NAS for the Home Network

If you have a home network with multiple computers running multiple operating systems and are looking for a comprehensive, simple storage solution, then the Buffalo LinkStation Live 500MB NAS may really delight you.

For the $200.00 I paid for the device at Frys Electronics, I got a lot of storage that is now easily accessible on our LAN (via CAT5 or WiFi)for storing all of our docs, images, MP3s, video files and is a perfect target for 5 different laptops in this household to remotely back up hard drives on each.

Setup was so easy: Plugged in the device, Connected to a switch on the network then put the Link Navigator CD in to the machine I typically admin from. THe software let me find the device and it automatically found the first available IP address on my network and was ready for the shares to be set up as needed. It offers a lot of flexibility as it can use Microsoft workgoup (netbeui) and appletalk plus ftp.It has an existing share already configured where you will find their well written manual in pdf format. It also came with Memeo back up software but I use Retrospect too. It has an additional USB port so you could hang other flash drives off it to share or you can use it as a print server. The browser-based network management is easy to use too. The frsti time you log in as admin with password as password. I prefer the browser to the Link Navigator Software but it works well too and makes it easy to map drives.

There is user and group management and the overall layout of the management tool is intuitive and easy to use. I never liked just sharing folders among all of our winxp clients and all of the symantec firewalls typically blocked access and made finding machines on the network problematic. It is perfect to have a device on the network now and accessible by all clients, macs included.

Performance has been impressive. I've backed up 80GB in 35-45 minutes. Retrieval of files from the NAS has been really fast too. It has been powered up and functioning flawlessly for weeks and even when power kicks out- when restored it comes right back up without issue. Nice small footprint too so I can keep it hidden from view in my little network closet. It's about the size of a Harry Potter novel (actually those are a bit larger!)

I'm no where near filling the disk now but that day will come. Buffalo makes bigger drives that I could easily add to the network when I need to but for now I got a lot of peace of mind and performance/reliability for $200.00 bucks.