I am being seeded the Synology DiskStation DS413j alongside with 3x WD Red 1TB hard disk drives for a 3 part review. For the first part, I will talk about the unboxing and setting up of the DS413j.
Since I only have 3x WD Red 1TB and the DS413j is a 4-bay NAS, I went to Sim Lim Square to get another WD Red 1TB so as not to let 1 of the bay goes to waste. I didn’t realized that WD Red 1TB is a pretty old HDD and most of the stores carry 2TB onwards. Luckily Bizgram still has some WD Red 1TB left. So I bought it for S$120.
Western Digital is entering into the router market with the launch of 3 routers and 2 routers with built-in storage. These routers are priced pretty competitively!
I will be reviewing the My Net N900 which is retailing for S$239.
It utilizes the new 802.11ac wireless technology (which is still under development) that allows you to have gigabit wireless speed. Most AC routers in the market right now is capable of a theoretical maximum speed of 1.3Gbps (3 x 433.3Mbps streams with 80MHz channels).
The Buffalo AirStation HighPower WCR-HP-G300 is a budget router that is retailing only for S$59. Since it is targeted at lower end consumers, the specifications are just entry level.
The router is only able to support LAN/WAN speeds of 10/100Mbps and 2.4GHz band for Wireless-N speed up to 300Mbps. On a side note, the router is extremely light.
Cisco launched the new Cisco Linksys EA4500 Router that is retailing for S$299 back in June 2012. It incorporates the new Cisco Connect Cloud which enables you to connect, control and interact with your router and it’s connected devices wherever you are as long as you are connected to the Internet.
I still bought back a D-Link NAS after my bad experience with D-Link DNS-323 because the DNS-320 is meant for my mom’s office and D-Link service center is just located behind my mom’s office in case anything happens.
Went to StarHub Shop at VivoCity on the 24th June 2011 to apply for MaxOnline Infinity which is Starhub fibre Internet service. I chose the MaxInfinity Elite plan which has a download speed of 150Mbps, upload speed of 75Mbps and international speed of 15Mbps. It cost S$82.18 per month for a 2 year contract.
They did not tell me when they are coming to setup the fibre Internet service. I waited a month and they called me on the 3rd week of July 2011 saying they will come on 26th July 2011 to install the service.
On the night of the PC Show 2011, my brother called me and said the D-Link DGS-1008D (which I got back in IT Show 2009) switch in my room is spoilt and there is no power being supplied to it. Went back home, tested and verified that it is the case.
Went down the next day to PC Show 2011 again and got back the same switch, D-Link DGS-1008D switch, for S$85. I was expecting them to change the model number since it is totally a new design, but unfortunately it remains the same. This time I got 2 pieces instead of just 1 as I will be placing the additional switch in the living room to facilitate the switch to Fibre Internet.
Bought the Huawei MiFi E585 for S$185 from Amos of Hardware Zone Forums. It is a mobile router that makes use of your SIM card to connect to the Internet and the router itself supports 5 devices simultaneously.
It is similar to any 3G Modems but instead of only allowing one device (normally only computer) to use it via USB port, the MiFi allows up to 5 devices as long as the device have WiFi support which most if not all of the smartphones these days do. The MiFi is essentially a mobile router and hence it is capable of basic router functions such as DMZ, DHCP, SSID configuration, etc. You can configure those options using the router’s web-based interface (192.168.1.1) and the interface is mobile friendly as well. The E585 also comes with a MicroSD slot that you can use it as a shared storage for all the connected devices.
