Linksys by Cisco Media Hub – NMH305, NMH405, NMH410

Linksys by Cisco Media Hub, announced by Cisco at CES 2009, is a storage hub designed to act as a single repository for all your digital files that are scattered on discrete storage devices stand-alone or online. It is targeted at home users and is a nifty idea that allows users to access digital photos, music, videos, etc from multiple devices in a house. The Media Hub provides PC backup and can stream content to UPnP devices such as the Xbox 360.

Remote viewing can be easily enabled though it comes with a 50 MB limit so that the hub retains its identity as a device targeted at home users. There is no such limit on streaming at home.

Impressively, the hub can send out three HD streams at the same time. Mac users benefit from the support that the Media Hub offers to the iTunes server and Bonjour. The Media Hub supports auto backup from any PC on the network. An LCD browser-based interface allows you to view and manage the content on the network. Hardware features include two SATA hard drive bays, a Gig-E port and a 6-in-1 card reader. The drives can be arraged in a RAID1 or JBOD formation for data backup.

In the first quarter of 2009 the Media Hub will be available in the following three configurations  -

NMH305 with a 500GB hard drive and retailing for $299.99.

NMH405 with LCD and 6-in-1 card reader plus 500GB hard drive and retailing for $349.99.

NMH410 with LCD and 6-in-1 card reader plus 1TB hard drive and retailing for $429.99.