Tech-Life in Pink

Linksys NAS 200 Tech Support: Unsatisfactory

Posted on June 18, 2009 Updated on June 26, 2009

[Update/Part 2 of this topic HERE.]

“The Linksys by Cisco brand is known and respected worldwide through products designed to fit each country’s networking requirements…”

“Why Choose Linksys by Cisco…
…Technical Support.
Our call centers are recognized worldwide for quick response and the ability to solve problems…”

I found these statements on Linksys by Cisco’s About Us page. With this, you would surely be confident of the technical support they would give you, right? NOT! That is not the impression I had today when I contacted their technical support for the first time. Let me share what happened to me.

I was working with the Linksys Network Storage System NAS 200. I configured and set it up on the local network. It has two SATA hard drive bays and also two USB ports where external hard drives can be attached. In the drive configuration for the NAS 200, four choices are given on how you want to set it up, depending if you want (A) maximum storage, (B) maximum data security, or (C) maximum speed:

• 2 separate disks — A
• 2 disks configured as one large disk (JBOD/LVM) — A
• Mirroring (RAID 1) — B
• Striping (RAID 0) — C

I put in two 500 GB SATA hard drives, a total of 1 TB, and configured it as JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks). Expected total capacity should be about 931 GB. What did it show me? Only 858 GB. Where did the 73 GB go? No idea. So I called tech support, explained the situation, and asked why this is so. A lady agent received my phone call around 4:35 PM EDT.

• Conversation ~ 2 minutes
• On hold ~ 4 minutes
• Agent asked more questions and gave me a vague answer then told me I should probably speak to her supervisor ~ 2 minutes
• On hold ~ 10 minutes
• Agent told me supervisor should be with me in one minute and asked that he can either call me back or if I will wait. I said I will wait (after all, I’ve been waiting already and wanted an answer right away, right?). I wanted to make sure so I asked her “one minute?”. She said, “Yes, one minute.” So I confirmed again that I will wait. ~ 1 minute
• On hold ~ 3 minutes ( ! )
• Agent apologized that the supervisor wasn’t available because he was still on the phone with someone else. They will have to call me back in 20 minutes. Exasperated, I just agreed.

Guess what? She nor the supervisor didn’t call me back. They just wasted about 22 minutes of my time!

I tried to search for answers online but it was getting late so I didn’t find much. I tried the e-mail support instead but I got an automated response that they no longer have e-mail support and recommended an option for live chat support instead. Good thing is I was able to chat to an agent and was more enlightened by his responses. He recommended that I connect the hard drives directly to the computer to check its exact capacity. I figured if the total capacity would still be 858 GB when connected directly, then the problem has to do with the hard drives. If it indeed shows ~931 GB, then the problem would be their storage system.

Tomorrow I’ll check the capacity. I’ll write an update about what happens.

P.S. I’m hoping their phone support was only poor for today and not regularly.

[Update/Part 2 of this topic HERE.]

Photo Credit: Evil Erin