crunchlife: Review: Linksys NAS200

Review: Linksys NAS200

Ryan Baxter — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 21:30:00 -0700

*Update: Read about my NAS200 disk failure and recovery.

Last Sunday I purchased a Linksys NAS200 network attached storage (NAS) device and two Western Digital 500GB SATA drives hoping to solve my problem with backups and provide a shared storage solution for my home network. After a precursory examination of five NAS devices, I chose the Linksys NAS200 based upon its feature set, price, and the reputation of its predecessor, the Linksys NSLU2. The NAS200 boasts features such as:

Ethernet connected storage.
Dual SATA hard drive bays.
Two USB 2.0 ports for extra storage.
Internet FTP and HTTP access.
Built-in media server.
RAID 1 and 0 disk configuration.

Before buying this device I had been leaning heavily towards the D-Link DNS-323, but hoping the Linksys NAS200 would arrive on the market in time for my purchase. I mentioned previously that it was out of my character to buy bleeding edge hardware and I have to admit that I was a little nervous that the device would not work out of the box on my network. As a Linux user, I don’t think I’ll ever get over the anxiousness of buying new hardware.

The device was packaged well. The box pictured was merely a container for the much sturdier packaging material that housed the NAS200, a Quick Installation guide, CDROM, network cable, power supply, and some promotional material. I glanced briefly at the contents before proceeding to unhinge the plastic doors housing the NAS200’s drive bays. The doors were a little hard to open single-handed. Plastic clips found on either side of the doors must be pinched simultaneously to expose the bays.

Peering within the first bay, I was puzzled by the length of “ribbon” found inside. Not knowing what this was for, I consulted the manual located on the CD. To my surprise, the manual did not provide directions for hard drive installation. Printed on the edge of the ribbon was the word “Pull”. My wife giggled as she often does when she figures something out before me. The ribbons’ purpose is to aid in hard drive removal. Pulling the ribbon will eject the drive from its controller. Later, in the Quick Installation guide, I found a screenshot of the Setup Wizard depicting the ribbons proper use. Her assumption was correct. Reading the guide now, I’m impressed by the clarity of the screenshots found within. They are small, but readable.

With the drives installed, I placed the NAS200 on the shelf that was to become its new home. I then attached the device to my router with the provided Ethernet cable. You’ll need a longer cable if you plan on storing the device more than three feet from your router. I plugged in the AC adapter and turned on the device by pressing a small button located on the back panel near the AC input. The NAS200 chirped loudly signaling it had been turned on. The device’s internal speaker is loud and its tone is similar to that of a smoke detector. Some lights on the front of the device began blinking and the two that looked like disc platters lit up. At last I could turn on my computer.

Like the NAS200’s packaging, the CDROM was neatly branded. I didn’t have high hopes for running the Setup Wizard, but I did give it the college try. From the command line, I navigated to the CD and typed “wine Setup.exe” and cringed as several error messages appeared in my terminal. I didn’t bother going any further with this. Knowing the NAS200 would be assigned an IP address via DHCP from my router, I launched Firefox and navigated to http://192.168.1.102. I felt a small measure of relief watching the NAS200’s administrative page load within my browser. This feeling was soon found fleeting as I attempted to log in. The default username and password listed in the manual did not work. A few curses later, I remembered the default login (admin / admin) used by my Linksys router and gave that a try. It worked.

Feeling elated, I navigated through the remaining administration within minutes. I first chose “Firmware Upgrade” from the list of options. I was slightly disappointed when clicking “Check for Upgrade” opened a new browser window and directed me to the Linksys.com website. In the days of Web 2.0 you shouldn’t have to search for firmware updates and install them manually. Updates should download and install with one click. I found the NAS200 on Linksys’ website, but at the time of this writing no firmware updates had been published. Screenshots of the Linksys NAS200’s administration interface can be found below:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Formatting the hard drives took little time. The “Disk Utility” section contained a set of simple controls for both drive formatting and the running and scheduling of Scandisk. I had prepared myself to wait at least a half hour for the formatting of two 500GB SATA drives, but only sat and watched the progress bar for about 5 minutes. Likewise, the “Disk Configuration” menu was also simple and configuring my device for RAID 1 mirroring was as easy as clicking a radio button. Soon after, my 1TB of raw storage became 465.29GB of mirrored drive space.

