| Linksys WRTSL54GS Wireless-G Media Storage Link Router with Speedbooster |
 enlarge
|
Model: WRTSL54GS
Brand: Linksys
Manufacturer: Linksys
Average Rating: 
(submit your review here)
Total Reviews: 22
Form factor: External
Hardware platform: PC
Data link protocol: Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
|
|
|
| |
| Features: |
Four devices in one: wireless access point, built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 switch, storage link, and built-in media server
Allows you to add a USB 2.0 hard drive or flash drive to your network
Built-in Media Server streams music, video and photos to any UPnP compatible media adapter
Includes Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), wireless MAC address filtering, and powerful SPI firewall for security
Compatible with 802.11g and 802.11b devices |
| |
| Description: |
| The Wireless-G Storage Link Router with SpeedBooster is four devices in one box. The Wireless Access Point lets you connect Wireless-G, Wireless-B and other performance-enhanced SpeedBooster devices to the network. SpeedBooster technology is a compatible add-on to standard Wireless-G which increases wireless network performance by up to 35%. There's also a built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 Switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together. The Router function lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection. The included Storage Link lets you easily add storage space onto your network using readily available USB 2.0 hard drives or plug in a USB flash disk, for a convenient way of accessing your portable data files. There's a built-in Media Server, which streams music, video, and photos from the attached storage device to any compatible media adapter. You can also set it up so that your storage is accessible from the Internet and files can be easily downloaded via your web browser. Your files can be available publicly, or create password protected accounts for authorized users. The new push button setup feature makes it easy to configure your wireless devices. Just push the button on the router and on your other SecureEasySetup enabled wireless device to automatically create an encryption secured wireless connection. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) protects your data and privacy with up to 128-bit industrial strength encryption. The Router can serve as a DHCP Server, has a powerful SPI firewall to protect your PCs against intruders & known Internet attacks, supports VPN pass-through and can be configured to filter internal users' access to the Internet. Advanced configuration is a snap with the web browser-based interface. Connects USB disk or flash drives directly to your network to share music, video, or data files locally and over the internet |
| |
| User Reviews (22 total): |
Page 1 of Total 1 Pages
|
Linksys WRTSL54GS Wireless-G Media Storage Link Router with Speedbooster, February 24, 2008
By Jose A. Marzan Sanchez
Linksys Wireless-G Media Storage Link Router with SpeedBooster WRTSL54GS
Excellent product recominedo 100 % from Caracas - Venezuela.
Excelente producto lo recominedo 100% desde Caracas-Venezuela.
|
Definitely the most versatile router I had so far, January 20, 2008
By John Staffini (BC Canada)
I bought 2 units and I installed one of them away from the house in the garage and I use it as on "offsite backup device" with an 8 GB flash USB disk connected to it. I upgraded the firmware to Thibor v 17c, increased the power to 100% and it works like a charm.
|
Everything I expected., October 31, 2007
By mta (Warner Robins, GA USA)
This product met my expectations completely. Within a few minutes of arrival, it was up and running ( OpenWRT ) w/ WPA2-Personal, OpenVPN, and PPPoE. I am currently not utilizing USB on this device, but may in the future - it's nice to have the option.
My only complaint is that it is a little over overpriced compared to earlier models with similar specs.
Overall, great product.
|
great perf for the $, September 11, 2007
By Woland (New York)
Got two units for modetare load each, udated to open WRT (original firmware fails when emule and bittorrent run together on couple of computers but its expected), with new firmware holds the load, does proper firewalling and NAT.. Useful that is has 32Mbts of ram. also stable wireless transmit-receive :)/ Good buy for the $/
|
Don't waste your money, January 20, 2007
By rodolfodc (FL)
I bought the Linksys WRTSL54GS, and updated it with the latest firmware (2.06), the signal reception is poor, compared to my old WRT54GS router. If you go to a different room, you can see the "Link Quality" and "Signal Strength" indicators to fall to 11 Mbps or less.
