"... the most outstanding SOHO [Small Office/Home Office] product I've seen lately. The price/feature combination is beyond comparison. You can manage this 20Gig Network Drive with NT Server like features, and it can also serve as a dedicated print server or DHCP server. It will even send you e-mails to let you know how it's doing!"

While this unit is beyond the reach of many home users, nothing can compare to it's price/feature combination and usefulness in a SOHO environment. This unit can bring a lot of features and flexibility to your network. Besides being an easy to install network drive, it can also act as a Print Server and/or DHCP server.

The GigaDrive is very small and lightweight. You can move this unit around with you very easily (all you need is a network connection wherever you go). All of it's features (Storage, Print Server, DHCP Sever), can be used to take some of the burden away from other: Servers, File Servers, and Print Servers. The GigaDrive also supports Apple, and can be used by UNIX (through SAMBA). So, it can exist and function on a very mixed network.

As you'll see later, this unit is actually a minicomputer. It uses and Intel Pentium(I) processor and runs Linux Redhat as an OS to provide the File/Print/DHCP services.

Let's start off by taking a look at the listed features and specifications.

Linksys Listed Features:

• Provides 20 Instant Gigabytes of External Hard Disk Space Built-in PrintServer
• Gives Your Network One Extra Location to Attach a Fully Shareable Printer
• Web-based Configuration and Diagnostic Interface is Accessible from Any PC on the Network
• Can Act as a Stand-Alone DHCP Server.
• Divert Traffic from Your Primary Server to Increase Network Productivity
• Includes Utility Program for Easy Setup
• Built-in Pentium-Grade CPU
• Self-tuning and Self-repairing
• Fully Configurable Administration Features
• Free Technical Support

Some Features Linksys forgot to mention:

• Can send out status e-mails about it's condition to three e-mail addresses (even over the internet)
• Switch on the rear for selecting network cable type (straight through or crossover - very handy)
• Gigadrive can be access from the Internet as long as public IP is provided to it.
• Redhat Linux OS is very stable and can run for years without needing a reboot
• Unix machines can communicate with the Gigadrive through SAMBA
• Handy status LEDs on the front of the unit that will show you how 'full' the unit is at a glance
• NT Server 'like' administration of: Users, Groups, and Quotas
• Makes almost no noise

Specifications:

• 2-Year Warranty Model Number : EFG20
• Standards : IEEE 802.3, IEEE802.3u
• Protocols : TCP/IP, AppleShare**, SMB
• Network Port : 1 Auto-Sensing Dual Speed RJ-45 Port
• Printer Port : 1 DB 25 standard parallel port
• Speed : 10/100Mbps
• Cabling Type : 10BaseT: CAT 3 or 5 UTP 100BaseTX: Cat 5 UTP
• Topology : Star LED
• Indicators : Rear: 10 and 100Mbps Mode Front: IP, HD, LAN, Status, System & HD usage (10%-100%)
• Switches : Power, Reset, Uplink
  **The GigaDrive works with AppleShare but Linksys does not offer Technical Support for this feature.

Contents

• The Unit
• A 33 Page Manual
• An AC Power Adapter
• An AC Power Cord
• An installation/setup wizard CD-ROM
• A floppy for NT4 that labeled "Utility Program for Windows 4.0 Workstation"
• A 6' Cat-5 Ethernet connector with RJ-45 connectors (non-crossover)
• Two plastic clips. The manual doesn't mention it but, I assume they are for securing multiple GigaDrives when stacking them.
• A warranty card
• An ad from Linksys

What I would have like to have seen:

• A small 'quick setup' guide
• A more detailed and informative manual

Inside The Case:

Hey - didn't Cyrix go bankrupt?

The Hard Drive

All the parts are laid out so, lets move on to the Basic Setup.

I had never installed a network drive like this one before. So, I spent about 3 minutes browsing through the basic setup section of the manual. The manual is: 33 pages long, clearly written, and well formatted. I would have liked to have seen a more detailed manual with a much bigger troubleshooting section though.

