USR 8200 First Impressions

[fLoOdY]

The USR 8200 Secure Storage Pro is shipping now, but not widely available yet. I've been looking for an alternative for my SonicWall SOHO2 as I am growing tired of the increasing firmware bloat, paid support and the address licensing. Cisco, they are not.I've been waiting for the USR 8200 to begin shipping and decided to gamble on ordering one before seeing any reviews. I'm happy to state that it was a good gamble .This SPI NAT/Firewall also includes USB2.0 and 1394 ports to which one can attach external drives such as Maxtor and WD to provide a little NAS box (Network Attached Storage) I have a Maxtor 250GB OneTouch USB2.0/1394 drive on order which I will be using for this.This is one of the first products to use the Intel IXP422 Network Processor and boots imbedded Linux. There will be an SDK forthcoming for Linux developers to add some interesting modules to itSince I am a telecommuter, it's really important that the PPTP VPN Passthrough feature is well implemented. -Works extremely well. Also included is a PPTP Server, PPTP Client and even a little FTP Server.After using it for the week, I find it to be fast and even more highly configurable than the SonicWall it replaces.Street price is around $300.Highly recommended! Michael