Linksys NAS-200

We’ve reviewed a couple external hard drives here such as the Seagate FreeAgent and the Western Digital My Book but what do you do if you want to share your drive between a number of computers.

When you want to share your drive between multiple computers at once (or even over the internet), the easiest way to do so is to put your drives into a Network Attached Storage device. The Linksys NAS-200 is a great little device that does just the job.

Connecting the Storage System to your network is simple - just plug it directly into an available 10/100 Ethernet port on your router or switch, and the storage is instantly accessible by your whole network.

Here are a few of the technical specifications for the NAS-200:

• Street Price: $179.99
• Two drive bays and two USB ports
• Automatic Backup software included
• More USB ports to add additional external drives
• 10/100 Ethernet port
• Ability to share your files on the internet through FTP or HTTP

Things I like
The thing I like most about the NAS-200 is how easy it is to set it up. The install utility works well with all versions of Windows including Windows Vista, sets up the drives, and automatically maps a network drive. After this you can do everything you need either through the software provided or online so you have total control over the device. The final thing I like is the price. Coming in at just under $200 the NAS-200 is one of the cheapest network attached storage systems available. If you’re on a low budget this is definitely for you. Unfortunately, other than the easy setup and the low price there isn’t that I like about the NAS-200.

Things I don’t like
The thing I like the least about the NAS-200 is its transfer speeds, they are absolutely terrible. Moving 5 files for a total of 5.30GB, from the PC to the NAS-200 took just under 40 minutes with an average transfer speed of less than 3.60MB/sec. Since it has a 10/100 interface, the theoretical maximum transfer speed was 12.5MB/sec and I was hoping to get somewhere around 8-10MB/sec on writes and reads. The NAS-200 also uses proprietary software to format the drives so you can’t swap them into a computer without formatting them before hand. This is really annoying and in my opinion rather stupid, but what can you do.

Pros:

• Easy to set up, all web driven menus.
• Two hard drive storage
• Can be set for multiple users.
• Cheapest Network Storage available

Cons:

• Priprietary disk format
• Slow transfer speeds

Final Thoughts
If you’re in dire need of a NAS and you don’t have a lot of money to spend than the Linksys NAS-200 is a good deal for you. If you have a little more money or aren’t in need of a NAS right away I would hold up. The proprietary disk format and the low speeds just don’t make the NAS-200 worth the money. I don’t recommend this product and I think Linksys could have done a lot better.