I learned the GigaDrive's configuration is performed through a special (explorer style) utility that is included on the installation CD (which is a multi-OS CD). Part of the functionality of this utility, is control over multiple GigaDrive's (if you have more than one, or, are planning to buy more than one). I already noticed the unit was designed to be very 'stackable'. The 'feet' have rounded bottoms that fit into indentations on the top of the unit. If you're planning on supporting multiple network drives:  buying multiple units of this module would pay off in several ways (i.e. having a single control interface and the ability to stack them neatly). It's nice to know that Linksys planned for this possibility in both their software, and case design.

Here's how the 'Basic Setup' went:

• Unpacked the unit and it's components from the box
• Plugged in the power and network connections ( I connected the unit into a port on a local HUB with the provided cable).
• Turned the unit on (rocker switch located on the back of the unit)
• It took about 30 seconds for the unit to finish it's boot up sequence and self check.

Placed the Install CD into one of my systems and began to install the configuration software. I just clicked on the "Install Software" button and made a couple of simple choices (like what directory to install to).

When I started the program, it immediately found the test unit and continued to search for other Instant GigaDrive's for about a minute.

After the network scan was complete the Utility listed all of the relevant details of the drive (it highlighted the single test unit I had by default)

I clicked on the 'Quick Setup' icon (the first icon on the left), to configure the drive. A simple menu came up with all the normal networking properties (and a few extra settings).

• The unit can take a static IP (default is 198.162.0.2)
• The unit can look for a DHCP provided IP from a server
• The unit can act as a DHCP server
• The unit's name can be change (I called mine "BUBBA")
• The workgroup can changed
• A comment can be added (shows up under 'detailed' view in Explorer)
• An AppleTalk 'Zone' can be selected
• You can set the date and time

NOTE: It is very important that you remember to set the date and time. If this is not set correctly any files that get moved to the drive or created on it will have invalid time/date stamps. This can cause version conflicts on software, and general confusion. (The time date on my unit was wrong when I first turned it on).

After the changes were made I waited about 30 seconds as it reconfigured the drive.

All the changes are done - no problems

After a small delay, the unit to showed up under Network Network Neighborhood (My Network Places for the Windows2K users out there).

The Public folder is open to anyone (read/write) by default. I'm not for sure why it listed a network printer already (when I didn't have one connected or configured). Perhaps it's setup by default to share it's printer port. The other folder listed is an 'admin only' folder.

Time To Install and Complete Basic Setup: ~30 Minutes

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to test the Instant GigaDrive against a network shared SCSI drive or RAID Array. However, the benchmarks against other IDE Drives are very impressive. There was a fair amount of consistency between the results of the two separate benchmark utilities. The unit appears to be much faster than a shared drive of the same drive type when downloading from it. However, uploading to the drive appeared somewhat slower. What really confused me is the fact that the drive seemed to perform much better during tests when other systems where placing large loads upon it. My only theory for explaining this is that multiple loads on the unit prevent it from spinning down. I'm only guessing though.

The first thing I did was to test latency from the systems on my home LAN. In each case the pings received were the best possible times. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to explain this. If you receive a ping time of between .1 and 1ms, the Microsoft ping tool will list the time as <10ms. It makes no sense whatsoever, but that's the way they wrote the tool (It should say =<1.0Ms). If you look at the bottom of the ping test results you will see the Minimum, Maximum and Average ping times are listed as "0ms", which is also an inaccurate representation. To sum up after this mess: The Instant GigaDrive received the best possible results from the Microsoft Ping Tool test.

SiSoft Sandra Network Drive Benchmark:

Linksys Instant GigaDrive

Shared 7400 ATA/66 Drive

Shared 5400 ATA/33 Drive

As you can see, the GigaDrive performed MUCH faster at 'read' tests than similar shared PC drives. However, it was considerably slower at write tests (writes to it). I'm very happy with the results. Networks drives are normally downloaded from much more than they are uploaded to.

