Long gone is the time when the personal computer was a luxury unavailable to most people. Many families now have the computer for each family member, and many more besides, and laptops. In this situation, the question of organizing its own network coming to the fore, and from the competent selection of hardware and software depends on the functionality and its work uninterrupted. No network can not do – because the Internet is almost always a channel (it is more profitable and more convenient), and buying a separate printer to every computer and duplicate the three-dimensional information is also inappropriate – it is easier to configure the print and file server.
Ways to accomplish the task, there are many – they all require different financial investments, are different in terms of convenience and functionality. It is possible to put a separate old computer that will perform all the tasks vysheozvuchennye, but this approach is not always justified – the computer takes a lot of space, noise, and the extra wires us to anything.
ASUS offers its new solution for home networking – a multifunctional wireless router WL-700gE with built-in hard drive capacity of 160GB. The device is not for nothing called the multi-function, its versatility is simply amazing, but about everything in order.
Specifications:
WAN: an Ethernet port 10/100 Mbit / s with the function auto crossover (MDI-X);
LAN: 4 ports RJ45 Ethernet 10/100 Mbit / s with the function auto crossover (MDI-X);
Antennas: 2 antennas (one internal, one external);
Transmit Power: 18 – 19 dBm;
Wireless transmission speeds:
802.11g: 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 54 Mbit / s;
802.11b: 1, 2, 5.5, 11 Mbit / s;
Type of firewall: NAT and SPI, an additional firewall to filter Internet traffic and another one – for WLAN;
Management: Web-based interface
Hard Drive: 160 GB, IDE;
Weight: 1.4 kg;
Interfaces: 1 Port IDE, 3 port USB 2.0;
Power supply: Internal 12 V, 3 A;
Dimensions: 241 x 161 x 45 mm;
Wireless Security: WEP key length of 64 or 128 bit, WPA2, TKIP, AES WPA-PSK.
Exterior and design
The appearance of ASUS WL-700gE deserves a solid five. New made in the traditional style of the company that combines the simplicity and adaptability simultaneously. White will please fans of Apple products, and will fit almost any decor. The upper panel of the unit has plenty of ventilation holes, which are designed to provide a normal operating temperature. The front panel of the router silver, divided into two rows. In the top row – are the main indicators – a total of 8. In the bottom – two buttons, on / off switch, which also highlighted during the work, and the key Copy, designed to copy the contents of the USB-drive to hard drive. In the right corner of the front panel also has a USB-port. LEDs show the activity of the hard drive of each of the LAN ports and WAN, and wireless network.
At the rear of the unit located connector for the power cable, the button "Reset", 2 x USB 2.0, 5-port RJ45, connector for external antenna and key EZSetup. On the sides you can see two sliding keys, with which you can remove the top panel of the router. At the bottom of the ASUS WL-700gE there are four rubber feet to ensure stability of the equipment in a horizontal position. In addition, the router can be used in an upright position – it is bundled with the device also comes a special stand of white. The stand is quite heavy, although the risk of overturn a vertically oriented router is still available.
As for the complete ASUS WL-700gE, then it should be included with the disc supplied with the software, vysheoboznachennaya stand, power cable, patch cord and instructions.
Opening the lid, you can access the hard drive installed internally. Can not but rejoice that the company decided to use the common 3.5 "hard drives, so the opportunity exists to further upgrade and you can always replace the drive for higher capacity. The disc itself is hidden behind a metal shutter, fixed propeller with a large head, which can be unscrewed manually.
In the router, a hard drive Hitachi Deskstar 164 GB capacity, spindle speed is 7200 rev / min. As you can see, there is no active cooling system is not available, though the power supply on the inside of the device. How will this affect the operation of the device, and would not it be cool, hard disk drive – this is on.
Setting
To configure the router has been traditionally used the web interface, which can be accessed through a browser by typing in the address bar 192.168.1.1. In this case, of course, the computer itself must also be in the same network. Or you can enable DHCP-server and does not clog my head with such issues. After loading the next page is presented to us.
The default login / password – admin / admin. In addition, paragraph settings, there is a link to your personal page on sharing settings and configuration download manager.
For easier installation ASUS offers a utility EZSetup included. After its installation CD-ROM to hold the corresponding button on the router for a few seconds, then have to run the installation program. If the router has been pre-configured with a web-based interface, the program asks whether to use the new settings, or keep existing ones. During installation you can select the type of encryption for the wireless network (WPA or WEP) and select the key. We can not praise the company for this program, with which even an inexperienced user will be able to properly configure your computer and a laptop to work with the router.
