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Buffalo LinkStation Pro 2TB review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £171
inc VAT

This single-drive NAS is simple to use, but it’s slow

Specifications

1 disk bays, 2TB storage supplied, 1x 10/100/1000Mbit/s Ethernet ports

http://www.okobe.co.uk

Buffalo’s 2TB LinkStation Pro is a sleek single-disk NAS that’s about the same size as your average router. Unlike larger NAS devices, it isn’t designed to be opened or upgraded. On its back panel are a Gigabit Ethernet port and a USB2 port, which let you connect an additional drive to boost the NAS’s capacity. There’s also a switch that lets you choose between on, off and auto modes, the latter option allowing the NAS to power down when it isn’t being accessed and automatically power back up as soon as a connected PC tries to browse its contents.

Buffalo LinkStation Pro 2TB

The provided installation disc makes setup and configuration as easy as possible for Mac and Windows users. A big, friendly install button maps the NAS as a network drive before prompting you to install Buffalo’s NAS Navigator configuration tool. It also gives you the option of installing utilities such as Network-USB Navigator, which automatically detects and provides access to USB drives when you connect them to the NAS; TurboPC, which is purported to increase transfer speeds between the NAS and your PC; TurboCopy, which makes similar claims of making Windows file copies faster and NovaBackup, a backup scheduler.

NovaBackup is the most overtly useful of these tools, and it provides a simple, wizard-based interface that lets you select your entire system drive, personal files or any other combination of directories to be backed up fully or incrementally. Advanced option settings let you enable features such as virus scanning, and set up a regular backup schedule.

We were also pleased to find that we could immediately detect the NAS on our network and access its web interface from our browser without installing any software at all. The web interface gives you all the tools you need to configure your NAS, from formatting its hard disk to creating users and giving them different access privileges.

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Basic Specifications

Price £171
Rating **

Storage

Capacity 2TB
Formatted capacity 1848
Default file system XFS
Price per gigabyte £0.09
Interface SATA2
3.5in drive bays 1
Free 3.5in drive bays 0
RAID modes N/A

Interface

Ethernet ports 1
USB direct access ports (front/rear) 0/0
Other USB ports (front/rear) 0/1
eSATA ports (front/rear) 0/0
Other ports none

Networking

Ethernet connection speed 10/100/1000Mbit/s
Universal Plug and Play support yes
UPnP media server yes
iTunes yes
Print server yes
USB disk server yes
Web server yes
FTP server yes
Protocols supported TCP/IP, SMB/CIFS, AFP, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS

Miscellaneous

Size 156x175x45mm
Weight 1.1kg
Vertical positioning yes
Ethernet cable included yes
Additional features BitTorrent manager, remote access, Apple Time Machine backup
Power consumption idle 10W
Power consumption active 14W

Buying Information

Price £171
Warranty two years RTB
Supplier http://www.okobe.co.uk
Details www.buffalo-technology.com

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