Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #139011 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Linksys
• Model: NMH305-EU
• Released on: 2009-02-02
• Dimensions: 2.20 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
Linksys by Cisco Media Hub--Home Entertainment Storage--Includes One 500 GB Hard Drive (Model NMH305 EU)
With the revolutionary new Linksys by Cisco Media Hub you can access and stream your digital music, photos, and videos throughout your home. Much more than a mere hard drive, it’s an intelligent storage and file server device that’s designed to aggregate media from your PCs and other storage devices. Includes two hard drive bays. With the Linksys by Cisco Media Hub it’s easy to view and listen to your digital memories on any PC, laptop, or TV (with a UPnP compatible media player) in the house. The Media Hub consolidates songs from the same album but stored on different PCs into one virtual album. And when you’re traveling or away from home, you or your family and friends can remotely access your media from anywhere in the world through an available Internet connection. Now you can upload and instantly share your digital photos or listen to your entire music library right from the Internet without lugging around a hard drive. Remote access is available free from Cisco for the first 12 months after you sign up (thereafter fees may apply). Linksys by Cisco Media Hubs also include automatic backup software so you can save your treasured photos, music, and videos in one device should your computers ever crash or are stolen. Media Hubs have also been engineered to be automatically recognized and accessed by Linksys by Cisco Wireless Home Audio components, so you can get your digital music off of your PCs and playing throughout your home.   

Introducing Linksys by Cisco Media Hubs
You love your media, so treat it well. The Media Hub makes it easy to organize, access, and share your digital video, photos, and music--around your home and around the world. With massive capacity, intelligent aggregation, and media-optimized sharing and file-serving capabilities, it’s an ideal way to manage your material, enjoy your entertainment, and share your memories. Show your media how much you love it--give it a Hub. 


Store Your Treasured Files
Find It, Store It, Access It.
The Linksys by Cisco Media Hub finds your files where they live on your home network. Got three songs on your laptop and the rest on another computer? It’ll find them and organize them by artist and album. Same for your photos, movies, and documents. So your files are accessible and orderly, in one place, whether you’re at home or on the road. 



Share With Family & Friends
Web Access--It’s a digital photographer’s dream. If you shoot a lot of photos and have had issues emailing them, then the Media Hub offers you a better way. Thanks to our remote access hosted by Cisco, you can give out your Media Hub’s Web address so friends and family can view your photos in the same place. 

Remote Streaming and Downloads
Music fans know that their favorite songs are more enjoyable when they’re accessible. Imagine if you could set the mood anywhere you go with just the right track or DJ a party without bringing a thing. Movie buffs and home videographers can also upload and download wherever they go. So no one has to miss those first steps.  

Now Playing: 3 HD Streams at Once
Play your media around your house. The Media Hub is capable of streaming three simultaneous high-definition video streams. So you can have a dance party in the living room, a photo slideshow in the family room, and movies for the little guys in the basement.

Automatic or On-Demand Backup 
Photos, home movies, and precious documents are irreplaceable. But they’ll be safer and more secure with timed automatic backup. The files in the folders you choose can be automatically copied to the Media Hub on a recurring basis. So you never have  to think about backing them up again. 

Expandability 
You’ve got options. Use your own hard drive, or choose one of ours. Media Hub models are available with hard drives and there’s an extra drive bay so you can add another hard drive. Depending on your hard drive configuration, you can have room enough to fill your Media Hub with hundreds of thousands of photos or music files, and hundreds  of hours of movies.

How Does Streaming Work? 
The Media Hub plugs into your wireless router and then streams your files:  

The Media Hub's software interface makes it easy to view and play your photos, music, and movies right.

If you have a PlaySation3, XBOX 360, or other media extender/DMA, you can stream movies and slideshows from the Media Hub to your TV.

UPnP-enabled wireless music bridges or receivers, including Linksys by Ciso Wireless Home Audio systems, can play digital music stored on your Media Hub on any PC on your home network. You don't even need a live Internet connections

Customer Reviews

Unreliable, nasty interface
The one most important thing you want with a device like this is the knowledge that it will work and carry on working. I work in IT and decided that I wanted a NAS solution for home, did some research and eventually decided that maybe this would fit the bill. Setup was easy, transfering my files was easy as well but if you strip back the very colourful interface with all the nice large buttons and graphics it is actually a simple storage unit.

I even got as far as setting up my online access which is actually a URL controlled by the Cisco website, very good idea. Then, it all went wrong. I updated the firmware and that was it, the unit HD light just flashed, woke up next morning, contacted their online people via the website (very very good Customer services by the way) and they confirmed the unit was dead.

Now ordinarily that wouldn't be an issue but would you actually return this to be repaired? What would happen if the same thing happened 6 months down the line when you had everything on there? You would be gutted!!!! You just don't want a gadget like this being unreliable do you?

So, my experience was bad because of the unreliability, maybe I was "very" unlucky, if it had been reliable I would have said in this review that this unit was perfect for a home user, someone who doesn't really get IT, it's easy to setup, it's even very easy to access remotely but you cannot forgive a unit like this not being bullet proof, that's why you bought it and paid the extra for the name didn't you?

Easy to Setup, Simple to Use
For some the notion of setting up a streaming media hub can be more than onerous and fears are likely to put many people off even trying. It's fortunate then, that Cisco have opted for the child's play approach and provided clear step by step instructions to make the job almost foolproof. The setup disk gets you off to a flying start and even gives you the option to backup your media files so you don't have to worry about tedious dragging and dropping of hundreds of files and folders.

The hub is a fair size, feels quite robust, and once it boots up seems to run almost silently. The web based interface is responsive, easy to navigate too and despite the in-box warning of compatibility issues between Windows Media Files and Firefox, I've had no real issues playing anything back. If you'd rather not use the web interface, it's just as easy to setup a desktop drive icon so you can browse the storage space like a regular hard drive. Another bonus of this device is the capacity for you to expand the storage space by slotting in an additional hard drive to make room for more data when space starts to get a little tight in the future.

Being able to remotely access files is also very useful, and while it may work well in your own home, you may find streaming is impaired by the lower bandwidth you normally find in other public wireless environments such as hotels or airports.

All in all, a good home NAS solution.

Limited use for me
Easy to set up and seems to be running fine. I had no problems with installation and no problems so far in doing what it's supposed to do as far as retrieving files is concerned.

Unfortunately for me at the moment I'm unable to use the full features, like the streaming, but hopefully I'll be able to try it at some point in the future.

Being able to store and access your files online is a great idea, but as I won't be paying for it after the first year, I fear I'll be left with a rather expensive 500gb external hard drive. But still, as long as it keeps working...