Customer Reviews

Buffalo Technology LinkStation Duo 3 TB (2 x 1.5 TB) Network Attached Storage LS-WX3.0TL/R1

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

I had one sharing permission issue right out of the box. I called Buffalo tech support and they advised me to and reset the device and update the firmware. That resolved the permissions issue. My only regret would be I didn't opt for the larger hard disks becasue I have the drives mirrored. other than that it's been about a week and no issues whatsoever. My only complaint is the drive access and cover should have been made a little more sturdy, that said the unit is quite and sleek looking. I noticed some reports in the Buffalo forum about Win 7 systems dropping the drive mappings but no such issues on my WinXP, Vista and Linux Ubuntu systems. I have local & remote access 24/7, I'm happy with my new NAS

I had originally wanted to go with the Seagate BlackArmor unit but it was out of stock and after reading a number of reviews decided to go with the Buffalo unit. I'm very glad I did. Despite what some other reviewers have indicated, this current model works wonderfully and even in a mirrored raid has good response times. Of course the initial process of backing up and copying over data took a while but honestly, when running something in a raid configuration I'm not really expecting thumbdrive or SSD transfer rates. Considering it was transferring most of the data via wireless and in a raid configuration, it was fairly quick (approximately 5 hours from 4 systems simultaneously and a total of 200GB). Some may complain about this but I think those folks are expecting the unrealistic idea of copying from an internal 7200 RPM SATA to another internal 7200 RPM SATA. The reality is this was going over a wireless network and writing to 2 physical drives, not just one. So from my perspective this was a totally acceptable and quick data transfer. Reading from it is far quicker since it only needs to access a single drive for reading purposes and I can stream audio with no issues. I don't currently have any video to stream other than a handful of music videos that are scaled for 1024 x 768 and they steam without issues as well. All in all, a great purchase for the price and I already know that Buffalo stands behind their product. I know a few corp and state agencies that regularly use Buffalo NAS's in RAID for system wide backups, etc.

The management of the unit via the web interface is confusing and incredibly slow. Even the most basic tasks will take forever. I have the duo unit and really tried to make it work. First one HDD suddenly appeared as unformated. I plugged it directly to my PC and recovered all the data (with the use of a very expensive tool). My PC could not find anything wrong with the harddrive. I plugged it back in the unit, but wasn't able to format it or do anything to it. The web interface shows it there but anytime i try to format it it says that my session has timed out and sends me back to the login screen. Than the second HDD did the same thing. Really badly design system - both the software and the hardware -- throwing it away.

Bought this product on the basis of active directory support, which it doesn't really have. After 2 unanswered emails to tech support, 2 unanswered posts to their forum, and 1 long call with a polite but clueless tech support guy I've invested way too much time on this. Going back to Amazon.

Had numerous issues with the device. First folders keep disappearing then there are buffering issues while streaming to a DLNA device. Support is one of the worst ever. I have requested for an RMA and its been 15 days and they are yet to ship the replacement. Please stay away !

Update 1:
The RMA Device that was sent as a replacement had a Fan Failure out of the Box. After talking to the agent for a different device , i was promised a call back within 24hours. Its 48hours now and iam still waiting to hear from Buffalo. The product has impressive features but fails to deliver on quality. After all what good is a device if if doesnt work ! I stand by my earlier review , the product is of very poor quality and customer support is one of the worst.

Great product as far as the hardware goes. My only criticism is that of setting it up. I had to call Buffalo support which was quick and beneficial. The problem I had was that port 9000 is the default port for the Buffalo NAS and my Negaer router by default was blocking that port. I had to allow connections on my router for port 9000 and olah!... connecting to my NAS from outside my network is now possible. I also don't care for Buffalo's folder setup menu. It's kind of confusing. I would have prefered more detailed documentation be embedded with the program instead of bouncing back and forth to a PDF file. For the novice, this unit may present a bit of a learning curve. For the IT guy, it may not offer enough options. I find myself somewhere in the middle..

I am an AV Integrator and frequently use this product as a DNLA server for a wide variety of installations including AV receivers and Sonos music systems, I even have one at home. Works right out of the box without an extreme amount of IT knowledge. The IP interface is a little jargon filled as it can be used for a huge variety of backup tasks but as a music server I can't give it anything but praise. Cheap, quiet, solidly built. Thanks Buffalo. BradTom

My original reason for purchasing the Link station was to have a back up of my photography photos, being able to transfer my photos via FTP, being able to stream videos throughout my house and via my iphone when I am away from home. Had Link station for about 2 months and no issues. One last thing,Be sure to update the firmware after you do initial setup. I was getting some orange blinking lights and after I looked up the blinking codes via the website, I was able correct the error before transferring any data to the Link station.

Pros
Simple setup
Videos and Music stream well throughout home and via web.
Transfer via FTP works well for transferring data

Con's
None that I have encountered yet.

I have been installing the Buffalo LinkStation Duo drives at some of my customer sites over the past six months. IMHO - they are the best value in the Prosumer NAS market. They are easy to install and configure. My typical config is for RAID-1 (mirror) to be used primarily for backing up servers and workstations (both system images and user data). Have not worked with the DLNA or home media capabilities yet.

Pro's - price, ease of setup, small form factor, reliability (so far), quiet, user replaceable drives, Gigabit network interface, remote access to drive.

Con's - not a fan of the Nova backup software that ships with it (bugs, limited licenses, cumbersome to configure and debug, weak documentation, etc.). Buffalo should choose a better Backup solution.

I purchased the link station duo 3TB back in April to add storage and streaming to my wireless household through my Linksys N-router. I transfered about 1.3TB of data onto it since I configured it to RAID1 so my data would be mirrored. The phone suport on connecting it to my home network was great. The problems came about 3 weeks later when the data could not be streamed wirelessly without pausing for the music I had stored on the device nor the videos. Each would start to play then pause or stop before playing again and sometimes at different speeds. Again I called technical support and they reccomended I updated the firmware on which they assisted me. Still the data would not always stream uninterupted. About 1 week later my 2nd drive totally failed. Tech support said that that was a rare occurance and would send me out a new drive with an RMA after I transfered my data. After recieving the new drive I had to copy all my data off of my device to ensure it would not get deleted since I would have to rebuild the array (1 week process). After rebuilding the array and transferring my data back onto the device and re-updating the firmware I was all set to go. Again my music was not streaming seamlessly nor were the videos. Support now said it is because the "quality" of my data was too high and I should degrade it to a lower bit rate and not my origional CD quality I had downloaded to the device. I did not wish to do that. Now another 3 weeks later after getting the new drive operational and all my data re-tranfered, one of the drives goes out again. enough is enough. This time customer service told me that this happens from "time to time", well not a next time for me.