Brian's Brain

Ever since I decided to retire my first-generation Buffalo TeraStation NAS a bit over a week ago, I've been exercising its Linksys NAS200 enclosure successor, populated with two Western Digital Caviar 750 GByte 7,200 RPM SATA HDDs in a RAID 1 configuration. Out of box, running the factory-released firmware v62, it's got plenty of quirks (including, as far as I can tell, unusable media server and email alert capabilities) but is still an acceptable solution if you're looking for basic, inexpensive, compact network storage.

I've been running the beta v71 firmware, which is quirky as well (it's beta, don'cha know) but addresses many of the v62 shortcomings. And, as I've been in regular feedback communication with my technical and other contacts at Cisco/Linkys, I've felt increasingly assured that the box's remaining hiccups (to the extent they can be comprehended by the NAS's humble hardware capabilities, that is) will be addressed in the next 'gold' firmware release.

I therefore feel comfortable recommending the NAS200 to any of you who don't have blazing fast write performance requirements (for which the ReadyNAS, for example, would probably be more appropriate, albeit at a substantial price uptick). Stay tuned for a more indepth NAS200 review to come in the next day-to-few, but for now consider taking advantage of the $114.99-with-free-shipping deal at Newegg that both Dealnews and Techbargains just alerted me to, before it expires. Granted, thought, I have seen the NAS200 selling for an even lower price in the recent past, so if you're a gamblin' man (or woman)....