8 out of 10 - Excellent Great Upgrade for an Aging Home Network - Get Ready for 802.11N and UPnP
The WRT600N is by far the nicest router I have used for my home. I have a very fast internet ...
The WRT600N is by far the nicest router I have used for my home. I have a very fast internet connection at home from my local cable company (30Mbps). I noticed that I was only getting 8-10Mbps on almost all speed tests. I did a little troubleshooting and found that my bottleneck was my old router! Once I purchased the WRT600N I found that I was now getting at least 20-25 Mbps. What a difference with newer router technology. I found it amazing that my internet connection was actually faster than my home network speed. Another reason for my purchase is that I wanted to upgrade the encryption technology from WEP to WPA-2. There are many features on this router and like linksys says, "It's like four devices in one".
First off the two radios are a cool feature. The 5Ghz radio is for 802.11a and N only. The second radio 2.4Ghz is for 802.11b,g and N only. So unless you are using N or have been using a, it really is only good for one radio. I disabled the 5Ghz radio b/c I am not using N - not yet anyway - and I've never had a device with 802.11a, due to the lack of backward compatibility. Once day when all my future devices use N technology, it will be cool to have two radios, but for now, I only use one. So now I have a very nice 802.11b/g router. Once I get the N cards, I'm certain to get better speed.
As for the GigaBit networking, it's FAST. I'm very pleased with this. Also I tried hooking up a USB2 external hard drive to the data port. Let's just say it's not a very simple thing to set up. I've set up several FTP servers that were easier. The WRT600N tries to protect your drive by creating a new folder which is used for sharing, which is good but it does not allow you to share the existing folders without some tweaking. It does allow you to open the drive up in three ways: 1. FTP Server for outside access, 2. Shared Drive for local network access and 3. UPnP for shared media devices. The configuration is a little funky and it will frustrate you before you get it all working the way you want. I got confused quickly with the multiple pre-configured users and pre-configured groups, which were very generic. I was a bit security conscious about allowing 'guest' access on the FTP site, but that was the only way I could get it to work out of the box. There were some other security issues when connecting via shared folders in windows. XP remembered the username/login that I tried initially, then I couldn't figure out how to re-login with a different username and password. For the easiest setup you may want to connect a blank drive to it and then populate the folders once you get it connected. Right now mine is disconnected because I found it easier and more secure to just leave the external drive connected to one of the PC's on my home network and then share it locally. This has turned into another project - added to my list. Can you sense the frustration? I know it can be configured to work properly, but I'm averse to just leaving it on so I can try it from the office later. There's another cool feature which allows remote access to the admin screens via the internet even if you are not connected to the wifi network nor plugged into the ethernet ports. This scares me a bit for security reasons, so I leave it disabled - did I just say it was a cool feature? Hmmm, let me re-think that.
Out of the box, the networking configuration was easy. Setting up the WPA-2 security was a snap. The security features have blown my mind. There's corporate and enterprise level security features that I'm sure I will never use but it's good to know they are there.
The range is better than I am used to. I have the router in my basement and I can easily use it on the 2nd floor of my house.
To summarize, I did pay full price for it but I'm a believer in you get what you pay for. This is definitely the BMW of routers today so I'm willing to fork over the cash to stay ahead of Moore's Law. But I know it will be obsolete one day like the 802.11b router it has replaced. If I have to replace my router once every 5 years, that's not too bad in my opinion. I have no buyer's remorse and I will happily endorse someone who is considering this device. Just be prepared for a little frustration with the administration settings for the shared drive.
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by p5surf (see profile) -
December 10, 2007
10 out of 10 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 out of 10 - Spectacular The Linksys WRT600N is a Winner
This is my second Linksys router. I bought this router to take advantage of my Wireless N Card installed in ...
This is my second Linksys router. I bought this router to take advantage of my Wireless N Card installed in my Dell XPS M1330 notebook. Thus far I have no complaints. Setup was straight forward using the enclosed CD which is a marked improvement over other Linksys Install Wizards I?ve used. I really like the Linksys Easy Link Advisor that gives you information about your network and devices connected with their IP address.
I?m running my notebook on the 5 GHz radio and my Buffalo LinkStation, PlayStation 3, HP L76880 AIO printer and iPod Touch on the 2.4 GHz radio. I have an average raw speed of 189 Mbps (low 108 Mbps ? High 270 Mbps).
To take advantage of the Wireless N capabilities you must use WPA2 security otherwise your speed will only register at 54 Mbps. Unfortunately, the setup CD only gives you the option to use WPA security which is odd. You have to logon to the router?s IP address and select WPA2 security.
Linksys claims that the router will be upgradeable should the Wireless N standard change. That makes the $249 to $279 asking price a little easier to justify. I looked at the Belkin N1 Vision ($179) but decided against it because it did not offer dual radios.
I highly recommend you consider this router if you want to start using 802.11n.
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by ajtrek (see profile) -
March 2, 2008
3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
7 out of 10 - Very good Great for WiFi but the Storage Link is GARBAGE
I bought this unit and the DIR-655 for Comparison and to keep 1. The Linksys was a better out of ...
I bought this unit and the DIR-655 for Comparison and to keep 1. The Linksys was a better out of the box experience in getting to 270 Mbps than the Dlink. Unfortunately for me I bought it because it has the storage link technology and I want to be able to stream movies from my camera and edit them all wireless from a remote network storage device. Imagine my dissapointment when the realized speeds from the Storage linke were 3 to 5 times slower than connecting the same device to another wired computer on the router and sharing it out. That was after formatting to NTFS as well. Fat32 was almost 10 times slower!!! I do not see how Linksys thinks it can market the Storage Link as anything resembling a streaming Connection with those kind of results.
Linksys, Next time DELIVER on your promises instead of just going through the motions.
As a WiFi unit this is great but why spend the extra $$$ on it when others do the job better since the only real added benefit isn't a benefit at all???
I give it a 7 because the WiFi part does work quite nicely so as long as you don't need storage link you can't go wrong on the WiFi side.
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by David Pop (see profile) -
April 10, 2008
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
4 out of 10 - Mediocre Storage-Link is unreliable
As a router only, this performs well. I bought this thinking it would be a snap to setup a NAS ...
As a router only, this performs well. I bought this thinking it would be a snap to setup a NAS using the Storage-Link. Wrong-o! Once or a twice a week I have to unplug my USB drive, reset the router and re-map the USB drives to both of my laptops again. It is very frustrating. This device is going back to the store.
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by joshespdx (see profile) -
July 21, 2008
5 out of 10 - Average Great router, Storage Link doesn't work.
The setup was pretty smooth, although the documentation is unclear in a couple of places. If I hadn't had ...
The setup was pretty smooth, although the documentation is unclear in a couple of places. If I hadn't had some clue I'd of never figured it out.
Storage Link is broken, no other way to put it. It corrupts files, it "loses" its connection to the attached hard drive, and it won't work with some partition formats.
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by mobandit (see profile) -
June 24, 2008
4 x Network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T - RJ-45,
1 x Network - Radio-Ethernet,
1 x Network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T - RJ-45 ( WAN ),
1 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 pin USB Type A
Port(s) Total (Free) / Connector Type
1 Network Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T:RJ-45,
1 Network Radio-Ethernet:,
1 Hi-Speed USB 4 pin USB Type A,
4 Network Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T:RJ-45
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