This Linksys Wireless-N Router with Storage link provides you with a Wireless Access Point (WAP) that lets you connect to the network without wires, and a built-in, four-port, full-duplex 10/100/1000 switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together at up to one-gigabit speeds. A built-in router function ties everything together and lets your whole network share a high-speed cable or DSL Internet connection, while a Storage Link feature lets you easily add gigabytes of storage space onto your network using readily available USB 2.0 hard drives, or plug in a USB flash disk for a convenient means of accessing your portable data files. There is also a built-in Media Server that streams music, video, and photos from an attached storage device to any UPnP compatible media adapter, allowing you to get your files from anywhere in the world via the Internet.
The Access Point built into this router uses the very latest in wireless networking technology -- Wireless-N (draft 802.11n). By overlaying the signals of multiple radios, Wireless-N's Multiple-In, Multiple-Out (MIMO) technology multiplies the effective data rate. Whereas ordinary wireless technologies are confused by signal reflections, MIMO actually makes use of these reflections to increase the range while reducing dead spots in the coverage area. This means the signal travels farther, maintaining wireless connections at up to three times the distance of standard Wireless-G, so the farther away you are, the more speed advantage you get. This Wireless-N router is fully backward compatible, so it works great with standard Wireless-G and -B devices, but when both ends of the wireless link are Wireless-N enabled, the router can increase the throughput even more by using twice as much radio band. This allows speeds up to 15 times that of standard Wireless-G. As a further convenience, unlike other speed-enhanced technologies, Wireless-N can dynamically enable this double-speed mode for Wireless-N devices, while still connecting to other wireless devices at their respective fastest speeds. For especially congested areas, there is a good neighbor mode that makes sure the router checks for other wireless devices in the area before gobbling up all the available radio band.
To help protect your data and privacy, this router can encode all its wireless transmissions with iron-clad, 256-bit Wireless Protected Access (WPA2) encryption. This unit can also serve as your network's DHCP server, includes a powerful SPI firewall to protect your all your PCs against intruders and most known Internet attacks, and supports VPN (Virtual Private Network) pass-through for the ultimate in network security. Despite all its features and functionality, configuration is simple and easy, thanks to the included web browser-based configuration utility. The incredible speed of Wireless-N and gigabit-wired networking is ideal for media-centric applications like streaming video, gaming, and voice-over-IP telephony, and gives you plenty of headroom to run multiple media-intense data streams through the network at the same time, without worrying about a degradation in performance.
This Linksys router features four Ethernet ports with numbered LEDs that indicate device connection and activity, LEDs indicating power, Internet activity, wireless activity, and security, as well as a top-panel button that is reserved for future functionality. There are ports for power, Internet, and Ethernet (four), a reset and security button, and three antennas. This unit uses CAT 5 cabling, and allows WEP, PSK, PSK2, and Radius security features, as well as 64 and 128 WEP key bits. The Linksys WRT350N is FCC, CE, and IC-03 certified, runs on 12-volts via an included adapter, measures approximately 1.57 x 6.93 x 7.4 inches (WxDxH), and is backed by a manufacturer's limited three-year warranty.
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99 of 106 people found the following review helpful: By Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?) This review is from: Cisco-Linksys WRT350N Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link (Personal Computers) Customer Video Review Length:: 3:44 Mins 41 of 45 people found the following review helpful: By This review is from: Cisco-Linksys WRT350N Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link (Personal Computers) I do like my new router, but was disappointed, especially after 3 days of working with my backup software and many chats with about 6 company tech support folks to discover the following:
The firmware does not support full access to the USB-attached drive. Sure, you can map the drive and write to it and read from it, but you don't have the level of access necessary to adjust the attributes of the files. (For example, you can't unset the modified attribute and the file timestamp you get when you xcopy the file will always be the current time, not the original timestamp of the file. This renders many backup solutions useless. (A senior tech at the company finally explained -- after many hours going 'round and 'round with 3 different firmware replacements -- that this is a known "product limitation" and she pointed me to the NSLU2. 27 of 29 people found the following review helpful: This review is from: Cisco-Linksys WRT350N Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link (Personal Computers) I have only had this for a week or so, so I am still playing around with the settings to get the best performance. A couple of things that you should know, however:
The range is advertised as 4 times the G routers. Not true. It might be slightly better, but not much. The throughput with a good to excellent signal will be much higher than a G system, 270 mbps versus 54. But, with a low signal, this drops off quickly. And the signal will be low in pretty much the same places as the G router. This router does not like older G adapters. It is supposed to be backward compatible, but the range of my other laptop, with a linksys G card, is probably 1/3 to 1/4 of what it was with a G router. More than 30 feet away and it is not usable. I find this odd. Setting up the network drive is a bitch. The instructions cover about half of what you need to know. I spent more than an hour talking to customer support. I hung in that long hoping to get...Read more |