Once the drives were configured, I quickly changed the admin password and set a disk quota for guest users. Under “System Options”, I gave the device a more suitable name and assigned it a static IP address. I then created user accounts for myself and my wife. When creating user accounts, access to the device’s Download Manager can be set. I don’t remember reading about this feature within the product’s description before purchasing it. Not that I’m complaining, because the functionality is pretty cool. Basically it acts as an autonomous downloader. You provide the URLs, and it does the work. This single feature could end up saving money on my electric bill as I oftentimes leave my computer running all night to download large files. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I feel confident in saying that the Linksys NAS200 draws less power than my desktop PC.

To complete the installation I did a quick training session with my wife. She now knows to click Places -> Network within Gnome to find our network devices. Double-clicking “Thorbardin” (Yes, I was a Dungeon Master) displays her private folder and the public share entitled, “PUBLIC DISK”. Not being particularly fond of screaming caps, I tried to rename the folder, but was prompted with the following error message.

Unlike some other NAS devices, the Linksys NAS200 is quiet. I have to be standing within a foot of the device to hear any noise. The noise that does emanate from its internal fan is not of the jet engine variety. The fan within the NAS200 emits a low-pitched whir. I’m still quite impressed by this as my second story apartment is extremely hot. Its probably a good thing that the device has an operating temperature of 41 to 104ºF (5 to 40ºC). The surface of the NAS200 is not cool to the touch, but it is not particularly hot either. I can faintly feel air being pushed by the fan through the tiny holes dotting all sides of the device. That is a good sign.

I certainly feel more comfortable now that I have the Linksys NAS200 integrated into my backup strategy. With the NAS200 configured as RAID 1, I’ve all but eliminated the potential for single disk failure. My wife and I are already benefiting from the advantages of having a networked storage solution. We can finally share family pictures without the hassle of peer-to-peer file sharing between our computers. The NAS200’s product packaging and administration controls are both well designed and the device itself appears of exceptional quality. Any anxiety I had about the device communicating on my home network was unjustified. It works well with Linux and will undoubtedly perform just as well with Windows.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Gnart

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:18:32 -0700

Mike, Office 2k7 files are pkzip (compressed) files. Examine the first few bytes of the files, you will see that the file signature contains the string PK. File system examines the file signature in order to launch the software that handle the specific file types... (file extension means nothing, it's the file signature that counts). - Gnart

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Neal Bonome

Mon, 31 May 2010 23:07:25 -0700

I just installed a NAS200 with mirrored WD 750 GB drives. I thought every thing was fine, but the drives only seem to be available on the network for a few minutes, and then they drop off and are unavailable for another few minutes. The message I get is: "An error occurred while reconnecting Z: to \\192.168.1.100\PUBLIC DISK. Microsoft Windows Network : The local device name is already in use. This connection has not been restored." When I try to copy files across from one of the old computers I'm trying to eliminate, it copies for a few minutes, and then errors out and terminates the copy. But a while later, while I was working on something else, all of a sudden I get a string of gray windows with the "error while reconnecting" window. This drops the anchor on my project. Also, while it is copying, it says that long names are not supported on the drive. I have thousands of long name files. Is there a way to overcome this? Thank you all for any help you can give me. -Neal

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Ryan Baxter

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 09:42:59 -0700

Greg, I had a drive fail about a year ago. My device was configured using RAID 1 so all I had to do was install a new drive. I don't have any experience with LVM/JBOD, but perhaps you can find something on the Linksys forums. If it were mine, I'd pull the drives and use a live Linux distro to mount them and backup the data ASAP. It sounds like you're disk is failing. Good luck and let me know how it works out.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by http://gregsedwards.spaces.live.com/

