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Buffalo Technology TeraStation Pro II 2.0TB Network Attached Storage

TeraStation Pro II 2.0TB Network Attached Storage

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Buffalo Technology TeraStation Pro II 2.0TB Network Attached Storage

  • Reviewed by: tinklerb

    10-16-07

    Duration of ownership: 3 Months

    Strengths: fast access, LOTS of storage, sharing between computers with a simple drive map, easy web management console

    Weaknesses:A bit loud for an office, but ok if you can put it out of the way

    Overall Evaluation: I have owned this unit for about 3 months now. It took about an hour to get it running using the pre-configured RAID 5 setup. If you've done your research, then your concern with inexpensive NAS should be access time and set up time. I have worked with enterprise class storage servers, and all of them come with some type of cost unless you pay a lot of money for them to be pre-configured and set up on site. By a lot, I mean close to or above the 6 figure mark. This unit works unbelievably well for around $1000. Not as fast as enterprise, but not the terrifyingly slow that I have read in some reviews. Astonishing for home users, and good enough for demanding small office users. I have a lot of audio and video I have processed for a church, and have had some problems with external storage drives crashing, or after 2 or 3 of them on a USB port, doing "flaky" things. I needed hot swap capability, and RAID 5 for redundancy, and this unit came set up that way by default. The web interface was easy to navigate, and has many detailed and advanced features that I will most likely use in the future. For now though, the unit is FAST and extremely easy to use. My whole family has mapped to it, and is able to send files back and forth across the network. A few pre-purchase "be prepared" cautions: 1 - Make sure you have a gigabit network connection. I do, and the initial upload of 1 TB of video took over an hour. 2 - Make sure you can put this in an out of the way place - the fan is noisy, but not obnoxious. I have mine in the basement by the main switch. 3 - BE PREPARED - if you decide your best RAID configuration is NOT RAID 5, the Linux kernel on the machine will take a LONG time to re-format the drives. But then again, for $10-20,000 more, you can get a faster storage system - it's only money... 4 - Use this machine for what it's for - a GREAT, FAST storage system for home or small business storage. It's not a web server, and if you try to use it as that, you may be somewhat disappointed. And oh - by the way - yes I said Linux kernel, but a mapped drive works fine with my Win XP and Win Vista machines. Looks just like a windows shared drive. If you are a home user or a Small business user looking for centralized storage with backup redundancy, buy this unit. It excels. I just purchased a second unit for the church and we are looking at another for a remote location.

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