Home > Consumer Reviews > Linksys by Cisco 500 GB Media Hub with LCD

The Good:
1. It was able to find all of my media files in the folders that I specified.
2. Navigating the files on the media hub was very easy and is usually pretty quick.

The Bad:
1. The software seems to have some bugs in it. When browsing the images, some of the images do not show any thumbnail pictures, but when you run the slide show, the image does appear. I have no idea how to fix this. The pictures were taken by the same camera as other pictures where the thumbnails work properly.

2. Wish you could change the transitions for the slideshow viewing. I found the transtions very annoying when watching a slide show.

3. I had moved some pictures from one folder to another on my PC after they had been backed up to the media hub. I found it difficult to 'fix' the media hub to make the albums resemble what the new folders on my PC. By fix, I mean I wanted the pictures to be moved to the new album folder. I had to deleted the old album (old folder name) on the media hub, then copy another picture to the new folder on my PC so the media hub would detect that there are new pictures there. I wish there was a way to force a scan of a specific folder to update the media hub.

4. Writing to it was very slow over a 100Mbit network. Was seeing write speed of ~ 2MB/sec, I was expecting to to be a lot faster then that.

5. Some of my music files do not show the album cover for them. I have no idea how to even start to fix this. The same music files on my PC do properly show the album covers.

Would I buy it again? Maybe. For the $350 I spent on it, I think I would have been better off getting a standalone NAS and backing up my files manually for a lot less $. If the software is updated to allow the user to have some more control or fix the thubmnails/album cover problems, I think it would be a good buy. I find it very frustrating how little control you have of the media hub.

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!

Purchased this NAS right after I heard about it at CES this January. Was very excited about having a Linksys/Cisco made product that I have always been able to trust. This product is replacing a current NAS solution that I had as it didn't provide me with a safe solution in terms of losing my data. I immediately added a 2nd 500 GB drive and setup a simple RAID 1 Array. After moving all my data & Media Files over, all my PCs as well as my Xbox 360 were both able to access all my files seemlessly.

One thing to note that almost made me want to rate this device with four stars is that the it is relatively slow when copying data files over. My files were all being copied over on a GB network but my speeds were faily subpar, however, they were better than my previous NAS solution. Read speeds however were much better. Obviously this isn't an Enterprise solution but is really perfect for your most all of your average home users. By far this device is much more stable than my previous device. Been up an running for over and week and I haven't had to reboot it once.

Overall this is a great little device. It has most all the features you would need including the option to increase storage later either by creating a Raid 0 array or totally replacing all of your drives with bigger ones down the road if you need to. If your like me, you wanted peace of mind that all your data was more safe, you can create that RAID 1 array to help protect against data loss. A couple of things that coule be improved on would be the lack of processing power the unit offers for copying large amounts of data at once as well as providing a bit more security in terms of setting up different accounts for others to access your unit without giving them a single password.

I would say this is one of the easiest NAS setups that I've ever worked with, easily configurable for remote access and my PS3 and 360 pick it up instantly over my home network.

Added a second HD to the NAS which was configured within minutes and was up and running in no time. The LCD is a nice feature which allows you to see the status of the NAS and a few other options that generally require a web based interface. Overall Great product!

UPDATE 7-8-09: New firmware fixed issues with certain pic's not showing up and you can now access the full admin menu's remotely which couldnt be done before unless you were on your home network. NAS still going strong after 6 months of heavy use from streaming video and backing up my home computer profiles.

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!!!!!!