The D-Link DSM-G600 is a wireless network storage enclosure. This means that you can put any standard PC hard drive in it, and it will instantly be available on your network. What’s more, you will also be able to get at your files from anywhere on the Internet because the DSM-G600 also has an FTP server built into it, which is the very feature that attracted me to it in the first place. Even better, it’s wireless so you can throw it in a closet somewhere and forget about it, with no need to clutter up your desk. It even has a couple of USB ports in the back of it, so if you have any USB flash drives or USB external hard drives, you can use them as well.

Sounds like an awesome piece of equipment right? Well it’s not – it’s a piece of crap. It is totally and utterly without value. It will raise your blood pressure and decrease your lifespan. Seriously, just stay the hell away from this thing. It is the most frustrating piece of equipment I have over owned, with the possible exception of its little brother, the DNS-120. I hate saying such harsh words about a D-Link product because I usually find them to be very good, but this one is a real stinker. The reason why I hate it so much is because it almost works. It is almost just the cool little thing I’ve been wanting. But it is so glitchy as to be useless. The only joy you derive from this thing is in getting it to work at all, even if it is for a short while. This thing must be a product of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

The Web-based interface is crap. It’s crude and poorly laid out, but I could live with that. File permissions never really work right, which is not so good. You have to format the hard drive that you install or it won’t work because it won’t handle FAT, FAT32, or NTFS. Really, I’m not kidding. It will read and write to FAT/FAT32 USB drives, but if you have a USB drive formatted with NTFS, you get read-only access. Guess what I have? Bastards.

So, you bite the bullet and put a clean hard drive in it and let it format the drive and all should be well. But it isn’t because once you do that, and you fight with the interface to set up user permissions and such, and you learn how to fool it into doing what it should do out of the box, it still crashes and freezes up after a few moments of use. Fantastic! I wonder if anyone ever really tried this thing before they shipped it.

It’s my own fault, really. I used to own the DNS-120, and it was the same way. It was just as glitchy as this one, and it died after just one month of use. It has no moving parts for Bob's sake; how’s it die in a month? At any rate, I thought they must have worked out the bugs by now, so I bought the big brother. It turned out to be the same product in a bigger, cheaper, flimsier plastic case. Guess where it’s made? No, not China. Taiwan! They couldn’t even be bothered to have it made in China. I think I’m going to throw it away right now; it’s probably going to give me lead poisoning.

In conclusion, I would suggest not buying the D-Link DSM-G600 or any of its variants. If, however, you have someone at the office that you can’t stand, this would be the perfect Secret-Santa gift!