Product Description

Netgear FVX538 Prosafe VPN Firewall 200 w/ 8 Port 10/100 Switch

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32283 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: NetGear
• Model: FVX538
• Released on: 2005-05-13
• Dimensions: 4.33" h x 9.84" w x 17.32" l, 4.41 pounds

Features

• 8 10/100 ports and 1 Gigabit LAN port to share y
• One console port for local management 200 simult
• Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) Support
• Quality of Service (QoS) traffic prioritization
• Hardware DMZ

Manufacturer's Description
The FVX538 ProSafe" VPN Firewall 200 offers a complete security solution for small and medium sized organisations. This rack-mountable, Firewall is equipped with support for up to 200 VPN tunnels to offer private, secure connectivity to the office from remote branch offices and mobile workers. The FVX538 can serve as a DHCP Server, supports Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Quality of Service (QoS) and has a powerful SPI Firewall to protect your network's PCs against intruders and most common Internet attacks

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

VPN client software crashes machine (blue screen) continuously (avoid)
If like me you are looking to enable VPN access to a home network from work, then avoid this router. The setup was quite straightforward (although email logging didn't work until I upgraded the firmware to version 2.0). I installed the VPN client software and the next day the machine (with the VPN software) went into a cycle of continuously crashing, until I disabled the wireless (I also have the Cisco VPN client installed for work). With the wireless disabled and the machine stable I tried to backup my machine to my buffalo NAS drive through wired network. This again caused my machine to crash. I then uninstalled the Netgear VPN client and the machine is now stable with the wireless working. This situation is unacceptable and from searching on google, other people have come across the same issue. I am therefore returning this router (along with a couple other pieces of netgear kit that formed part of my system). For a supposedly 'business class' piece of equipment this is very disappointing.

Good, when it works...
I bought this item to replace our existing VPN unit for our head office. We already extensively use Netgear equiptment throughout our network and I have been impressed by everything else I have used. I thought this would be a good choice, I'm still not 100% sure yet though. We had to replace the first one we bought because it kept falling over randomly and it was totally unresponsive on the network, this was happening every 3 hours or so. The replacement arrived and it is more stable but it's still fallen over a few times for no apparent reason. It works fine for a few hours and then gives up the ghost, that said it's been running for a couple of days now without having fallen over (touch wood).

In terms of setting it up it is very easy, if you're familiar with other Netgear units then it's a doddle. The interface is easy to use and is quite strightforward. There are lots of helpful features on it and it's quite capable of being the head of the network (we have 15 sites that are connected through it).

Only slight problem is that it doesn't seem to want to talk to the Netgear 318 version 3's, the older 318s are fine but not the most recent ones. Not sure why, and Netgears tech support are a bit pants and keep telling you to turn ut off and back on again, which isn't really viable when it's running a network.

Like I say a good box when it works, but I'm still treating it with kid gloves as I'm worried it might just randomly fall over again, perhaps I've just been unlucky though.