Linksys by Cisco 500 GB Media Hub with LCD

I was considering purchasing a Linksys Media hub. I went to Linksys's website and their formum! No way in hell I would buy one of these! There a 100 people on there with one of these hubs that would mail theirs to you for free! Brick after brick and no support or word of a fix for nearly the last year! Do your homework people! Im off to find a hub that actually works!

I found the setup pretty easy, but have been dissappointed with how the sync works. I set it up to copy photos, music and video from two computers, which it does fine. However, it places them in an import directory and they are not accessable from the main photo and music folders. I called support and got no help other than what I was already doing, manually copying them to the new folder. The backup works well, but the performance for viewing pictures is slow. Overall, good way to back up files, but there are less expensive alternatives for that.

Installed easy and works fine. Not a full featured NAS, lacks full permission control on files. As a media server it works fine. I previously owned the Linksys NAS200 which was horrible. I think this is better, but I would have preferred a full featured NAS.

I bought this product from Dell. I LOVE IT!! All of my wireless equipment is Linksys and I will never use anything different. I do agree with some other people's posts that in some cases it can be a little tricky to set up but not difficult. Once I got it up and running I couldnt stop playing with it. It can do a lot more then I thought it could given it's size but dont let the size fool you.

It runs cool (temp wise) and very quiet. When I have the backlight turned off I sometimes forget it is running or that it is even on my desk. The boot time is a little slow but that is nothing I have a problem with. It is mainly due to the fact that the HDDs that Linksys puts in media hubs are the Western Digital Green Drives that use less power and generate less heat. Due to the lower power consumption, they do boot a little slower but it is nothing of consequence.

ANOTHER GREAT LINKSYS PRODUCT!!!!!!

What can I say? This product is great for people who want a little more than the standard external hard drive. Here is what I found so far to be excellent:

The Good:
1. Included Software - Set-up choked the first time. I followed the process and tried again - everything worked as planned.

2. Support - The unit comes with a CD-Rom, unfortunately I do not have a CD-Rom drive on my laptop. No problem, hit the linksysbycisco.com website and download the CD image. Good to go!

3. Remote Access - Enabled the remote services. Got to work - started showing off my pictures to a co-worker while listening to my music and then downloaded the picture to their laptop. They asked "Is this picasa?" and I answered "No, this is running at my house." As Darth Vader said "Impressive - Most Impressive..". I will admit that in slide show mode, the way the pictures bounce around the screen is a little annoying. I am sure they will clean this up in a software release.

4. Coolness Factor - Not one person I showed to was not impressed. Granted, the software could use some improvements - this thing is awesome - loving it!

The bad:
A. It appears that after one year you will need to pay $9.99 for remote access. Only reason why this is bad is because it is not explicit when you buy the product.
B. Remote video access pretty much does not work. If you are buying this for this feature look elsewhere.
C. If your music is in the itunes m4a format - no web based play out for you! You will need to launch in quicktime outside of the browser.
D. It is next to impossible to locate a file on the server unless you know where you uploaded it from.

Nice job Linksys/Cisco. Not a game changer yet - but definitely a strong start.

Well Done!