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 21:39:55 -0700

I have been using my NAS200 for almost a year with a pair of 400GB WD disks configured as LVM/JBOD. The performance has always been alright, but not nearly as fast as I'd like over my home network. Now, I'm concerned that one of the physical disks is about to die. The NAS200 powers on, but only registeres the disk in bay 2. I can power down, swap the disks, and reboot. Once in a while, it registers both of them. Does the JBOD configuration work when the physical drives are swapped? I'm planning to pull all the data and put it somewhere more reliable, as soon as I can get it working again! Any special utilities or other recommendations? If one of the disks is actually dead, what are my chances of getting anything off of the other?

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Mike

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:32:45 -0800

I've been happy with mine, but when I access the drive thru the web and try to access an Office 2007 file, it wants to read the docx or xlsx files as zip files, so I am unable to open or save them from the NAS200. I'm accessing it from Windows XP operating systems and have had no problems up until I started using Office 2007 native file names. Any thoughts? Thanks!

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Ryan Baxter

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:40:22 -0800

John "chipsample" and I did get the NAS200 working with the Apple Time Capsule. Once we determined the IP address of the device, John was able to configure it through its web interface. By default, IP addresses leased by the Time Capsule are in the 10.10.1.x range.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by chipsample@comcast.net

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:30:28 -0800

Can the NAS200 be used if your router is an Apple Time Capsule. The PCs in the house have no problem seeing the time capsule, but the NAS 200 is not recognized during setup (Step 2).

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Andrei

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:57:43 -0700

Hello, I have just bought my NAS200 and tried to set it up. Both RAID options were grayed out - unavailable. Any idea why?

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Josh

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:20:04 -0700

im wondering tha same thing some one else asked before but never got a anwser, i have had this NAS200 for about 6 months and want to add another drive to mirror. but im wondering will both drives need to be formated?

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by trigger8man@gmail.com

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:34:45 -0700

The NAS200 is horrible. The Business exec at Cisco who approved it for the market should be fired. The data format does not work in a Windows machine (even if you hookup a Sata via USB connection). Means if the unit blows up your F*cked unless you buy another or someone suggested accessing the files via Linux. I can't believe how slow the damn thing is. If you don't need to 1.5TB storage go with a Eagle which will take a 1TB drive but is fast and you can use the formated drive in your windows XP.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by sandrozahra@gmail.com

Mon, 04 May 2009 12:53:15 -0700

Hi, Thanks for the review! I have the following questions; 1)I noted that you said that once a disk fails, and you replace it, the mirring on the new disk will be done automatically? Was this tried on both Disk 1 and Disk 2? 2) If the NAS fails, will I be able to read the data of the disks when connecting the disks to a Windows Computer? Can you kindly send the reply by email? sandrozahra@gmail.com thanks and regards sandro

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by sachin at dslextreme dot com

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:23:19 -0700

I installed one HDD as individual disk and now wants to add second HDD and enable Raid 1. Will this erase my data on HDD1? How would i achieve this now without losing my data? Any Suggtesions.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Ryan Baxter

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:49:21 -0800

Well, it finally happened. I've experienced what I believe is a disk failure with my NAS200. Follow it here. Any suggestions?

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by havoc

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 06:54:25 -0800

also the download manager does not have an auto resume if the connection breaks... cheap product built by cheap coders... Not worth it..

