22.9.2017

JANUARY 2020: well, just over two years have passed and everything still works just fine as described in some detail below. Firmware updated several times without problems. Easy to use the webpage interface to tweak settings. A product that works and continues to work in a market where it seems to be difficult to get satisfaction. Still recommended without reservation.This was my third attempt at satisfaction with NAS products: I'd previously had a 2Tb single bay WD MyCloud which displayed an 'unrecognised fault' and would not work even after trying the recommended 'fixes'. It was returned for a refund. It was replaced by a 3Tb single bay WD MyCloud. This did not work, either. It too,was returned for a refund. After watching the excellent Buffalo videos online I decided to test my patience [and probably that of Amazon!] further and ordered this two-bay/two disk 4Tb Buffalo. The video presentation was very reassuring: informative, without being overwhelming. An exemplar of clarity. I felt confident that I knew what to do before the product arrived. I am pleased to report that this one worked out-of-the-box and was relatively hassle-free to configure. I have a Cocktail Audio/NovaFidelity audio server. It works very well using its own internal hard disk. I wanted to be able to stream material from NAS storage to it using DLNA. If you were thinking along the same lines, take comfort from knowing that my Cocktail Audio unit found the Buffalo NAS immediately via wifi. I was at least as delighted as I was surprised - beyond amazed, lantern-jawed, actually! Everything was there, including numerous options for 'recently added' and 'recently played' playlists. Absolutely stellar. It all works. And it works perfectly: no delays, no stuttering, even with FLAC and WAV files of considerable size and bit-rate. It has never pixelated streaming videos, either.After several hours I was prompted to update the firmware. This I did. It too, was a hassle-free experience. Nothing frightening: not once did I fear 'bricking' the device. The option to set up to three scheduled alarms during any 24-hour period across one or more days of the week is useful. On the grounds of saving cost and the planet, it is a pity that the two disks cannot [apparently] be made to hibernate after a specified period of inactivity. However, in all fairness, this and other NAS devices take quite some time to start up and sort themselves out - it's not the same as waking a normal hard disk that has gone to sleep, so it's easy to imagine operation problems if the disk(s) are not ready and waiting for action.The part of the configuration that I found a mite challenging was converting the two disks to work as one, this is the RAID 0 option; the device came configured with the second drive being set up to 'mirror' the contents of the first - the RAID 1 option. Be aware, that if you transfer files to the device when it is working in RAID 1 mode, that you will lose any data that you transferred when the disks are reformatted by the setup procedure that converts the device from RAID 1 mode to RAID 0.As a final attempt to be relevant and helpful, resist the temptation to change the User Name and Password when you're going through the initial setup. If you have difficulties, the last thing anyone wants is faffing about entering long strings of upper and lower-case characters with symbols included. Leave at 'admin' and 'password' until you're confident that all is well. No-one is likely to break into your NAS in the initial configuration and setup stages. Don't forget though to change to something longer and much more robust, eventually.Oh, it looks good, too. Much better than average matt plastic. Very well put together. No creaks or feelings of flimsiness.I hope to have been helpful.

8.4.2015

I've had a few NAS devices and needed to purchase another as my NAS of choice, a MyCloudMirror, decided to die after less than a year. Luckily I had a back-up on a more reliable Seagate Central.I plumped for this LinkStation as 6TB for the price seemed excellent value and reviews weren't too bad. The unit itself is black and unassuming and fits nicely where I want it to go. I can't place it flush to the wall though as all the power and ethernet ports are on the rear. The instructions were straightforward enough and I decided to use as one large 6TB of storage.The drive is nice and quiet and doesn't have any flashing lights to distract you, just a small white power light on the front.

27.3.2017

I bought this to replace an old USB connected 1TB desktop hard drive.It is easy to install and setup and takes up little space on my desk.I had to install a network cable from the router in the kitchen (that's where the phone line comes into the house) to the desk in the office because I also wanted to use the print server capabilities for the printer on the desk.I've got it set up as RAID 1 so the usable capacity is 3TB (slightly less in reality).Performance is much better than my old setup but that wasn't exactly cutting edge.The DLNA media management is far better than my old setup where newly added media files are index and made available almost immediately.I have noticed that some files

4.1.2015

NB this comes pre-configured to RAID 1, if that's how you want to use it then will be working within a few minutes of getting out of the box. If you need a different configuration it takes a lot longer to format these big disks.Pros- Seems to be reasonable value at current pricing- Comes with Bittorrent client (Only down side is it's a very old version of Transmission, which has poor magnet link support)- Reasonably easy to set up if you have some previous experience or technical knowledge but I think a non-technical user might need help from a techie friend.- I can stream HD video from my home to anywhere in the world with a fat enough connection - no stuttering or buffering!

8.10.2017

Spent a bit of time researching this as i needed NAS and specifically wanted ftp backup to avoid having to use mapped drives as mapped drives are seen a local drive and therefore vulnerable to ransomware. The drive is installed and running using Backup4all as the back-up software. The linkstation does allegedly come with a back-up product but the reviews of it are not great and Backup4all meets my criteria as (i) having ftp back-up, and (ii) having the ability to automatically shut down my laptop once backup is complete. I therefore set it off last thing at night and, if the laptop is shut down the next morning it's been successful.The linkstation can also send you emails on certain events.

