Entered CNET Catalog: 03/06/2004
SKU: WGT634U
Manufacturer: NetGear Inc.
Manufacturer description
With NETGEAR's 108 Mbps Wireless Storage Router you can have convenient access to your media and other files wherever you go. Just attach a USB hard disk drive or memory stick to your router and store all your files from any computer on your home network. From then on, you can remotely access your MP3s, photos and other stored files on the USB disk or memory stick from any wireless LAN notebook or desktop PC in your home or office, and from any web-connected PC away from your home or office. Wherever you are, you can seamlessly share files with your friends and family members by using the familiar Windows click commands, "File>Open" and "File>Save As" or by using the "drag-and-drop" icon method. And wherever you are, you can easily retrieve or save files to your router-attached disk drive by simply clicking on a remote file access icon on your PC desktop screen. When used with NETGEAR's 108 Mbps Wireless PC Card (WG511T) or 108 Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter (WG311T), this superpowered 108 Mbps router is up to ten times faster than 802.11b networks, and it expands wireless coverage in your home or office with four times the range of 802.11b. It protects your information with more than ten security and privacy features, including a double firewall. Easy to set up, Smart Wizard install assistant gets you connected in fewer than five clicks.User opinions
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User Rating: 
2/10
Unacceptable reliability destroys otherwise good router
Pros: Fast (10+ Mbps), decent range, easy setup, integrated USB port is a fantastic feature
Cons: Reliability is horrible, support is horrible, did not work well until latest firmware upgrade
After setting up the '634 it worked for approximately 1 month. During this time, speed was mediocre, and I noticed that file transfers to my attached USB drive were very slow. In addition, the device needed to be rebooted frequently. In early October, the device stopped working entirely, and I was unable to revive it, even after a hard reset. Netgear's technical support was not very helpful either - they did not accept that the problem was with their router, and instead insisted that I must have changed the device's configuration, or made changes to my network. I thus returned the device to CompUSA and exchanged it for another one.
This one lasted until May of this year - approximately 7.5 months. The device required periodic rebooting through this period, but performance improved with various firmware upgrades. An upgrade available in April seemed to have resolved the "crash" issue, and also improved performance quite a bit; especially the file transfer speed to the attached USB drive. Unfortuneately, there appears to still have been a hardware issue, because in the middle of May, the device stopped functioning entirely. Again, I was unable to revive it, despite trying a hard reset, burning old firmware, and other "fixes." Netgear's technical support was unhelpful again.
Even though this device (when burned with the latest firmware) works great, and has a killer feature (the integration of the USB port), I must warn against its purchase. The device has a hardware issue - I popped it open after the last problem, and did not see any burned up chips or other obvious problems, but the devices total failure cannot be otherwise explained. Also, Netgear's technical support is horrible - they seem incapable of acknowledging that their device has a problem. In addition, on two occasions they promised to call me back with proposed fixes for my issue, and did not. When I called back to check on the status of my issue, all records of my past calls seem to have been lost.
I replaced this device with a Belkin Pre-N Router ($129) and a Linksys Network Storage Unit, both of which have worked well thus far.
User Rating: 
5/10
mixed results: fast and very flexible, but still buggy
Pros: fast, easy, powerful - when it works...
Cons: Still VERY buggy. Limited NTFS access
when it actually worked it performed excellent, was fast, had strong signals, IMHO is very easy to setup, very flexible and comes with lots of nice and powerful features.
HOWEVER: the device's firmware obviously still has a couple of major bugs and mysterious hickups (the current version as of this writing is 1.4.1.8).
Quite often it "suddenly" does not work any more and needs to be reset or power off/on.
At one point, enabling wireless would reproducibly stall the entire box (yes: no more connection - not even via ethernet, no more reaction from the built-in http-server, simply dead)! Only by uploading an earlier configuration file that I had luckily saved before (mostly in order to test that feature) I was able to overcome this strange bug. Not even doing a hard-reset had helped to clear this situation! Very, very odd!
Other bugs that I observed: in WPA mode, the basestation occasionally does not recognize or admit any new devices to the network thus rendering the wireless connection occasionally useless until one powers the device off/on.
And a real downside - as already mentioned a couple of times in other reviews - is the missing NTFS WRITE support!
