Review - Cisco Linksys Media Hub NMH405 500GB
Linksys, the networking giant Cisco consumerist if its Media Hub products use a NAS on the market. The Media Hub makes it easy to organize, access, and share your digital video, photos, and music -- around your home and around the world. With massive capacity, intelligent aggregation, and media optimized file-serving capabilities, it’s an ideal way to manage your material, enjoy your entertainment and share your memories. Show your media how much you love it – give it a Hub.
In this hands-on we take the nas examined to see how Linksys is right.
Minimum Requirements
Windows XP or Vista with 32-Bit Browser
CD-ROM Drive
Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 2 or Higher
Adobe Flash Player 9 or Higher
PC Required to Set Up
10/100/1000 Base-T Ethernet connection (network adapter, router, gateway, switch or hub port)
Broadband Internet Connection
Prices and specifications
The units are neatly designed in the glossy black-and-silver that's currently flavour of the month for Linksys’ consumer products. It stands about 20cm high, 11.3cm wide and 16.3cm deep, so you can sit it on your desk or on a shelf without it taking up too much room. The internal fan makes a worryingly loud noise when you first turn the power on, but quickly calms down to an unobtrusive hum.
Within its stylish, compact design, the hub’s high capacity can store hundreds of hours of video, hundreds of thousands of photos and songs. With a 500 Gigabyte hard drive and additional drive bay, this Media Hub (model# NMH405) is set to grow along with your media collection. Full-color LCD makes it easy to manage your storage space.
They also have a small LCD screen on the front that displays information such as the amount of space used by music, photos and video files. We found that we barely looked at the screen during our tests, so you can save some money by buying the 500GB NMH305 model, which omits the LCD display and comes in at a more affordable £300.
The Media Hub closer
The NMH405 MediaHub comes with a network cable, a single 12V power, a quick start guide and a cd'tje software. The compact cabinet has room for two SATA drives. Linksys delivers the Tweakers.net tested performance with a 500GB hard drive, while the more expensive NMH410 a 1TB drive in the drivebay was successful.
When the MediaHub an extra disk is added, it is - with safety in mind - possibly in RAID1 mode, a mirror or to the total storage capacity to double. Changing or adding a disk is very simple: after opening the door at the top can simply slide into the bay should be avoided. The drives are not hot swappable, the box must first be expelled.
On the front of the nas is a 1.8 "LCD display to find. The small screen status information, such as network speed and available disk space, but it is also possible to quickly start a backup from the box. Because the hub has two slots for flash cards, can also direct a copy of such a sd-card on the hard disk be placed. The same is possible via the two USB 2.0 ports. To save energy, the LCD display be turned off if desired.
The NMH405 can Gigabit Ethernet port with the network connected. The installation software installs the backup program NTI Backup, neatly mapt the network to a drive letter and automatically copy the contents of the folder My Documents to the nas. The throughput is low on a 100Mbit network managed not to use the smb protocol over 5MBps it. Via ftp, the speed is not higher than 6.5 Mbps. The Gigabit connection but it seems to offer little added value.
The web interface
Linksys says put too much attention in the web interface of the NMH405. The interface is accessible via http://mediahub is built in Flash and is indeed beautiful. The indexes automatically nas new media files and puts them into the corresponding folders. Playing music files easily, but when viewing photos is a slideshow mode available.
When playing video files, with a dozen films in various formats and resolutions tested, there were also problems in the browser to: hd mkv files to wmv or containers were not in view, while some mpeg4 files can not play. Nor is that the file is not displayed correctly and that the browser should render flash streams.
The remote access' ability, which via the Internet nas can be used, in practice to work well. However, it is necessary to log onto a Web service from Linksys and lies is a catch: although the service is free the first year, considering the company in the future an annual contribution to questions. These rumors would be around 10 euro per year, but Linksys wants no specific mention amounts.
By accessing the nas on the LAN, via a media player or an Xbox 360 for example, everything is spotless thanks to the support for UPnP and DLNA protocols. A potential security risk, however the FTP service, although by default only allows anonymous sessions and is not configurable. Why Linksys has opted for this method is a mystery.
Conclusion
The Media Hub NMH405 put a Linksys nas on the market that we have not quite 'finished' is. The FTP function allows anonymous sessions, a Linksys network specialist as to say the least, very sloppy. This is a firmware update to remedy. The LCD screen is a nice gimmick, but its usefulness can be questioned.
The web interface is offered for novice users effectively, it also offers the popular nas no download functions, such as bittorrent or usenet grabber, and playback of HD material in the browser interface almost impossible. Although the benefits are reasonable and nas easy half hard disk is to rest, the storage system with a street price of 350 euros on the expensive side.