In general, don't waste your time and money on this.
|
never EVER works, January 10, 2007
By Krystmas' Used Reading Gallery (Stone Mountain, GA United States)
The wireless setup on this device is like setting up a 8-cylinder car with no tools and blindfolded as a first-time user. All of the other features are clear and to the point. They have great documentation. Phone support seems really sure that the problem is going to start with your computer. Even if you have multiple computers, with multiple operating systems and different hardware. Once they do take you through 3hrs of tech support, they replace it with a refurb that also doesn't work. I went through three of these and was never able to get my wireless to work on a Toshiba laptop, mac mini, powerbook, dell desktop with wireless PCI card, nor iMac G3 with an airport card.
|
Great router for custom Linux solutions, January 4, 2007
By Benjamin McGough (Seattle, WA USA)
This router can be re-flashed with a custom Linux firmware (such as openwrt or dd-wrt) to become a custom Linux device. With the addition in this model of a USB 2.0 port, the possibilities for such a device are greatly expanded. It could easily become a wireless music player, print server, camera server, peripheral sharing device, etc. It also makes a nice firewall/router. This model has increased CPU speed and main memory over the original WRT54G device. The radio in this device, like the other WRT54 routers, is very stong, delivering good coverage for both 802.11b and 802.11g.
|
Works well (with some additional work), November 30, 2006
By bartel115 (Kewaunee, WI USA)
I use this router with four computers, two air port expresses and a USB drive. By upgrading to the latest firmware and re-formatting the drive to NTFS I was able to get the USB harddrive working correctly. The documentation does leave something to be desired, but with some searching the Linksys knowledge base I was able to get things worked out.
|
Best left to the nerds, August 24, 2006
By A. Milne (Brooklyn, NY USA)
I read all the reviews/hype on this router and thought, "ya its for me", but its really not worth the trouble for most folks in my opinion. If you are brave enough to get into the tweeks then go for it, I'm sure its as great as folks say. It found my attached USB drive initially but then things started to get confusing after that. I returned it and picked up another Dlink router (DI-724) and I'll wait to buy another solution to create a networked shared drive.
The wireless signal on this thing did seem to work extremely well for what its worth.
|
Great Linux-powered router with USB storage, August 4, 2006
By Samat Jain (New York, NY USA)
As soon as I received my Linksys WRTSL54GS, I flashed it with the OpenWRT firmware... and my device works great. It's been running for 3 wks now since I've bought it, with no problems. I did not attempt to use Linksys' OEM firmware, which other reviewers have noted is not very good.
I am irked that it is much more expensive than the Linksys WRT54GL, but the extra RAM, flash memory (useful for OpenWRT), and USB port were worth it for me. You're not going to break any speed records with the device's 266 MHz processor, but the ability to access disks over a network without the need of another full-blown computer is extremely convenient.
It has only one antenna, but most real-world tests show that two antennas are not necessarily better, The antenna is unfortunately non-removable, unlike the WRT54GL, so you cannot easily replace it with another.
All in all a great, more versatile WRT54GL alternative.
|
|
|
Storage is Useless & so is Support, June 3, 2006
By PC Pro (San Antonio, TX)
This router seems to route the signal just fine but the storage feature is weak. Whatever I copy to the external storage device has date of 1970 because the router cannot get a "current time" through the router setup page. I have called and emailed Linksys about the problem several times over the past 3 days. They acknowledge the problem and tell me that they are sending a firmware update that is not on their website but for some reason can't seem to send it. I get a bunch of fumbly reasons as to why they can't send it - "our Manila office is working on it, my supervisor is on break"
Wait til they work out the bugs on this.
|
The Time Stamp problem can be fixed!, May 23, 2006
By Roc (Michigan USA)
I had the same problem as one of the other reviewers. The WRTSL54GS could not connect to an NTP server and get a current time, so all of my files on the USB drive would come up with a date of 1969.
If you update the firmware to HYPERWRT 15a (or better), you can then use the RUN COMMAND option in the Administration menu to send a "date -s" command to the device. You can send the time/date by using the following format:
date -s MMDDHHMMYYYY
example: date -s 052310482006 (May 23 2006 10:48am)
This will set the clock, and all your files will be created with the right date/time. This will need to be done every time it loses power, as there is no battery backup on the clock. Since it isn't synchronizing with an NTP, the clock will drift eventually.
