Truly Plug N Play
Pros:
quiet, works as advertised, fast file transfers
Cons:
no use of user quotas
The Bottom Line:
This is a great network-attached storage solution for shared files. It's easy to use, and performs well. I only wish it incorporated user quotas.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
Buffalo Technology makes great routers and wireless hubs, and the Linkstation Pro is no exception. If you need a shared network drive for several users, this is a true plug n play solution that works well.
Setting Up
Setup was a breeze. Just plug in the power cord, and plug in the included Ethernet cable. The configuration can be a little bit tricky, as you have to find the Linkstation on the network. Our hospital network has thousands of computers, so I had to install the included software to find it. Once you know its DHCP-assigned IP address, everything else is pretty easy.
WARNING: the admin password is set by default to "password", so you should change this first thing when setting up, or else you risk someone else taking over the drive and locking you out!
The Linkstation Pro is Gigabit Ethernet capable, but we are using a 100 Megabit network right now. We still get good transfer speeds on the local network (a 387 MB file was copied to the drive in about 50 seconds).
If 320 GB is not enough for you, you can attach extra drives via two USB 2.0 ports on the Linkstation, so it is nicely expandable.
Shared Access
Our research laboratory is using the Linkstation Pro as shared storage for our lab's data files. So far, Macs can access the drive very easily as a Simba-attached network drive, but our PCs are not playing well with it yet.
You can also enable NTP and FTP access through the control panel (web-accessible).
Nice Touches
The drive has a lot of nice features, including a trash bin (which you can turn off). That way, if you delete something by accident, you can recover it easily. You can change the Network ID from its meaningless product ID number, as well as the workgroup. The Linkstation is also Appletalk enabled, so you can connect that way as well.
There are included disk check and disk format utilities, and you can setup user and group-level access restrictions.
Another really nice touch is backup to other network drives. If you have another Linkstation, you can automatically sync it to your main one.
You can also make the Linkstation email you with status reports, to report disk failures, fan failure, etc. and you can sync it to a UPS.
Summary
The Buffalo Linkstation Pro is an easy-to-use, configurable product. You can set it for simple access, or use many of the built-in advanced features for security. I don't see a way to directly control quotas, so one user could fill up the whole drive I think. But other than that, this is a well-thought out and mature product.