Linksys, the networking giant Cisco consumerist if its Media Hub products use a NAS on the market. The Media Hub makes it easy to organize, access, and share your digital video, photos, and music -- around your home and around the world. With massive capacity, intelligent aggregation, and media optimized file-serving capabilities, it’s an ideal way to manage your material, enjoy your entertainment and share your memories. Show your media how much you love it – give it a Hub.
In this hands-on we take the nas examined to see how Linksys is right.
Minimum RequirementsWindows XP or Vista with 32-Bit Browser
CD-ROM Drive
Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 2 or Higher
Adobe Flash Player 9 or Higher
PC Required to Set Up
10/100/1000 Base-T Ethernet connection (network adapter, router, gateway, switch or hub port)
Broadband Internet Connection
Prices and specifications
The units are neatly designed in the glossy black-and-silver that's currently flavour of the month for Linksys’ consumer products. It stands about 20cm high, 11.3cm wide and 16.3cm deep, so you can sit it on your desk or on a shelf without it taking up too much room. The internal fan makes a worryingly loud noise when you first turn the power on, but quickly calms down to an unobtrusive hum.
Within its stylish, compact design, the hub’s high capacity can store hundreds of hours of video, hundreds of thousands of photos and songs. With a 500 Gigabyte hard drive and additional drive bay, this Media Hub (model# NMH405) is set to grow along with your media collection. Full-color LCD makes it easy to manage your storage space.
They also have a small LCD screen on the front that displays information such as the amount of space used by music, photos and video files. We found that we barely looked at the screen during our tests, so you can save some money by buying the 500GB NMH305 model, which omits the LCD display and comes in at a more affordable £300.
The Media Hub closer
The NMH405 MediaHub comes with a network cable, a single 12V power, a quick start guide and a cd'tje software. The compact cabinet has room for two SATA drives. Linksys delivers the Tweakers.net tested performance with a 500GB hard drive, while the more expensive NMH410 a 1TB drive in the drivebay was successful.
When the MediaHub an extra disk is added, it is - with safety in mind - possibly in RAID1 mode, a mirror or to the total storage capacity to double. Changing or adding a disk is very simple: after opening the door at the top can simply slide into the bay should be avoided. The drives are not hot swappable, the box must first be expelled.
On the front of the nas is a 1.8 "LCD display to find. The small screen status information, such as network speed and available disk space, but it is also possible to quickly start a backup from the box. Because the hub has two slots for flash cards, can also direct a copy of such a sd-card on the hard disk be placed. The same is possible via the two USB 2.0 ports. To save energy, the LCD display be turned off if desired.
The NMH405 can Gigabit Ethernet port with the network connected. The installation software installs the backup program NTI Backup, neatly mapt the network to a drive letter and automatically copy the contents of the folder My Documents to the nas. The throughput is low on a 100Mbit network managed not to use the smb protocol over 5MBps it. Via ftp, the speed is not higher than 6.5 Mbps. The Gigabit connection but it seems to offer little added value. The web interface
Linksys says put too much attention in the web interface of the NMH405. The interface is accessible via http://mediahub is built in Flash and is indeed beautiful. The indexes automatically nas new media files and puts them into the corresponding folders. Playing music files easily, but when viewing photos is a slideshow mode available.
When playing video files, with a dozen films in various formats and resolutions tested, there were also problems in the browser to: hd mkv files to wmv or containers were not in view, while some mpeg4 files can not play. Nor is that the file is not displayed correctly and that the browser should render flash streams.
The remote access' ability, which via the Internet nas can be used, in practice to work well. However, it is necessary to log onto a Web service from Linksys and lies is a catch: although the service is free the first year, considering the company in the future an annual contribution to questions. These rumors would be around 10 euro per year, but Linksys wants no specific mention amounts.
By accessing the nas on the LAN, via a media player or an Xbox 360 for example, everything is spotless thanks to the support for UPnP and DLNA protocols. A potential security risk, however the FTP service, although by default only allows anonymous sessions and is not configurable. Why Linksys has opted for this method is a mystery. Conclusion
The Media Hub NMH405 put a Linksys nas on the market that we have not quite 'finished' is. The FTP function allows anonymous sessions, a Linksys network specialist as to say the least, very sloppy. This is a firmware update to remedy. The LCD screen is a nice gimmick, but its usefulness can be questioned.
The web interface is offered for novice users effectively, it also offers the popular nas no download functions, such as bittorrent or usenet grabber, and playback of HD material in the browser interface almost impossible. Although the benefits are reasonable and nas easy half hard disk is to rest, the storage system with a street price of 350 euros on the expensive side.
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