Home > Consumer Reviews > Linksys Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives NSLU2

I have been using this for past 1 week. It is a great product. I have learned to work with it rather than against it. Here are some observations that actually add exceptional value to the product. I have discovered some undocumented features too.

1. You can actually use it as a webserver! I am running one, though for personal use. To do this you need to put the files in the public area on the NSLU2, and using webhop like feature from DynDNS, you can map the index.html to a web address.

2. If the above feature is used and the html files are put into the restricted area, it will webserve, but will need password and user name. I serve my family photo site using this method!

3. The file systems seems to be Linux based. I used Acronis True Image 7.0 for backup of the USB drive. It indicated 3 partitions. Two of them were ext3 and one Linux swap! Acronis complained about some errors in the Linux partition. Looks like some propriatory stuff in there.

4. The device features really needs to be explored carefully before deployment and making any judgement call. The features like user+group+password can be used for excellent security. I have multiple pseudo users setup with private directories categorized according to the data, like music, videos, photos, downloads etc. Then I setup most of the actual users without private directories and provided them with selective permission to use the data. This adds to security since I can bump off any user without having to move files or data.

5. Documentation is lacking details and examples. In fact it is inadequate. But this does not make the device any less valuable. I had to explore and experiment with the device to make full use of it.

6. I noticed a number of reviews complaining about the data transfer speed. It is quite true that the speed is slower than USB2.0. In fact it will be slower! USB2.0 is designed for 480 Mbps data rates, while this and any other NAS will be limited by the network speed. NSLU2 is rated at 100 Mbps. This is the most common network speed today. This makes it approximately 5x slower than a direct USB2.0 connection. But, it is not any slower than if you were to share a folder in windows and access it from another computer.

7. I would also like to warn all the users to be careful not to run this device (or any other personal server for that matter) on the default port 80 if you plan to access it over the internet, since every port-scanner on the planet will find you and target you for hacker activity. It is better to change the port to something like 8000, 8081, or any other obscure number HIGHER than 1024 which port-scanners do not generally target. You can use the webhop feature on DynDNS.org in conjunction with cloaking to hide the actual address from normal viewing.

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.

Do not buy this if you have an existing USB hard drive already formatted with a Windows based file system and wish to keep it formatted that way (so you could still plug it directly into other Window's based PC's if needed).

Your existing external drive will not be compatible with this device until it has been reformatted (and any existing data lost of course)by the Linksys Storage Link and once formatted it will no longer be directly usable on any other PC's. Bummer...

If I had been aware of that limitation I would not have bought this gizmo. A couple of websites that reviewed this device did not mention this limitation and probably should have but ultimately I blame myself for not RTFM .

Other than that limitation (which may or may not be a deal breaker for some folks) the device seems pretty slick. However, until I get another external USB drive I will be unable to actually play with this device so I am only giving it 3 stars until I get another drive to dedicate to this device at which time I will provide an update based on my experience.

Bottom line: read the manual before you buy this to totally familiarize yourself with its capabilities/limitations.

I can now leave a computer on continuously with streaming audio, ssh, http, and samba (windows file sharing). It's amazing how easy this device can be hacked to add an incredible amount of features. Right away I replaced the default Linksys firmware with UNSLUNG 5.5 and added dropbear (for ssh) and slimserver (mp3/radio stream server). I also added vsftpd (ftp server) because it operates at 3 times the transfer speed of the embedded Samba (windows share).

With Slimserver, I now can stream over the internet (tunnelled over ssh) to listen anywhere.

With dropbear (sshd) I can use scp to copy data from the attached hard drive to wherever I may be at the time. (use PuTTY client in windows). See http://www.nslu2-linux.org for all these goodies and more.

And, if you need to access the ext3 formatted drive from Windoze, use the ext2ifs driver found at http://www.fs-driver.org .

Oh, and by the way removing resistor #83 doubles the clock speed of the device from 133 Mhz to 266 Mhz to make it a speedy little sucker (http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/HowTo/OverClockTheSlug).

What a neat device. Now you can setup a file server at home for under $250, very nice solution for sharing files, videos, and photos with the your family PCs or a place to backup stuff.

Note a few warnings before purchasing this device. From the user manual "If the USB hard drive has not previously been used in a Storage Link, its format must be changed. You will be asked to verify if you want to change the format." This means you will lose what ever files you have on the disk before installation. Second big warning "IMPORTANT: The Storage Link's format is NOT compatible with Windows. You cannot swap USB hard drives between Windows systems and the Storage Link." So the drive will become dedicated as a file server, if this device goes down there is no way to read the files on it.

Another warning would be that the speed of the drive would be greatly governed. The speed of USB 2.0 (480Mbits/second) connection would be reduced to 100Mbits/second by the Ethernet connection. So don't except the same speed that you would have with a drive installed locally in your PC.