Buffalo Technologies TeraStation 1TB NAS

• Reviewed by: pgyoon

  Strengths: Raid 5 is supported. Silent.

  Weaknesses: Difficult to exchange the hard drives.

  Overall: This is the first Network Attached Storage that I bought.Since this system is 32 bit, the maximum capacity of Terastation is 2 Tera.This unit is near silent except some vibrational noise which is somewhat annoying. Also, it's very difficult to dissemble the unit to exchange the hard drives. There is a wiki site for hacking this unit.

• Reviewed by: luman65

  Strengths: easy setup and simple to use

  Weaknesses: AD limitations and loudness of system

  Overall: Overall you can beat the price on these things, they do alot espeically the fact that they are configured for RAId 5. The system is a bit bulky and combersome and a little loud, but overall I love it, it suits my needs just fine

• Reviewed by: cydeout

  Strengths: Plenty of available storage space. Server utility very easy to use. Ethernet NAS means all computers in my network has easy access to data (advanced operations are limited to Mac users)

  Weaknesses: Weight (heavy for size). WILL NOT allow file size greater than 2 GB. No search capability nor .ds_store info available via Appleshare. Can connect via SMB; but search, read/write slower than snails.

  Overall: Vast amount of available storage space. Server utility extremely easy to use. Extremely easy to create multiple shares. Plug in power and an ethernet connection and it's pretty much ready to go. I had to set up the TeraStation using a PC laptop. I cannot copy files of size greater than 2 GB on to the TeraStation. Tech support says this is a AppleTalk limitation, but they are incorrect as that limitation does not apply to Mac OS X. Shares were easily recognized by MacOS Tiger via Appleshare, which is the primary OS accessing the TeraStation; however, window size/position information (written into the .ds_store file) are not accessible using this connection method. Shares are also not able to be searched either through the Finder or Spotlight. The fix for this is to connect to the shares via SMB, which works (and is searchable, with .ds_store info used properly); however, is slower than molasses and is NOT worth the trouble. My recommendation is to use this, or any of the Buffalo Tech's NAS devices for nothing more than backup storage; otherwise, their products are clearly deficient if you want more. Oh, their tech support sends you nothing more than one sentence soundbites and generally do not apply or are not applicable. They also do not respond to your replies to their emails to you too, so you need to go back to their web form and submit another claim. Trust me, it's not worth the hassle.

• Reviewed by: cartaufalous

  Strengths: Huge storage space even in raid 5, simple, bulletproof software, excellent documentation, incredible price.Huge storage space even in raid 5, simple, bulletproof software, excellent documentation, incredible price. Free tech support is noteworthy as well

  Weaknesses: Samba 2 means limited support for active directory. Hard drives difficult to physically access or replace.

  Overall: This was very simple to configure once I downloaded the new manual from buffalotech.com. In my small network, it works perfectly, serving up media files and humming along very, very softly. I could have built my own linux box to do the same thing, but it would have cost much more and been a lot of work.