EFG250 (EtherFast Network Attached Storage)

Along with its business-level features, the EFG250's speed justifies its high price.

We tested the Linksys EtherFast Network Attached Storage EFG250 with Gigabit Ethernet connectivity; and when tested on a network of that speed, the device delivered top-notch performance. When used on a regular 100Mbps (Fast) Ethernet network, its performance was just above average.

The EFG250 has an empty bay for adding a second drive, which can be used either to expand storage capacity or to back up the first drive. Both bays come with sliding trays that house the drives and make it easy to swap them out. You can also buy additional drive trays (to which you add your own drives) that let you rotate backups of the main drive easily. The drive bays offer key locks, and the EFG250 provides FTP and HTTP access so remote users can connect to the device.

The EFG250's wizard-based setup was easy--in fact, we had the unit connected and serving data in less than 10 minutes. A Web-based configuration utility lets you set up users, groups and private shared folders.