make Available Offline" to synchronize files between all machines.
- This has greatly improved my overall strategy to never loose data.
Digital camera Review: Beware of Windows Networking
Summary: 4 Stars
After reading the reviews here complaining of slow data transfer,
I was worried that the NSLU2 would be a loser. However, I really
needed a backup solution for my 5 PC home network, so and I went
ahead and bought a NSLU2 and a 250 GB Maxtor drive anyway.
The NSLU2 works quite well; with 4 out of 5 PCs it works great,
however, Windows networking is abominably slow on one of my
PCs. Data transfers are in the same range or even slower that
some of the other reviewers have mentioned. Running Knoppix (a
version of Linux that runs from a CD-ROM) on that
PC gives good network performance, it's just Windows (both
XP Home and XP Pro) that exhibit the problem; The other PCs
work quite well.
The same slow PC, a recent HP/AMD box with 1.25 GB of memory,
connecting with full-duplex 100 BaseT, also has performance
problems transferring files to other machines on the LAN, not
just the NSLU2. It's not noticable with small files, but
with 10GB to 20GB backup files, it's a real killer.
I've tweaking the network settings on the slow box, but nothing
I tried helps.
Digital camera Review: Beware...
Summary: 1 Stars
I have had my NSLU2 for three months. It stopped working after 2.5 months. Sent it back for warrenty repair, Quality Assurance found nothing wrong with it, they shipped it back to me. It still did not work. Hours on the phone with Linksys Tech support to get new RMA to ship unit back. It's a great unit when it works, but BEWARE! Once you format the disk on your external hard drive to use the NSLU2, there is no going back to simply plugging in your external hard drive to your computer...so I have had no acces to my external hard drive for several weeks now...if I could go back in time, I would not have purchased this unit...Digital camera Review: Buggy, unreliable, unusable
Summary: 1 Stars
Lots of things wrong with this poor product, like the poor documentation, poorly implemented setup utility, MAC address not printed on the outside of the unit. Oh, and even though my unit had a special sticker on the box that said "supports Windows file systems" it did not come with the latest firmware that actually supports Windows file systems. I had to get the new firmware from the company Web site, and even then the install procedure failed. Eventually I found a fix on the Linksys Web site and... well, you get the picture: setup was not easy. It took me a couple of hours to get it working in my admittedly more-complex-than-most networking environment.
One I got it going, at first I thought things were cool. But once I tried to transfer large files to the Maxtor HDD connected to its USB port 1, I noticed that it was buggy and unreliable. File transfers start out OK, but soon slow to a crawl, and then the NSLU2 locks up and won't turn off without disconnecting power.
I'm going to return this unit. Another nice idea that turns out to be just a time sink.