25.4.2020

I use this as a RAID1 configured pair of drives, behind a Mac Mini, which I already had functioning as a server. The Buffalo is not capable of doing much more. The design is old, the processor not very powerful and the interface basic, not-to-say old-fashioned and lacking functionality. Nonetheless, it performs more than well enough in this configuration and seems reliable. It rates four stars, as long as you don't try to use the LS220D as a server.I originally bought the basic version, which had Toshiba drives installed. It was returned fairly promptly, as they clattered constantly, even at idle. This was exchanged for the Linkstation with pre-installed WD Red drives.

20.7.2015

I was in two minds as to whether to give this item 3 or 4 stars. Overall it's pretty good, and the software of this particular drive is much better than the early versions which I used with my first Buffalo NAS. It's easier to setup and there's lots of useful features. I bought the 2x4tb version, and it's a lot of space for not a lot of money. I use it as a mirrored drive so that it creates writes the same data to both drives, so if one fails, you don't lose everything. Obviously this only gives me 4tb of usable space.My only real gripe is the upload/write speed. It seems to be very slow. Much slower than my router allows. It can also be a little slow to respond when trying to navigate files.

13.10.2016

It took me literally 5 minutes to open the box, plug the NAS into a socket and my router and for it to be discoverable on my TV, Smartphone and laptop. Transferred a film from my laptop onto the NAS - took 45 seconds and then watched it on 3 TVs, my laptop and 2 Smartphones all at the same time.Transferred over 124 films over night (6 hours) and left it when I went to work this morning transferring over another 150. Not the quickest transfer rate but getting mass data onto the NAS will hopefully only be a one off.Logged in to my 'personal cloud' this morning when I get to work and could watch a film if I so wanted.

26.12.2018

i wanted this to take infor off an old pc that was very slow. professional photographs of my work over 3 decades ( paintings) i wanted to be able to use them on a Mac without crashing all the time.i had to pay for help to set up the buffalo. very hard to get all the info and passwords on both computers in order to team it up. i did with a very lot of help.i am a bit thick with computers my old one not compatible with new ones etc. software gone obsolete etc. leaving me back at beginners level, so i m still learning to use this fabulous piece of equipment. i thought it was broke at first but my 'esperts' set it us and it is impressive. Very complicated to set up.

23.10.2018

I purchased this at the beginning of October -Bare Unit - no Disks as I had a couple of WD 4Tb's.Had trouble at first with an error but a call to Buffalo Tech support (based in the UK/Ireland) pointed me in the right direction to resolve it. I must say that I contacted Technical support on two occasions and the support was brilliant. Calls were answered in less than 30 seconds by support staff who knew the product very very well.The Unit has been working perfectly and has a very good and straight forward Web Interface. Has everything the average home user could want. DNLA is a breeze. Highly recommended

28.10.2019

I set this up on our home network as effectively a personal cloud, so we can access photos etc from our phones as well as providing a backup for them from the PC hard drive. I used RAID configuration so the data is duplicated (though of course that means that you only have 2TB of space).The setup on both PCs and Android phones was easy and smooth (not tried on Macs yet, sorry). The initial data transfer did take some time, as you might expect, but now the files are accessible speedily.The disk hum is audible in a quiet room (our router is next to the TV in our lounge), but not badly so.

30.9.2016

It's early days, I've only just installed it.. I have a DLink DNS320 1TB @ RAID1 installed already. That was full, so I've added the Buffalo 3TB @RAID1.I'm from a technical background so setup was easy, i suspect it may not be as easy for a novice.I did buy the NAS because somebody stated it came with WD Caviar Green drives, when it actually shipped with Toshiba drives. Not a problem now, but it will be if they prove to be less reliable as i'm using this to store my work on (Photographer)

1.1.2016

It has it's faults but for the cost it deserves a 5* rating.Mine is set up for movies & photography on my network, which includes my TV (wired).Old fashioned OS interface (I'm running iMacs on El Capitan) but I can easily live with that and there is an issue that some MP4 movies are automatically sent to the photos folder.However, it seems robust, is very compact and has WDD Green HDD's inside (which does mean they go to sleep at times).I love it.

11.7.2020

Don't be fooled by the quoted storage capacities of these disks because they come with RAID installed which halves the storage capacity. Also the disk is slow to load a lot of files when you first set it up and it took about12 solid hours to load my thousands of photos and music files over the network. It regularly seems to disappear from my Windows10 network drives and i have to add it again. A little disappointed overall.

17.7.2017

Only just purchased, but a word of note for potential buyers: THIS DOES NOT COME WITH NAS DRIVES. This unit is supplied with DESKTOP drives. I have conversed with Buffalo support who assure me that desktop drives are fine for home user systems, and as I plan on configuring the unit with RAID 1, with the chances are very low that both drives will fail simultaneously, it's unlikely there'll be any risk of permanent data loss

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