Product Description

Buffalo Technology UK Ltd. is a leading global provider of award-winning networking, memory, storage and multimedia solutions for the home and small business environments as well as for system builders and integrators. With almost three decades of networking and computer peripheral experience, Buffalo has proven its commitment to delivering innovative, solutions that have put the company at the forefront of infrastructure technology.Buffalo's LinkStation Pro Duo is the ideal solution to keep important files...

Product Details

• Brand: Buffalo
• Model: LS-W2.0TGL/R1
• Released on: 2008-02-01
• Dimensions: 9.61" h x 6.61" w x 13.35" l, 6.17 pounds
• Hard Disk: 2000GB

Features

• Buffalo Linkstation Pro Duo 2Tb Shared
  • Buffalo's LinkStation Pro is a high performance shared network storage solution with fast transfer speeds• It is easy to install and lets you store and share music, photos, and videos in your home as

Manufacturer's Description
Buffalo's LinkStation Pro Duo Terabyte Network Storage offers a secure network storage solution for the consumer and SMB market at a cost effective price. You can back up and share your office data, movies and music files across your network. The device supports RAID1 for high level data protection. For access restrictions you can use the internal user and group management or domain users in a Active Directory. With Web Access, you can access it anywhere. You don't have to be a network specialist to set it up. Auto Power on/off function enables the LinkStation to turn off automatically when you shut down the last PC with installed NAS Navigator software. You can connect one additional external USB hard drive to the LinkStation to expand the storage or as a backup space. The LinkStation Pro Duo allows office users to deploy a simple, cost-effective data server to their office in minutes without cutting corners on features or expandability. Memeo AutoBackup software is a quick and easy solution for backing up your PC files to the LinkStation.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Not bad - worked first time!
had this for 1 week now - was expecting the worst since most NAS drives seem difficult to use - but within 5 minutes of plugging in and installing the software I was sharing files across my network - VERY PLEASED with that. Then converted it to Raid 1 in 3 clicks. Web interface is not really suitable for joe public but then is joe public going to buy a NAS drive? Its also quiet but I have it stored away from where I sit. True, the write/read performance is way below a Thecus, or Synlogic, but so is the price - i got this for 287 at misco (I did not want to spend 500) - easily the cheapest 2Tb NAS, as of this week anyway. Only time will tell how reliable it is. But happy that it is so easy to set up and use.

Buffalo Linkstation I TB NAS
This NAS is small, about the size of a large book. It contains two 500GB SATA disks and has a USB outlet for sharing a printer or an external drive

Using the supplied software the basic setup was straightforward, the NAS was recognised straightaway by my computer running under MS Vista and was up and running within 30 minutes.

Providing you have some basic ideas about networks and servers it is easy to set up user IDs, folders for different users both secured and shared etc using the supplied software. For first timers you will need to read the manual carefully and it may take several goes to get things right.

It can be used in various RAID options. Formatting the drives for mirroring (RAID 1) took a couple of hours. Beware however that the formatting used by the NAS is not the same as Windows and if a disc fails you have to take out the failed disc (not a straightforward task) and replace it and then allow the unit to remirror itself before you can use the NAS again. You cannot remove a disc and install it into a computer to recover data.

The product powers up with a bit of a whine when the main computer starts and then powers down when it is on idle/standby. Other than this the cooling fan and discs are fairly quiet. File transfer speed is reasonable but not lightening especially for larger files

The NAS is attached to the network via a LINKSYS W160N Wireless router and occasionally it is difficult to connect from other computers on the network but this appears to be a general problem with XP/Vista networks.

According to the manual it is possible to access the NAS on line from any computer via Buffalo's web site but I have not tried this facility yet. I have also not tried to use music/video streaming facilites.

All in all this is a good, relatively simple product for a home or small office network providing a large amount of storage/file sharing/secure RAID backup. A similar unit unit has been running on a small office wireless network for over 12 months without a problem.

Easier than a server?
I have had the driver for about 8 months and have about 100 users accessing it. Its very easy to use and the fact that my users cannot delete (they go into the trashcan) has saved me dozens of hours retrieving items from tape. An added bonus is that you can add 2 USB brives of it which i use to back up the drive. If I had one criticism it's that after a power cut the whole unit crashed and the only way to get it working was to flash the bios. The problem with this was that all the domain settings where lost so there is no security on the individual files and this summer I will be getting a 2nd unit for the rest of the users.