DU Meter Tests:

Linksys Instant Drive upload

Linksys Instant Drive download

Again, the GigaDrive does much faster when files are downloaded from it compared similar shared PC drives. However, it also was once again slower when files were uploaded to it (not by much though).

Multiple Access Test:

No Network Traffic - upload

No Network Traffic - download

Two PC's uploading while the test was running

Two PC's downloading while the test was running

DU Meter Results Breakdown:

I have to say I'm somehow confused by the results. The Instant GigaDrive seems to perform better when three systems are using it at the same time. Considering that normal network transfer rates are much slower than even the slowest hard drive, the increased usage may have kept the RPM level up on the drive and provided better performance. I'd have to say that you should take this with a grain of salt. I ran this test three times and received the same results. But, I have no idea if this is an accurate representation, or how to explain why the results appear as they do.

I do like the testing results that I've seen. In my experience downloads from a network drive are much more frequent than uploads, and this unit performed much better at file downloads than similar Hard Drives shared in local PC's.

Let's move on and take a look at how this unit can also be used as a Print Server.

This unit can also act as a Print Server. Although this is part of the Advanced Features covered in the review, I thought it deserved a little special attention.

I changed the printer name here and left everything else alone. For IBM PC's, you only have to enter whatever name you desire, and then install the proper print drivers on the Systems that you wish to use the shared printer.

Once the Instant GigaDrive had rebooted I used the Windows 'Add Printer' tool to located and add the printer that was now connected to the Instant GigaDrive. This required installing (on the client system) the appropriate print drivers.

--- Editorial: HP Rant---

Through no fault of Linksys I really got stuck at this point. Why? Because of our good friends over at Hewlett Packard!

Let me point out that I'm no stranger to solving Hardware problems. I worked in an Intel processor/chipset validation lab where I built server/workstation system from scratch for testing (sometimes with new/beta hardware peripherals - like SCSI controllers, etc.). Basically, I use to beat my head against the wall for a living. This one took me an hour and a half to figure out! (...Maybe I was stupid and missed something - it happens).

Until I got creative, I could not instal the printer. When you install a network printer, you must either choose the printer from the Windows drivers list (which is rather small), or provide a driver disk supplied by the manufacturer. The 820Cse printer that I was using to test with did not have a Windows 9x driver (supplied by Microsoft). The only option I had was to use the manufacturer supplied drives. Our thoughtful friends over at HP decided to make their drivers installable ONLY through their Setup.exe file. Windows could not use the driver *.inf file or the Setup.exe file to instal the printer. But, our HP friends were not done making my life miserable! To make sure I could not instal the printer through a network, they placed the final nail in the coffin: Setup.exe ONLY looks for the printer on the local LPT ports! There is no option whatsoever to look for the printer on a network.

After about an hour and a half of playing around on HP's website I could find no answers. I really can't believe that HP didn't cover this issue (shame shame!). I was about to give up when I noticed there was a specific Windows 95 driver file that was fairly old, and had been created as a 'slim' driver for 'hardware weak' Windows 95 systems. I downloaded it to see if it would help out and, to my delight, this particular driver would instal on it's own without the use of a Setup.exe file. I'd like to thank the good HP driver engineers for wasting an hour and a half of my life (and raising my blood pressure).

--- End Editorial ---

If I had not had driver problems, the installation of a Instant GigaDrive supported network printer would have only taken 5 minutes. I had no issues using the printer through the Instant GigaDrive. It performed as well as if it had been connected directly. I was even able to perform maintenance tasks through the drivers maintenance utility (such as print head cleaning and head alignment). Even while transferring large files to the driver, the printer responded quickly when documents were sent to it.

The printer support works flawlessly. Let's move on and take look at the Advanced Features, and Administrative control.

This is a basic overview of the Administrator Configuration Utility and Advanced Features of the unit. I ended up with screenshots of most major Administration sections with comments and explanations.

