Home > Consumer Reviews > 120GB Etherfast Nas/print/ftpserver 1 Open Bay for Addl HD

I was lured to this product through an ad-slick stuffed in with my LinkSys network card packaging. In retrospect it was really too good to be true - a NAS for under $700, with group rights assignment, built in backup, print server and gigabit network card! I started thinking about all the old small office servers I could retire using this device. "Huge Mistake!" Why, oh why did I not research this product before I invested in it? Just the reviews here would have alerted me to the imminent falibility of the EFG120. With 5 EFGs deployed to various locations finally the hammer fell. The largest of the 5 locations using the EFG120, (that recently replaced their aging Novell server) called to say that the device was no longer responding. I tried a VPN connection session with the EFGs web interface and got the interface up. Drive1 status reported "Not Formatted", and Drive2 status reported "120GB 100%Free". What?! To make a long and very sad story short; the "backup" system had never made a copy of disk1 to disk2. Drive1 lost the shares and users configuration and even restoring the configuration from the .bin file I made did not give us access to the files which are locked away in the Linux file system. LinkSys tech support immediately directed me to contact Maxtor (the drive maker) to retreive the data and said I should call back. I refused to be passed on and forced the poor Indian guy to work with me. He clearly knew very little about the device and had to put me on hold several times to answer basic configuration questions I had. I'm having a PC shop that has a linux box try to recover my data. If I'm lucky and the data can be retrieved rest assured that it will NOT be going back on the EFG120 (should be re-christened the POS120). If your data is even mildly important select some other device to host it, ANY other device - a thumb drive, an old '95 box, ANYHTING but the EFG120. This was a great idea but poorly, poorly executed. The online, phone and printed support is woefully scant. If it were possible I would give this product - (negative)-5 trillion stars.

This is a piece of garbage. It stopped reading the harddrive about 14 months into usage. Cisco support is based in India, they bounce you around like a hot potato and then after 1 hour tell you that it is out of warranty. It has turned me off to Cisco and Linksys products completely. I used to be 100% Linksys -- not anymore.

BTW, I finally did get some support out of Linksys, but it was not easy and definitely not worth the hassle.

I got one of these and set it up on my network. I quickly
found that it was not as billed. For one thing no one but Admin can upload
files to it via web interface, so unless you are going to make every user on
it an admin, and toss security right out the window, you have to put their
files on it for them. Secondly, command line FTP just plain does not work. I
can connect to it from my servers at work, and login, but that's all I can
do. If I try to put files on it the session locks up or I am disconnected. I
have called and written Linksys support numerous times. When I call I am
routed to India, and end up talking to people who have to go ask someone
else every question I have and get back to me. If you are considering this
unit keep shopping, there are better NAS units out there. I wouldn't do it
again. It would seem to me that this product was rushed to market before it
was ready and without adequate testing. Other limitations of the EFG120 are
also evident, for instance you can only put one of them on your network for
remote access. This is because the web interface will serve up only one
version of the login script, LOGIN.CGI. If Linksys/Cisco would make
available to the admin account the file under different names, such as
LOGIN1, 2, 3....CGI, you could put more than one of these on your LAN to be
accessed by different URL's. Well, you could, if the Linksys router would allow you to put more than one IP address in the DMZ, which it will not. Both issues need to be addressed. That they have not done this I find to be
somewhat short-sighted. When I am on the phone with the kid in India I am
told that fixes should be available in the next version of the firmware,
perhaps in a month or two. When I used the support chat utility on the
Linksys page, I got some jerk who, when he could not address my questions,
simply, and quite rudely, disconnected me. I must honestly say I would not
recommend this product to anyone.

I have had my EFG-120 for about 5 months. I have bought the unit used. The unit sometimes looses connection with the network and needs to be reset. I have never had the FTP feature going because i dont use FTP. Over all i love the unit. I think alot of people keep playing with them and they go screwy.. Set it , leave it alone, and access the drives...

I got one of these last week. It takes longer to get it out of the box than to install it. I added a second 120gb disk to it and now I am thrilled at how easily I can add and manage disk space. It's set up so that one disk holds all my MP3s and the other disk is an automated backup of the first.

Highly recommended product!!