Linksys Storage Link for USB 2.0 Disk Drives NSLU2

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.


One note of caution...   June 28, 2004
Gerald McFatridge (Virginia Beach, VA USA)
273 out of 306 found this review helpful

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.


Linksys storage link is the cure for LAN storage woes   July 3, 2004
54 out of 58 found this review helpful

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.


Performance is unreliable and inconsistent   March 27, 2007
xyzzy (San Francisco, CA)
48 out of 53 found this review helpful

I'm actually quite surprised that the NSLU2 device currently has an average of 3.5 stars. Unfortunately, for such a simple device, I have found it to be a dismal waste of my time. It has been unreliable and performance has been inconsistent. I bought this device to give to my sister, as a means of allowing her to store music and movie files on her network. She has very little technical understanding, so a device that is easy-to-setup and use is a requirement. The NSLU2 is not that device!

First off, I want to point out that I am a Linux Systems Administrator with 10 years of experience. I know about networking and computers and obviously Linux. This device is running Linux internally, with Samba being the internal application that provides access to the attached USB disk (i.e. via Microsoft Networking). That said, I hope no one takes my comments as Linux-bashing. On the contrary, I'm a big supporter of Linux. Linux is a great operating system. Unfortunately, the NSLU2 is a poor implementation of Linux as an embedded device.

If Linksys is taking notes on how to improve this product, here are some suggestions. Begin shipping these devices with a serial console port, an SSH server automatically enabled, a faster CPU, and more memory. Having all those items should improve the performance of the device, as well as allow knowledgeable system administrators to fix the "quirks" when they develop.

Regarding the slow transfer speeds, which many others have complained about, I confirm this. First, the NSLU2 gets about a 25 Mbits/second transfer speed, while a real computer which exports a shared directory through Microsoft Network can achieve about 75 Mbits/second. While 25 Mbits/second is slow, it's tolerable. (Of course, this assumes that it is attached to a 100 Mbits/second network.) Second, others have complained about the NSLU2 being slow in comparison to the transfer speed they achieve when the USB drive is attached to their computer directly. Well, that's expected. When directly attached to a computer, USB 2.0 is capable of up to 480 Megabits/second. But the NSLU2 has a 100 Megabits/second network port. By putting a network between your computer and the USB2 drive, you're limiting the throughput to only 100 Megabits/second, 20% of what USB2 is actually capable of. Incidentally, if you're thinking of buying a similar device with a 1 Gigabit/second (i.e. 1000 Megabit/second) network port, do your research, as many will never achieve anything beyond 100 Megabit/second speeds anyway.

In the first few days of owning the NSLU2, here's a sampling of the problems I have had. (1) If I deleted a directory on the NSLU2, it would reappear again instantly. This is most likely a problem with Samba within the NSLU2. Having seen this problem in the past with real Linux servers, it's caused by an incompatibility between how Windows saves files (i.e. attributes and permissions) and how Linux does so. Samba "maps" the Windows attributes and permissions to similar attributes in Linux. Because it's not an exact mapping, quirks will sometimes develop. Also, some filenames that are valid on Windows end up causing problems for Samba. To solve this problem, I had to copy all the files off the USB drive attached to the NSLU2, then reformat the drive. (2) The DHCP client on the NSLU2 is incompatible with the DHCP server on my network. I had to configure the NSLU2 with a static IP address to overcome this. (3) The USB drive attached to the NSLU2 just disappears from time-to-time for no reason. The NSLU2 is available on the network, but it doesn't see the attached drive. (4) Transferring very large files (e.g. 3 Gigabytes) to or from the NSLU2 will cause the device to freeze up, and it will no longer appear as available on the network. I have read that this is probably being caused by attaching only NTFS or FAT32 drives to the NSLU2. Others have suggested that using the NSLU2 to reformat the USB drive will improve reliability and performance. After using the NSLU2 to format a new USB drive, I see that it created 3 partitions: one big EXT3 partition for my data, one small EXT3 partition for user/group authentication information, and finally one Linux Swap partition for improved memory management within the NSLU2. (By the way, EXT3 is the default filesystem used by most Linux distributions.)

Besides reliability issues, the NSLU2 has usability problems. (a) You won't be able to take advantage of the user/group permissions of the device unless the attached USB drive is formatted by the NSLU2, as the user/group permissions need to be stored on a special partition the NSLU2 creates on the USB drive. (b) The NSLU2 is only capable of formatting attached drives in EXT3 format. If you need to format a drive as NTFS or FAT32, you'll need to attach the drive to your Windows computer to do that. (However, the NSLU2 does support attached NTFS/FAT32 drives.) (c) Being a systems administrator, I understand how to configure this device, but I believe the user-interface will not be intuitive to many people. The unit's functionality is spread over too many different screens, and the clickable buttons are sometimes not in an appropriate place. You'll understand what I mean when you actually use it.

Because of the extreme inconsistency and unreliability of this device, I will not be storing any data that I deem "important". At best, I will store only backup copies of files on this device, or files that I don't care about losing. I will probably use the device as a network drive share, where my Windows computers can save their nightly backups. That way, if the NSLU2 dies or gets really horked, I don't lose any data (the originals are on the Windows machines already). Additionally, I will also use it to store the very large ISO images of Linux distributions I download off the Internet. (I can always re-download the ISO images, if the NSLU2 dies.)

Lastly, because we live in a "mostly" Windows operating-system world, here's a tip for those of you who find that the NSLU2 has failed you, as well as your precious data along with it. This is for those of you who find that your NSLU2 stops working. If you initially used the NSLU2 to format an attached USB drive, you should know that it will be formatted in EXT3 format, which Windows is not natively capable of reading. If you attach the USB drive to a Windows computer, it will not be able to read it automatically. However, there are a couple of freeware EXT3 drivers which allow Windows to read the EXT3 partitions on your drive. An easier solution for most people will be a freeware software tool called Linux Reader, created by a company named DiskInternals. (I do not work for that company and I do not know anyone who does, so it's not a shameless plug.) I don't like losing personal data, and unfortunately many people will get the wrong impression that their data is lost when the NSLU2 dies. Not necessarily so.



Well that's all I have to say for now.


Your drive will be dedicated as a file server   June 21, 2004
Eric Michel (United States)
34 out of 36 found this review helpful

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.