User Rating: 2/10
Do Not Buy This Router
Pros: it looks cool
Cons: Internet connection drops, firmware upgrade never work right
User Rating: 
9/10
Easy to use and set up wireless router with external hard drive attachment
Pros: inexpensinve, super fast wireless, file sharing
Cons: buggy firmware upgrades
The wireless connection speed is just plain awesome. Occasionally I will connect my PC via ethernet cable instead of wireless... and back to wireless.. and I never see any difference whatsoever. I use it in conjunction with Netgear's WG511T wireless adapter.
My only issue with the WGT634U has been with firmware upgrades. They tend to cause more problems, then fix. Currently I am at 1.4.1.5 - and I found that when I upgraded to the newer firmware releases my connection speed dropped drastically, and had frequent disconnects. So I reapplied the older version since it was working well for me - and that's where it's staying. If it's not broke, then I'm not going to fix it.
Hope this helps. My first product review.
User Rating: 
6/10
Great idea, mediocre execution
Pros: Strong wireless features, USB storage
Cons: No NTFS write support, slow disk access, intermittant connection issues
Overall, a nice try...maybe version 2 will be better. For me, I'm going to the Buffalo Linkstation for my network storage with a separate wireless router.
User Rating: 
7/10
Better with recent firmware
Pros: Even since some of the more earlier firmware releases, I've been ok with the router. Some of the mentioned issues have been corrected with the recent firmware (1.4.1.8, 12/21/04). Some of the pros: Now XBOX certified, Adaptive Radio (AR) added, eXtended
Cons: Takes a while to boot up. Built in "is there newer firmware?" check isn't 100%. Better to check the web site if the self-check doesn't pick up on a newer firmware for a long time.
User Rating: 
8/10
Great, if you know what you're doing
Pros: Fast wireless, pretty easy setup (though has a lot of functions so can look a little daunting), flexible, secure (you *must* set up users for the FTP server, for example, so you can't accidentally make all your files available!), firewall seems fine; stop
Cons: Shipping firmware is poor (annoying), not all USB drives work (understandable), no NTFS write support (again, understandable, considering NTFS is owned by MS and they don't make it available) but FAT32 is fine and yes, you can make it bigger than 32Gb (mi
User Rating: 
3/10
USB drive severely limited
Pros: Wireless features were easy to set up - connected to the internet almost immediately
Cons: We pay a premium for the 'Media' feature, yet there are severe limitations to its use. No HD >120GB is supported - I connected my Maxtor 200GB (FAT32) and it wouldn't recognize it. My 120GB drive worked, but i could only access it through Windows Exp
User Rating: 7/10
Initial problems, but working fine now!
Pros: - Fast! Excellent throughput - External HDD support w/NTFS! (Firmware 1.4.1.5) - WPA-PSK support - Good web-based interface, with excellent basic explanatory help of settings - Excellent range
Cons: DHCP-loss from time to time, more frequent in SuperG+ mode. BUT, somehow I think it is related to the software used by my Netgear WiFi card. Instabillity occurs after installing certain software, and reverting the Windows system back to a previous state,
User Rating: 3/10
Can't write to NTFS drive!
Pros: Security features. You can attach an external USB hard drive, but...
Cons: Remote users can't write to the drive. If the drive is formatted with NTFS (as many are) there's no way to actually write files TO the drive. I wish I had read the reviews first.
User Rating: 6/10
I love thing thing!!!
Pros: 1)USB connectivity 2)great WiFi reception
Cons: 1)Takes too long to boot. Had to return the first router becuase in kept rebooting for hours. If it does not boot up in 4 minutes, best if you return the unit for another. 2)Can't write to NTFS. Don't know what Netgear was thinking when all new PC have
User Rating: 8/10
5th day and still a work of art
Pros: I don't know what seems to be going on with everybody else's situation with this router. My experience with it has been great. The only problem I had was with the reboot of the WGT634U router after the flash, took about 10 minutes. But other than that? No
Cons: A little more comprehensive security options, Faster reset i.e. reboot time. Fix file system drawbacks with ntfs.
User Rating: 2/10
ready to toss it due to problems with unit and lack of support
Pros: small, connection for external disk drive, easy to connect, wireless easy to set up and works well. Process to swap a bad unit is easy and quick.
Cons: had to return one and still not able to get it working for LAN connected PC. Email or calling support is a waste of time (run out the clock on your 90 days of support). Had to take a week and get bumped to second level support for them to acknowledge tha
User Rating: 7/10
Good wireless router, as easy (or hard) to setup as most.