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by havoc

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 04:33:45 -0800

i bought a Nas200 a couple of days back. Having major issues while downloading from Megaupload and Rapidshare. The file size of the movies being downloaded is around 700 mb but the nas only downloads 4kb or 10 kb and shows status as completed. If i download the same file using my browser the complete file is downloaded... Linksys has no answer.. Dont know what to do.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by e.bellentani@hotmail.com

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:33:50 -0800

Hi Ryan, Congratulations for this review! I have a question: Can I plug a USB Printer in one of NAS200 USB and share it over my network?Tks Emerson

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Patman

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:17:38 -0800

I have just purchased this box and installed two 1.5TB Seagate's. The RAID 1 configuration took approximately 24 hours to build the partition. The size and ability of this device is now a functional NAS. With only 700GB or smaller drives I felt it was still a waste of money, but with the new 1.5TB drives and along with the price point of both the NAS device and drives, it is a good solution. I hope LINKSYS is reading these reviews. The processor is excruciatingly slow. Come on now, you put in a 100Mbps interface and the fastest I can get is only 32Mbps? That sucks. In reality, this device should have a 10/100/1000 interface and the ability to run up to 1,000Mbps. That would make this one a no brainer. As well, one nice feature would be the ability to link two together. One locally and one remotely and have all the files in sync. Now you have a disaster recovery setup in a $200.00 device. I'd buy two for sure.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Nobody

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:37:20 -0800

Kent S - Although in theory such a thing should be possible, in practice such a thing will not be possible. Because choosing 0 or 1 is not usually changed, people will not bother to write any software to effect that change unless it is for themselves. If you want to really change from 0 to 1, just move all data to another storage and then redo you drives and move back.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Kent S

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:08:44 -0800

Is their a way to convert from a Raid O configuration to Raid 1 directly? I am running two 500GB drives.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by gridsol

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:53:05 -0800

Regular drive mapping has the same symptoms, in that most of the time the mapping is not recognized. I am starting to believe the rumours that it could be an over-heating problem. I have two striped 1Tb drives, so I recognize that heat could be an issue. My NAS200 is very silent, fan is barely audible. I did shutdown this morning, so tonight I will test if on cold-boot if this could be the issue, that the unit might simply be overheating. I will compare NAS lights with the event of losing my drive mapping.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by Ryan Baxter

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:46:40 -0800

gridsol - I'm not familiar with the Linksys Mapping Utility or any of the software that came with the NAS200 for that matter. I'm on Linux at home, and only had to plug in the device before I could browse to it with SAMBA. I did have some trouble with Nautilus later on and wrote a small shell script to compensate. Can you map a network drive through My Computer? I'll take a look at my NAS' lights when I get home from work.

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by gridsol@hotmail.com

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 10:01:12 -0800

I am having a drive mapping problem, and spent 2 MONTHS of my spare time to re-analyze every equipment on my LAN. The Linksys Mapping utility will only ONCE-IN-A-WHILE locate the NAS200, usually for only 15 minutes or so after I cold re-boot the NAS200. Then I will eventually lose the connection and can not re-map, and utility does not see the device. Do I return the device, or is it a configuration issue? In attempting to fix the problem: I did upgrade the firmware successfully. I have changed routers 3 times (Linksys B = Belkni N = Linksys G) Re-installed the network & workgroups for all devices on my network (tried different names incase of conflicts) Static IP address vs DHCP Disabled all firewalls, and antivirus without changes. etc... Occasionally, after a couple of days I will revisit the problem and there would be sometimes no-lights on the NAS200 (device on however), with occasional ethernet flashing... Does this indicate a problem?

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by sam

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:39:46 -0800

Hi, do you know if there is an option for this device to power back on automatically after power failure?

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by GeeTee

Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:49:03 -0800

Ryan, You put in a lot of work on this article. The article is well written. Good job! I have bought a NAS or two but always much bigger and never for me. This one is for me. Do I need a NAS? No! Anyway, thank you. Should I need any help I will ping on you, "Oh Guru of the NAS200!" (Wink) Thank you!! Gray

"Review: Linksys NAS200" by jachsz

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 23:08:52 -0800

Hi, I am having problem in my NAS200 at Downloading task. Actually i added many files and download will start as per my scheduled timings. But what happen the URL's which i added task having + and other type of characters. May be because of this now i cant able to see my download URL's as well as i am getting error Like this below. Download Manager: Enabled User Name: admin Maximum Concurrent Tasks: 1 jachsz@gmail.com.