Linksys Mediahub Preview and Review

[Adassus]

I was looking at the new Linksys media hub. It does look like everything I would need, with a simple clean interface. My big question is: Does anyone know if the HD that comes included with the hub is replaceable? I thought the whole point of NASes was data protection against HD failure. If it really is embedded in the media hub, then its useless if it fails since you cant even replace it.

Anyone knows of a simple NAS for a beginner? I was looking at the HP mediasmart. Looks beautiful, but a bit pricey.

The most important thing for me is protection against drive failure. Something with Raid1 or Raid5 with replaceable drives is a must.

Thanks for inputs

 

[thiggins]

The slideshow should answer your question.

If a single-drive NAS fails, your data is gone unless you have a backup, replaceable drive or not. You need at least RAID 1 NAS (two drives) to survive a single drive failure. And even then, the safety of your data is not guaranteed if the power supply or main board fail.

RAID is not backup. Never trust your data to a single device.

 

[dieter]

Tim, I think the questions was wether the single drive is replaceable? In other words on a 405, can the 500gig drive be upgraded to a 1TB drive, or if the 500gig fails, can the it be replaced/formated by the user?
I would think so.

 

[thiggins]

I just tried pulling the factory drive and putting in a Seagate 7200.11 1 TB blank drive. I used the recovery procedure (hold reset button for 10 seconds while powering on). Took 10-15 minutes, but the Media Hub initialized the drive and came back up fine.

 

[MallCop]

The drive is replaceable. All the firmware is stored in Flash and once a new unit is detected will be reloaded onto the drive after it is reformatted.

 

[MoralDelima]

What about a 1.5TB? Do they support that? The first thing I ask myself when looking at a product is "Will this support the biggest drive out there with current firmware?"

 

[thiggins]

What about a 1.5TB? Do they support that? The first thing I ask myself when looking at a product is "Will this support the biggest drive out there with current firmware?"

Approved drive list. No 1.5 TB listed.

You must enjoy aggravation. Going with the latest and greatest isn't always the most trouble-free path.

 

[dieter]

The mediahub review shows a price of $350. where did you find it for that?

 

[thiggins]

The mediahub review shows a price of $350. where did you find it for that?

Prices are MSRP (suggested list). The products don't seem to be widely available yet, but ShopLinksys has them.

 

[MoralDelima]

Approved drive list. No 1.5 TB listed.

You must enjoy aggravation. Going with the latest and greatest isn't always the most trouble-free path.

If you're going to spend $400-$800 on just a great NAS box, why settle for mid-range capacitY?

That being said, with all the horrible issues going on with the 1.5TB drives Seagate is pumping out, I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole (or my data).

 

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

Drive failure?

In the review you say: "Next, I decided to test the fault tolerance of the device. I powered down the Media Hub and pulled drive 2 to simulate a failure."

Why not just yank drive 2 out while the thing is running to simulate the failure?

I'm not trying to be critical, but rather am simply curious.

Thanks for a very complete review!

 

[thiggins]

You have a valid question since drives usually fail when the system is up. But we usually only pull drives hot when the vendor says that the product supports hot-swap. We don't want to have the vendor come back and say that we did an unfair test.

 

[Unregistered]

iTunes Server

Did you get a chance to verify iTunes server support? The user guides states both audio and video can be played via iTunes server. I have found only audio files where available.

Your findings?

 

[spicyvelveetas]

In playing media files via the browser, how was the playback? I would like to be able to play music via browser and have the mp3 files gapless for albums. Is this acheived or are there gaps?

ALso when using the DLNA server, are the files nested/sorted in anyway? The one shortcoming of alot of media servers I have used has been the usage with large libraries. Finding a file can be arduous.

Thanks for the review!

 

[Craig Ellison]

Linksys Media Hub

I did not test the DLNA server capabilities, as I didn't have a media player device to test against.

RE: Music through browsers - It's not something I'd do. Without playlists,
other than the temporary one Linksys allows, it's a hassle. And, as you
suspect, there was a significant gap between songs - enough "dead
air" that most disk jockeys would have been fired - another reason just to
stream your music through iTtunes by using the online store as your library.
Like most iTunes servers, the one on the LInksys Media Hub is also lacking when
it comes to playlist support. That's why I'd configure iTunes to use a mapped drive to the data store as its music library.

 

[Unregistered Sinalk]

User Interface

Hi,
I was reading your review and you wrote, on the "Final Thoughts" section,..."You can also use the Media Hub as a NAS, however. Windows Explorer has no problems mapping a drive to the Media Hub...You just have to be willing to have your media and backup files publically accessible to everyone on your home network. "

Now I am all new to this, but I have been trying to look for a user friendly NAS for the past couple of weeks that can stores files and anyone can access it by clicking on a Local Drive in my computer section of the OS. This looks good, but I am not a fan of the user interface, do you have to use the user interface to access the files. It seems like the NAS can appear as an Local Drive on the Windows OS? Is that right?

And if it can appear as a Local Drive, does that mean I can just click on the drive and see all the files in the folders or does that the user interface come up? Because all I want to do is have another Local Drive that all the laptops in the house can access wrielessely? I know the "Maxtor Shared Storage II" does that, but it has not had the best reviews, so was wondering does this NAS do it?

 

[thiggins]

Any NAS that supports SMB/CIFS (and most do) will allow you to browse shared folders using Windows (or other OS) file browsers. You don't have to deal with the MediaHub interface.

 

[Unregistered]

Linksys or HP?

Hi Tim, HP MediaSmart Server ex485 or NMH 410? for a relative newbie who is tired of copying numerous music / photo files between pcs. Ideally I would like to save all my CD and DVD's and shove 'em in the attic (away from the kids!) and have a relatively robust reliable system. I have FIOS with wireless, but my experience of Linksys has benn less than impressive.

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

It's a "ya pays your money and ya takes your choice" decision. After reading both reviews, what do you think?

Also, does file transfer performance matter?

 

[Unregistered]

Works with a Mac?

The NM405 is being heavily promoted here in Singapore at an IT Show. My main PC is windows based so clearly I'll have no problem with set-up and streaming content from that PC.
But I also have a Mac based computer (Macmini) with lots of multimedia content that is already connected to my WiFi network at home. Will the NM405 be able to "talk" with my macmini as I would be interested in using it to sync with with the mac and thus I can stream content to my LCD TV via a media extender.

Will that work?