Administration / Advanced Features:

To enter the Administrator Utility, you can either type in the direct URL, or click on the Advanced Configuration icon in the Instant GigaDrive Utility. Immediately, a password window will appear. There's no default password (something I didn't like). You only have to type 'admin' into the User Name cell and click 'OK'.

After entering a correct user name and password, key information on the drive is displayed. You also have the option to change to other Instant GigaDrive's by means of a drop down box that contains a list of all the Instant GigaDrive's drives on your network.

When the 'Administration' button is pressed, an index of the Advanced Configuration will appear.

CONFIGURATION GROUP
Network Section:

You can choose between a static, or dynamically assigned IP. The gateway setting will be necessary for any outbound e-mail alerts sent by the unit.

If you want the unit to act as a DHCP server for your network, this is where you would turn on the DHCP service. The unit can provide DHCP IP addresses to 253 clients.

Under the Microsoft Tab you can turn Microsoft networking support off. Some businesses use a few Apple machines for specialized work. This could be useful to isolate the unit only to Apple systems.

System Section:

Under the General tab, you can: Change the units name, change the comment (appears under 'detailed' view of Network Neighborhood), and change the date and time. As I said earlier, it is VERY important that the date and time be correct.

This is an excellent feature to include. E-mail alerts about the units status can be sent out. You can have the unit send out alerts to three separate e-mail accounts. If you are a network administrator, you could use this to send out alerts to your home and work addresses.

SYSTEM MANAGEMENT GROUP
Groups Section:

This is where you manage groups. You could make it so only people in Accounting have access to the Payroll folder, etc. It works the same way as controlling individual users. You can specify which files a group can access, and how much room they can use on the drive.

Here's an example of the built in help file in action

This screen allows you to manage the Shares which exist on the Instant GigaDrive. A "Share" is a folder (directory) on the Instant GigaDrive which a User Group can access. Only the Instant GigaDrive Administrator can create Shares. However, within a Share, users who have access to that Share can create other folders (directories) as well as files. A Share can only be accessed by 1 User Group, but a User Group can access many Shares. If a folder within a Share is also a Share, then all users with access to the outer share will ALWAYS have the same access to the inner share.

This following windows allow you to manage the Users who exist on the Instant GigaDrive. You can add, delete and modify users. You can give them 'shares' or rights to certain folders and even specify how much space they can use on the drive

- Final Thoughts -

The Linksys Instant GigaDrive is the most outstanding SOHO [Small Office/Home Office] product I've seen lately. The price/feature combination is beyond comparison. You can manage this Network Drive with NT Server like features, and it can also serve as a dedicated print server or DHCP server. It will even send you e-mail's to let you know how it's doing!

- Suggestions For Linksys -

• Only TCP/IP protocol is supported. NetBUI support would provide much better performance from the unit
• Considering this is designed to be a shared drive and the unit is basically a 'mini' computer, there are many features that could be added. (Such as) Many businesses share dynamic documents internally, such as phone number lists and reports. This unit could maintain an e-mail list associated to the users and groups that have access to it. It could easily be made to send out e-mail notifications if a document or file has been modified. This would be a very useful feature.
• I'd really like to see a more detailed manual and help file.
• There's a lithium battery inside the unit to maitain it's BIOS settings and (more importantly) time stamp. Eventually someone may need to replace one of these and there's no included information about how to open the drive or replace the battery. (They last about 5 years though - I know)

-Good vs. Bad-

About the Authors:
McDougall: Yada Yada Yada - I like long walks in the park and evenings alone by the fire with my computer :) I just started working on a review of a UMAX Router (that's next). It's very similar to the Linksys Router but has a nifty little feature that allows Internet DNS 'forwarding' to a system inside your LAN. You could run "Bubba.com" from an internal system on your LAN without it being connected to a public IP. I'll have that up on Speedguide within two weeks of the completion of this review. Thanks for visiting Speedguide!

Rating
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Customer Phone Support:
Web Based Support:
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