Pros: I owned an 8.0211b router and needed to upgrade in order to get better reception. I decided on the WGT634U after hearing the product managers talk about it on the Computer Outlook internet talk show. (http://computeroutlook.com/a udiostudio3.html#).
Cons: Doesn't automatically identify MAC addresses, so you need to know them for each of your PC's. (The other router I owned did this.)
User Rating: 5/10
Great but slow disk access
Pros: FTP server, USB disk support, 108Mbps wireless with extended range technology using latest firmware, Very reliable wireless connection, USB hub support (upto 26 external drives) could have 7.8TB attached using 300GB drives ;o)
Cons: Slow disk access ~10Mbps over wired 100baseT LAN. I'm using a Maxtor One Touch 300GB drive with a single 300GB FAT32 partition! Not sure what the other reviewers were complaining about? I used the Win XP disk management to format the drive to 300GB.
User Rating: 
4/10
DHCP server flawed
Pros: Very fast on wireless G. Small unit with handy stand. Informative PDF manual. FTP server is very handy because it's available 24/7 (no PC required to be left running) - I have several friends that make use of it to exchange files via their IE browser (tip
Cons: Flaky firmware - The DCHP sometimes shuts down and refuses to issue a LAN address to my centrino laptop. Try all manor of things on the laptop but no luck. Rebooting the router always fixes the problem. Applying settings takes ages - eg it has to reboot t
User Rating: 5/10
Okay but...
Pros: USB hard drive support, good hardware for the most part
Cons: USB hard drive doesn't support writing to NTFS formatted disks, no external antenna support, device is relatively expensive, tech support responsive but essentially clueless, firmware is beta at best, pdf manual is factually incorrect in many regards...sh
User Rating: 
1/10
It doesn't work- Buy Linksys
Pros: The USB feature attracted me. It would make a nice FTP server outside the firewall.
Cons: Very unstable. I reutrned the 1st one. The second one lasted a few days before dropping all wired and wireless internet traffic. Endless reboots. My old wired Linksys just works every time. I wish I could tale it back but I sent in the Rebates (CompUsa) a
User Rating: 3/10
Extremely unstable router
Pros: Shiny Box Bright Colors Convincing Features Decorated Aisles
Cons: Highly Unstable Tried 3, each had to be returned to the store Drops WiFi signal every few minutes Needs frequent reboots Useless Customer Care; Glad that you get only 90 days with them!!
User Rating: 7/10
I've got 160Gb fat 32.....
Pros: great to see a good company doing it... what kind of fat32 are you talking about???
Cons:
User Rating: 3/10
Nice try, but what were they thinking?
Pros: Network attached storage, internet access to the attached drive. Great "wired" performance
Cons: No NTFS write support and they don't tell you that until you've got it home and your trying to get it set up. Problems with wireless configuration. Limited firewall settings.
User Rating: 3/10
still in beta version
Pros: fast atheros chipset, super g
Cons: frequent reboots, router crashes/freeze very frequently. Access to HARD Drive VERY slow and difficult. I refunded this router! Save your money and get a d-link di-624 or linksys wrt54gs
User Rating: 7/10
If you have time & patience, and like a challenge, it's an amazing router! Great hardware, weak sw.
Pros: Unlike what has been said before, you CAN create a partition > 32GB using FAT32, which is what I did.. however, as they aren't bootable, WinXP and 2000 won't do it.. use a DOS boot disk with FDISK or Partition Magic to accomplish this. Overall, I'm ver
Cons: Very difficult to set up. Unlike my prior Linksys router, the reboot time is long (> 2 min), but that may also be due to the Samba/FTP server. The firmware still is rather beta, with occasional bugs. When I need to restart the router (most common error
User Rating: 6/10
Not for rookies-Solid Product
Pros: Nice features Limited USB device acceptance Good performance
Cons: Impossible setting up without updating the firmware. Tip: Download (to your computer, not from router setup) and install the latest firmware before setup. Then everything will go great!
User Rating: 7/10
Great idea but ......
Pros: Easy installation. Works as advertized. Can be accessed over a local network or via the internet if you know the IP adddress.
Cons: No NTFS write support! A major problem. If you need online storage you need large volumes. While you can read and write to fat of fat32 volmes these file systems have very limited sizes. Fat32 vulme limit is 32GB. So if you have a 200GB drive you will hav