The right answer is for a firmware solution to fix the NTP synchronization.
|
Not ready for prime time as a Storage Server too, May 18, 2006
By Bernard Horton (California)
The documentation sucks and so does the tech support. I have wasted nearly 8 hours today trying to get this router to work with a Maxtor USB hard drive. 1st, this router will not allow you to use NTFS format so I had to reformat the hard drive to FAT32. Next, when you go to set up the storage unit and give it a work group name it does not accept names that Windows XP does for example our workgroup is Horton house. The Linksys unit will not accept the space between two words so I could not use the same workgroup name and either had to change every computer or let it be in a different workgroup. Next I spent an hour on hold and then was transferred to four people before they finally could connect me with a tech support person who was trained on this new unit. They confirmed my issues and said they will notify the group who will be putting out the next firmware update. The big issue I tried to resolve was getting the unit to not require a user ID and password to access the drive everytime you boot up a computer on the network. Unfortunately I learned that is the way the unit is designed so you can not map the location as a drive letter and have it always ready to use on a network computer. The 1st time you try to use each you are prompted for a user ID and password. This really finished it off since I could not understand the logic. I can map other computer hard drives for automatic use but not this one hooked up to the router. Then the final kicker I learned after my 2 hours on the phone with support. Every file that gets written on the hard drive had a created date of Dec. 31, 1979 and last accessed date of the same. I copied files to the drive and it would ignore their file creation and access dates and just write Dec. 31, 1979 for every file and folder copied on to the drive. Clearly this router is worthless as a attached storage device at this time and I will pass it on to some one else on Ebay and go back to the old router. No more wasting my time on a new product even if it sounded great. Don't waster your money. I have 20 years of PC experience and am an expert user.
|
Trouble with wireless signal, May 5, 2006
By Steve (Ohio)
I got this router for the usb part and never thought I would have trouble with the wireless signal. I have my notebook in the same room and could not get a full signal out of the router. I went back to my Netgear router and the signal was excellent. Not with the Linksys. It was just good. Went to another room and the signal was very low.
I took the router back.
|
After 3rd firmware load and a beta release - it finally works, April 29, 2006
By JWC (Bay Area, CA)
I must generally agree with others who do not recommend this product. I have been using it for about 2 months and have had a great deal of trouble.
If you understand the concepts of Shared Drives, and how to configure them, you will have no trouble mapping the drives connected to the USB port. I have 3 250 GIG drives and one 2 GB thumb drive connected to the router via a USB hub and mapped. I do not know if this is a supported configuration but it works fine.
The problem has been that the clock on the router will not set. This means that any files written to the drives have a date of January 1, 1970. I have just been sent a beta copy of new firmware from Linksys (my 3rd revision in 2 months). v2.00.6 (Mar 29, 2006) this seems to correct the problem.
Other aspects of the router are working fine. Signal strength is very good with no hang-ups (this was the first firmware upgrade).
Overall, this product has, by no means, been worth the effort.
It is sad what has happened to Linksys. This used to be a great little company with great products and support. Since being purchased by Cisco it has all been down hill.
|
Fabulous piece of networking equipment, March 28, 2006
By E. West (Federal Way, WA USA)
All issue written by others below me have been resolved on the latest firmware update.
I love the fact it has a built-in USB port that also supports a USB hub attachment. It also appears to have USB print support but I am not sure as I have not been able to test that.
I think it works flawlessly (however I did get dropped once after I totally erased and reclaimed a usb thumb drive) and has excellent range. For me I have been 45ft away with two walls floors in between and I still had excellent strength.
The UPNP Media Server and the FTP Access will be a delight once I get a need for them.
There are some things I don't like about the unit. The antenna is not removeable and you can not upgrade to the high dbi antenna. The number of port forwardings and port triggerings are limited.
Other than those few shortcoming, I have been total satisfied with the router. I must admit however, I have been waiting on this type of device from anyone. I just so happens Linksys was the first to make. So, anyone could have produced it and I would be giving them all the praise.
|
problem with sharing files over internet, March 8, 2006
By Joseph Doratan
As of this writing, the feature as advertised in the box is simply not available. Perhaps one would be able to share files over the internet in the next firmware upgrade.
|
Savings are inflated, March 7, 2006
By Michael Cutler
Per CNET, the MSRP is around $129, not $191. $106 w/free shipping is not a bad deal. Overstating savings at 45% is unnecessary and at best, disingenuous.
|
This router DOES NOT let you access your files from the internet, February 19, 2006
By E. Crow (TX United States)
I bought this router for the sole purpose of being able to access the files on my attached USB harddrive remotely, from the internet. Guess what? That feature is not included. Linksys "Tech Support" has been dodging the issue too. What a ripoff. Don't buy this router.
|
Page 1 of Total 1 Pages
|
|
| Copyright 2001-2007 WiFiReview.com |
|