Netgear Centria (WNDR4720)

The Centria WNDR4720 is Netgear's offering in the crop of network devices that serve as both routers and Network Attached Storage (NAS). The WNDR4720 is a dual-band router and a NAS with 2TB of storage (Netgear also offers the WNDR4700; you need to supply your own drive). While the Centria is not a powerful performer as a router?and even weaker in performance as a NAS?the combined functionality makes it an attractive device for creating a robust home network. With this single device you have the means to deploy a wireless network, shared storage, multimedia streaming, and even backup.

The Centria is a competitor to Apple's Time Capsule, which is a NAS/router combo. Like the 2TB version of Time Capsule, the Centria is priced at around $300. Another competitor in the space is Synology's DS213air which also combines routing functionality with a NAS.

If you need a more powerful router than what the DS213air offers, the Centria is the better option of the two.? If you are mostly focused on NAS capabilities, then look to the DS213air.? One other caveat with the Centria: there are some issues with the Desktop Genie app you can install to manage it.

Specs
The Centria's design is the same boxy shape introduced with Netgear's R6300 router. This large device operates upright on a built-in stand. Design is one of the big drawbacks of the R6300, in my view. The bulky case makes placement options within an entertainment center, for example, limited.

The model I tested, the WNDR4720, is an N900 dual-band router with integrated 2TB of storage on a 3.5" SATA HDD. There are two USB 3.0 ports and an SD card slot. The Centria also has four Gigabit LAN ports and a Gigabit WAN port.

On the side of the case are three buttons: WPS, WiFi on/off, and a one-touch backup button. LEDs on the front correspond to each button and are lit when the buttons are activated. On the opposite side of the case is a door that opens to where the HDD sits. It's a bit of an effort of get your fingers around the HDD to pull it out. The drive's backplane sits so far deep into the Centria that it's somewhat difficult to ensure that the drive is seated properly. You'll know if it isn't if you don't see the HDD's LED light up green when the Centria is powered on.

There are also five more LEDs on the bottom front panel, one each, representing status of power, WAN connection, WiFi, HDD status, and USB device connection.

Centria Setup
The WNDR4720 ships with wireless networking pre-configured. In fact, the SSID and password are printed on a sticker affixed to the unit. As soon as I powered the Centria up, I saw two Netgear SSIDs?one for the 2.4 GHz radio and one for 5GHz, in Windows' listing of wireless networks.

You still want to go through the setup process to establish your WAN connection and make sure settings are the way you want. To do this, open a browser from a computer connected to the Centria, to the address routerlogin.net.? This kicks off the Netgear Genie setup wizard.

The setup process has been updated in Netgear's newer device line, as I first noticed when reviewing the R6300. I was impressed that the setup wizard elegantly avoided any possible IP address conflicts with my ISP assigned address by changing the router's IP addressing appropriately.

The setup wizard then checked my internet connection. I received confirmation that I was connected to the Internet and the interface displayed the router's settings including the wireless settings, the HDD state. The wizard then scanned for any connected USB devices.

Setup gives you the option of installing Netgear's newer management apps: the Desktop Genie, for monitoring and repairing your home network, and ReadyShare Vault?a backup app. While I'll dig deeper into each app in separate reviews, I did install the Desktop Genie, since it's relevant to managing the router functionality in the Centria. After installing the desktop version of genie, I encountered a few issues.

Genie Conflicts
When you install the Desktop Genie, you can use the shortcut to it on a desktop to get to the router's settings and monitoring tools. Typically, you would just open a browser to the IP address of the router, and use the device's management software for configuration, which is also called the Netgear Genie. The fact that both are named Genie is confusing.

Desktop Genie is a newer interface for Netgear products introduced in 2011. Instead of having to open a browser and go to the IP address of the device's interface, you can double-click the Genie shortcut on the desktop. The Desktop Genie has more features than the default Genie interface you get by typing in the IP address of the router in a browser.

I found Desktop Genie was problematic to use. When I first opened it, I was greeted with a Login Failed error message, despite the fact I could go into the browser-based interface using the same admin login and password. There was a little help icon to give me more information about the error. The additional information was that I was getting a login failure because "your Netgear router does not yet support all desktop genie features," and that is was something Netgear was working on.

There were areas within Desktop Genie I could access at times, and that I would then would get a login failure message in later tries. For instance, I was able to click a monitoring icon and see a nice real-time graph of my router traffic, but then when I clicked to go into wireless settings, I would get the failure notice.

?Desktop Genie became so prohibitive to continuing my review of the Centria that I closed it and did the rest of the review by just going to the Web interface of the router?the regular Genie, as I refer to it.

As mentioned, I'll dive deeper into the Desktop Genie in a separate review. The app has a lot of promising capability but functions like beta software when used with the Centria. This is despite the fact that the Desktop Genie webpage lists the Centria as a supported router.

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