BUFFALO LinkStation 210 4TB 1-Bay NAS Network Attached Storage with HDD Hard Drives Included NAS Storage That Works as Home Cloud or Network Storage Device for Home

(2 X 2Tb) If I had depended on the reviews, I probably would not have bought this. A friend had one and recommended it. I am using it for backup on my home network, which consists of PCs and Chromebooks.Some people gripe about the speed, which really doesn't matter to me because it backs up at night while I am sleeping.Having very little experience with networking, it took me a couple hours of fiddling with it (and my PCs) to get everything set up the way I wanted. This included setting up Paragon Backup software (free version). Just to experiment, I did set up a share folder with some videos and they play well over the network. The documentation is not very good, but you can find a YouTube video if you need help. It has only been installed for a few days, but so far I am very pleased.

I have several Buffalo NAS drives and haven’t had issues with any of them. Setup is easy and management software is intuitive. I bought this one as used and the password and done files were left on it, but factory reset was easy and I set it up quickly.

Considering the reviews, most NAS drives for home usage are slow and not very reliable. I went between an WD MyCloud and the Buffalo. The latter is now deployed in my home, but only for a day. It's connected to a satellite of the Netgear Orbi 750 (5400 Mbps Wifi 6) and base speed should be sufficient.Anyway, setup comes first and the drive basically connects to an ethernet port somewhere in your network. Although the Buffalo LinkStation 710 sports a 2.5 Gbps ethernet port, the mentioned satellite is limited to a 1 Gbps port. However, that's unlikely to be a problem.Setup has a printed quick start guide, and most of the time it's fairly clear what to do next. The software link references a Japanese server (in English). This is where to download the two relevant apps (NAS Navigator for setup and firmware updater). The firmware updater is over the network and, for some inexplicable reason, took 30 minutes for the update that ended up failing. A second attempt finished successfully in about a minute.The NAS Navigator software is used to set up a new drive (i.e., to find it), and after that is reduced to mainly being a hyperlink to the web interface of the drive itself. Most information relies on this rather than the software installed on the desktop. Once installed, some options are cryptic at first and user guidance is minimal. You can get it done, however, with a little "guessing".You can create protected folders that only selected users can access. First i was curious how fast the drive would perform as that's both a network issue and the included server/drive. The S.M.A.R.T. info for the drive reveals that it's a Seagate ST4000VX005, which is a 7200 rpm SATA drive. Seagate rates the maximum transfer speed at 180 MB/s. That's not SSD territory, but pretty good for an HDD.Now, there are multiple factors influencing the effective speed and my tests were neither comprehensive nor may they be representative. That said, from my Windows 11 desktop I could achieve a decent 80 MB/s maximum with a fairly consistent data rate. I used a 1 GB file, and that's more efficient than small files. Not directly comparable are my Mac Mini M1 results where I used BlackMagic's SpeedDisk benchmark. As it employs multiple file sizes, it's more realistic, but that's likely not the only excuse for the rather disappointing 30 MB/s maximum for read and write.Overall, the performance is in line with other reports and time has been too short to judge reliability. Once set up, it's easy to use. The supplied software tools, however, are rather minimalistic. The web interface from the drive directly, however, is good.Last, but. It least, the fan is fairly noticeable. In a quiet room, it can be easily heard from more than 2 m.

I am another victim of Buffalo's outdated technology and I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!! It would be the least thing they could do since I have to pay for my own data recovery thanks to deceptive marketing.I am extremely disappointed with my LinkStation 710 8TB. I purchased it on June 12th, 2021. I called customer service the day I received the drive. I knew something was not right with it since the device made clicking sounds every so often, but I was reassured that there was NOTHING wrong with the drive. The customer service guys kept saying "It was the new hard drive spinning up and it will settle in the case after a while" or "it is just the fan keeping the drive cool. You have nothing to worry about. The S.M.A.R.T. technology will notify you if there is a problem with the drive."I purchased this LinkStation because I was worried about the life of my current backup system and I was running out of space. I have a GoFlex drive that is more than 10 years old and I thought I would upgrade the system for a better piece of mind. Boy was I wrong. My LinkStation just completely stopped working one night in the middle of a transfer. THE DRIVE WAS LESS THAN 6 MONTHS OLD. On Dec 6th, 2021, I had to ship the broken product to a data recovery company. I thought I had nothing to worry about since my product had a 3 year warranty. I should have checked the fine print. The warranty only covers the drive itself. I was fooled by the FREE DATA RECOVERY evaluation sticker on the product. Deceptive advertising on the product. What really ticks me off the most is the fact that Buffalo did not cover the recovery cost since it was directly due to the failure of their product. They handed me off to an independent data recovery center and I have not heard from them since. How is that for customer service? I feel they have misled me from day one and I want my money back. It is the least they can do to offset the cost of me trusting them with my precious memories and important personal data.The LinkStation was equipped with S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) to monitor the internal drives and detect and report various indicators of reliability and to anticipate drive failure. I guess that never worked. How can I continue to place my trust in a device that cannot perform as expected? It has been one thing or another leading up to the device shutting down completely. The technology was old and outdated. Buffalo did not even respect their customers enough to update the user manuals for their devices.It is a shame that my GoFlex home (purchased in 2010) has OUTPERFORMED and OUTLASTED the LinkStation purchased on June 12th. I have uploaded a picture of them side by side. The item with the green light is the drive that is still running (hint: IT is NOT the BUFFALO LinkStation).DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS PRODUCT. DO NOT THROW GOOD MONEY AT AN INFERIOR PRODUCT.