News - NETGEAR announces new storage and wireless products

[HEXUS]

Media Storage router and Powerline 500 Nano among NETGEAR's CES offerings.

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[Arthran]

A routerNAS, nice! price is the key question

[shaithis]

Thecus have been making "RouterNASes" for quite some time.

I am sure the Netgear will fill a gap at the lower-end of the price spectrum though....hopefully giving more people a reason to adopt home backups!

[crossy]

A routerNAS, nice! price is the key question

Asus and Cisco/Linksys both do routers that allow USB storage to be attached and shared. I've got a Linksys E4200 myself and while I've not used the storage features yet, it was nice to see that it appeared in the various Windows 7 boxes within a couple of minutes of being switched on.

[Clydonian]

I've always preferred netgear products, WNDR4700 will definitely be my next upgrade to replace my WNDR3700 the extender will definitely be on the cards as well...

[crossy]

I've always preferred netgear products, WNDR4700 will definitely be my next upgrade to replace my WNDR3700 the extender will definitely be on the cards as well...

My current Cisco is the first non-Netgear router I've had in a long time. I only switched because I was heartily sick of the poor signal power of the various Netgear boxes I had, compounded by the abysmal all-round performance of my VirginMedia "SuperHub" - which itself is made by Netgear.

[Clydonian]

the latest cisco has been peeking my interest, is it really a significant improvement signalwise? I like 4700 because of the user configurable storage and the fact of the symetrical design this time round...

[crossy]

the latest cisco has been peeking my interest, is it really a significant improvement signalwise? I like 4700 because of the user configurable storage and the fact of the symetrical design this time round...

Are you sure that you mean 4700 and not 4200? Just double checked and the top end of the Linksys/Cisco E-series is still the 4200. The Cisco 4700, on the other hand, appears to be a business router and/or switch and quite an old one.

Assuming that you do mean the E4200 then I can give some feedback - because that's what I've got.

Pros

• Very appealing looks - very Bang & Olufson
• Excellent signal penetration - e.g. signal strength does fade-in/out (although doesn't drop connection) at distance, but capable of easily outreaching the (Netgear-powered) VirginMedia "SuperHub";
• Easy to setup in "Advanced" mode (avoid the bundled software)
• Storage capabilities are easily configured, relatively powerful and seem reliable. Work well with both Windows7 and Linux
• DLNA server built in (Twonky again) works well

Cons

• Cost - sheesh is this thing expensive!
• Supplied "easy" setup software is poor - preventing access to "advanced" features (I'd avoid it)
• Little configuration choice on the "guest" network
• Monitoring/logging features not as good as cheaper products from competitors
• Cost - again, this thing is sooooo expensive!
• List of storage devices said to be "compatible" is very poor - however I would suggest that most single USB plug 2.5" drives should work. (I'm using a 1TB HP drive - not supported according to Cisco - but this works well).

[Clydonian]

thanks for the feedback shall dofinitely give it some consideration, I meant the WNDR4700 the new one thats coming from netgear...