For more experienced users is the Web interface, which provides extensive configuration options. Moreover, you can choose whether to show the detailed settings, or only the most basic. Here are some screenshots showing the settings of the router:
Capabilities of the device
First, it is, of course, the router is designed to provide Internet access to multiple computers. Given the presence of four LAN-port hub is an additional purchase is not necessary – rarely in the number of computers which house more than 3-4.
Secondly, it is a wireless router that allows you to use the Wi-Fi network. So if the laptop is always possible to go to work in the kitchen so as not to interfere with roommates. ASUS WL-700gE supports the standard IEEE 802.11g, the theoretical speed limit is equal to 54 Mbit / s. Also worth noting support for the proprietary technology ASUS BroadRange. According to the company, thanks to digital processing of signal amplification is possible to achieve high sensitivity and extend the coverage to 300%. Plus, increasing the data rate 802.11g up to 35% (for maximum performance BroadRange technology needs support from the wireless client).
Third, a full-fledged file server. Thanks to the built-in hard disk 160 GB network storage you can organize and store a variety of information there, which will be in demand by all users of home network – it might be disk images, movies, photographs, programs, etc. If the hard disk capacity is not enough, you can replace it with another, the benefit cost of 3,5 "IDE drives are currently not as high.
Fourth, it is a full FTP and HTTP server that supports DDNS. That is, you can not puzzle problem hosting, and in the presence of a static IP-address host your site directly to hard disk. Moreover, thanks to user-friendly software with a few clicks you can upload your photos on the site, which will be created automatically. Thus, you can easily share their photos with friends and family, and everyone will be able to leave comments.
Fifth, a self-contained boot files, not only HTTP and FTP, but the protocol and BitTorrent! This means that now, to download a DVD-image of the latest toys, do not have to leave your computer on overnight – it will be enough to keep the network router itself. Supports up to 7 simultaneous downloads "torrent" files and up to 10 protocols FTP / HTTP.
Sixth, it is a complete home media center – Server iTunes UpnP audio / video server. So if your house has multiple owners of popular players iPod, the router can be used as a special storage of music.
Seventh, ASUS WL-700gE can be used as a print server to one of three USB 2.0 ports, you can just connect your home printer, and provide access to it from all computers on the network.
Finally, the device can be a source of backup storage – a feature of automatic data copying from USB-devices connected to ports. It can be as flash drives and hard drives.
In
In theory, everything looks great, now let's see how things are in practice. The absence of an active cooling system is suggestive of possible overheating hard drive, which could lead to instability and loss of important information. Fortunately, the competition of such cases abound. However, all fears were in vain, for the week of operation there was no crash, and the hard drive was barely warm. So it is worth to pay tribute to the engineers from ASUS, who managed to place in a compact package, not only 3.5 "hard drive, but the power supply of the router, restricting passive cooling system.
Included with the unit is the utility ASUS Download, Upload, and adds that in the WL-700gE, integrating into the browser, so when you right-click on the link appears click "Download using ASUS Download". To download the torrent file, you must open a "torrent" using the utility, or specify a link to it via the web interface of the router.
The only disadvantage when dealing with a download manager – is that when downloading multiple files at the same time they swing, and make sure that they are swinging each other, is not possible. This can be inconvenient when downloading files from sites where it is permitted no more than one stream with IP-address. We hope that in future versions of software, this small defects will be corrected.
Now let's see how it is with high-speed characteristics of device for this test it using the test suite SiSoft Sandra 2007. Here are the results have been obtained by connecting the twisted pair:
As you can see, the speed of the network interface at the middle level. Unfortunately, the speed of the hard drive is not too high – this is probably one of the major drawbacks. As for the data transfer rate via USB 2.0, it is at 2 ~ 3 MB / s, which is also not too much. Hopefully, in the following ASUS firmware for the device corrects these defects, which are somewhat spoiled the overall impression of this excellent router.
Findings
Thus, we can say that, ASUS has managed to make almost an indispensable thing for users who need to organize your home network. The cost of WL-700gE on the Russian market in the range of U.S. $ 300. Of course, for this price you can buy cheap old PC and use it to perform all of these goals. At the same time compare the size of the computer and the device, the complexity of the setup, the noise level, which is a WL-700gE does not as a class, and draw a conclusion about whether a product from ASUS their money. In my opinion – well, if still in the future the company will release a firmware update that fixes some weaknesses.