I would like to share my experiences with this device and I would strongly DISCOURAGE ANYONE who might be contemplating the idea of purchasing this product ! It a very, very BAD product which has been released to the market at a stage where it should have stayed in the labs for another 2 years ... Read review
Netgear Storage Central Device TurboEasy-to-use expandable network storage for sharing and ... more
safeguarding your valuable data Add any capacity SATA drives (up to 2, sold separately) High-performance gigabit Ethernet enables faster file storage and access.-
Postage & Packaging:£4.00 Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Netgear Storage Central Device TurboEasy-to-use expandable network storage for sharing and ... more
safeguarding your valuable data Add any capacity SATA drives (up to 2, sold separately) High-performance gigabit Ethernet enables faster file storage and access.-
Postage & Packaging:£4.00 Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
1-5 of 7 reviews of Netgear SC101 Storage Central
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Don't buy this !
Advantages: - Disadvantages: Data Loss, Instability, and lots more
...remove any drives). Why does NETGEAR advertises the mirroring option when:
a) all the experts agree that it's not safe (e.g. corrupted data, to be found in several forum posts)
b) slowing down an already unacceptable poor perfomance
5) The perfomance is very bad: I am trying to watch a movie from one of the drives via WLAN ( a) I am sitting right next to the router and connection strenght is at maximum b) I am the only ... ...Frankly, I don't care if NETGEAR blames Microsoft as my external USB writer and my laptop's DVD drive which I regularly connect and re-connect always get the same drive letters.
7) It doesn't work with standard HW: The other day I was at my friend's to share some data but didn't work on my friend's FRITZ WLAN router (newest firmware) at all, there was no way we could get this thing running.
I would like to share my experiences with this device and I would strongly DISCOURAGE ANYONE who might be contemplating the idea of purchasing this product ! It a very, very BAD product which has been released to the market at a stage where it should have stayed in the labs for another 2 years of testing.
My intention was to have both a safe back-up and easy-to-use access solution to access data from my laptop (and a workstation later on), all through WLAN. The idea was to have it as back-up medium and at the same time to store movies and audio on it being able to walk around my place without a huge USB external hd attached to the laptop.
Thought I had bought the right solution to my needs, here comes my experiences with this product:
1) Installation: The installation routine for the SCM management tool and drive crashes during the installtion process (not to mention that the drivers (that, which I learned later, do the actual work and slow down the machine) were unsigned).
2) After having partinioned and copied all data to my drives one of the drives ("Audio") misteriously disappears never to be seen again (no reboot, reset, reinstallation of drivers helped or any other standard trick helps) - only thanks to NETGEAR's support forum users I was able to recover my data using a command line utility (to which no reference is made in any of the help documents, so surely something which was not designed to be used by the average user) copy the data and install the drive again.
3) Before the loss of my "Audio" drive, the mirrored "My Documents" drive (and other drives, too) disappears regularly - the only work-around was to reset the device on a daily basis.
4) Just this morning I discover a broken mirror (yes, it's the my "My Documents" drive) - there was no sudden power off or anything (and no, the drives are OK and I didn't remove any drives). Why does NETGEAR advertises the mirroring option when: a) all the experts agree that it's not safe (e.g. corrupted data, to be found in several forum posts) b) slowing down an already unacceptable poor perfomance
5) The perfomance is very bad: I am trying to watch a movie from one of the drives via WLAN ( a) I am sitting right next to the router and connection strenght is at maximum b) I am the only computer connected and there is no other, parallel file access to any of the SC101's drives )
6) Drive letters get randomly re-assigned: To the day I haven't found any way to have "stable" drive letters to my drives, they are just randomly assigned (usually, the "Movies" drive is Z but could tomorrow it will be any other). Assigning drive letters like "Z,X,V" so the ones at the end of the alphabet doesn't help. Frankly, I don't care if NETGEAR blames Microsoft as my external USB writer and my laptop's DVD drive which I regularly connect and re-connect always get the same drive letters.
7) It doesn't work with standard HW: The other day I was at my friend's to share some data but didn't work on my friend's FRITZ WLAN router (newest firmware) at all, there was no way we could get this thing running.
All in all I am very, very disappointed with this product. I have spent way too much time on this product and still experiencing problems. I am neither a lamer nor a geek (studied IT so probably much closer to the geek side) but no longer willing to spend my weekends trying to get this product working.
Advantages: External networked Storage excellent for those big long backups, Save all your music and films to 1 place and share through out your network through a wireless or/and wired hub. Disadvantages: Slow spin up time, Software needs to be installed on computers using it,
I bought the Netgear SC101 for one reason only, and that was to backup my main computer drive so I could re-install windows.
I ordered the SC101 along with two 250 gig H/Ds total cost - £199 , Okay so not exactly cheap but not exactly expensive either for 500 Gigs of storage. Mind you the two 250Gig drives set me back about £125, the netgear SC101 was about £67. Be very carefull what drives you use they HAVE to be ATA 6 standard, anything less and ... ...mine refused to connect to Netgear site to do so. I just blamed me firewall and did it manually. Then I tried the Help, this didn't work either I kept getting script errors on everything I clicked on. So by know I was beginning to get hot under the collar but no matter Help is for wusses anyway ;p. On initial start-up the SC101 did not show up, but after further investigation this was being caused by a network IP config, as My computers all have ...
proffey 27.03.2006 (29.03.2006)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Netgear SC101 Storage Central
Advantages: In theory should provide LAN based storage. Disadvantages: Theory and application do not match!
...- The FAQ's on the Netgear site are out of date and inaccurate. - No warnings on the box about this product not supporting Win XP media centre editions.
It is highly unstable, can lock up your PC as it ponders on something (that using PROCEXP and looking at the ZSAN driver that is the core of the machine, cannot identify).
The data transfer rates, if you do get it running, are pedestrian at best. I have a number of computers running either XP (4) ... ...HP or Compaq brand laptops with Vista despite the claim of Vista support. On XP I have managed to get intermittent operation on 2 old computers - Pentium 3 and Pentium 4, cannot get it to work on dual core products!
For a product that has been around for a couple of years the stability has never appeared!
Stear CLEAR of this product! ...
dalgetybayer 12.02.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Netgear SC101 Storage Central
Advantages: Flexibility, Smartsync Software Disadvantages: Simultaneous access to Mac and PC
...flexible approach that is the Netgear SC101.
It certainly didn't let me down. I plonked a 25gb seagate hardrive into it and ran the software on my laptop. plugged in the netgear sc101 into my wireless router and within 5mins my laptop had found the 250gb hardrive wireless and was now formatting.
The installation was certainly straight forward. Couple of things worth noting i didn't get the full 250gb from the drive infact i only got 232gb. No sweat ... ...admin password so you don;t get anyone messing with your data and there is also an option of partitioning the drive and mapping the drives to as many drive letters as you wish.
It also comes with the smart sync software which allows you to schedule folders locally to sychronize with folders on your network storage. Very handy and again very user friendly.
Altogether a very cool piece of kit. I'm glad i got it. ...
tetsuocloud 08.01.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Netgear SC101 Storage Central
Speed
Ease of Installation
Ease of use
Reliability
Value For Money
Quick review of Netgear SC101 Storage Central
The biggest floor with this product is that it will not sit on a network as a individual device instead it needs to be attached to a computer with the software installed and loaded. I also found that the shares would drop off for no apparrent reason. I found that the speed at which i could access the drives was very poor and bar far the worst feature of the unit. Backing up half a gig through the network meant leaving it overnight. No wonder netgear were giving these away free. ...
big.birdy 18.09.2007
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Netgear SC101 Storage Central
Advantages: NONE !! Disadvantages: Waste of money - it just DOES NOT WORK !!!!
...re-installing, my computer never "saw" the drives again.
Netgear support were appalling. Firstly, merely quoting paragraphs from their knowledgebase, wasn't much help.
After two weeks of emails, all help dried up, they eventually just ignored my case.
Basically, it is a good idea that just doesn't work. ...
alpha-uk 06.05.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Netgear SC101 Storage Central
Product Information for "Netgear SC101 Storage Central" »
Manufacturer's product description
NETGEAR offers wireless, Ethernet, powerline and phoneline networking products through a complete line of routers, gateways, switches, hubs, and adapters. NETGEAR products offer the strongest security and privacy options available to protect home and business customers.
