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Buffalo LinkStation Pro LS-VL NAS review

by Parm Mann on 21 February 2011, 08:22 4.0

Tags: Buffalo Technology

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Final thoughts and rating

If you're gearing up to take your first steps into the world of network-attached storage, take a good hard look at Buffalo's LinkStation Pro.

At a snip under £150, the compact unit ships with a 1.6GHz processor and a 1TB hard drive built in. Getting the unit up and running is a piece of cake, and if you're wanting to cover the basics, the LinkStation Pro is able to provide centralised storage, DLNA media streaming, backups and remote access with consummate ease.

Advanced users may be put off by the single-disk unit's lack of RAID redundancy, and at this price point we'd have liked to have seen two USB ports or perhaps USB 3.0, but Buffalo's mainstream solution offers good data transfer rates in a tidy overall package. If simplicity, performance and ease of use are high on your list of NAS requirements, the LinkStation Pro is worthy of consideration.

The Good

Ideal for NAS newcomers
Compact design and easy-to-use interface
Offers all the basics; DLNA media server, FTP, USB backup and remote access

The Bad

Only one USB 2.0 port
Hard-disk isn't user-serviceable

HEXUS Rating

4/5
Buffalo LinkStation Pro

HEXUS Where2Buy

The Buffalo LinkStation Pro 1TB NAS is available to purchase from dabs.com and broadbandbuyer.co.uk.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.


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HEXUS Forums :: 11 Comments

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Posted by miniyazz - Mon 21 Feb 2011 09:19
I do want a NAS, but it'd need to have space for 4+ drives and perhaps have a wireless card, for probably <£150 before I'd be sufficiently tempted to buy. Drive-free, of course. I think I may be asking too much :(
Posted by Brewster0101 - Mon 21 Feb 2011 12:11
miniyazz
I do want a NAS, but it'd need to have space for 4+ drives and perhaps have a wireless card, for probably <£150 before I'd be sufficiently tempted to buy. Drive-free, of course. I think I may be asking too much :(

For less than £150… You don't want much do you :eek:

Buffalo LinkStation Pro LS-VL is nice, but you can get NAS units with two drive bays for around £100, plus add one 1tb drive and your around £140. Ok, they are not that fast at that price but fast enough for most.

The Synology DS211j is £160 on its own and then add £40 for a 1tb drive and you have a two drive box which is as fast and much more feature rich, also two drive bays.

I think the Buffalo LinkStation Pro LS-VL sits inbetween the above two options.
Posted by miniyazz - Mon 21 Feb 2011 13:57
I wouldn't need it to be a particularly fast or feature-rich NAS, or even to support RAID - all I want is for a load of drives to appear in My Computer as though I plugged them into my laptop through USB ;)
So tbh I could probably cope with a DAS. But prices really do shoot up after the second drive bay, and I've roughly 7TB in four drives that I'd want to put in, so upgrading the drive capacity to fit everything in two drives isn't really an option.

Ah well, I guess I'm happy enough plugging them in one or two at a time, as required, at the moment! :/
Posted by Moby-Dick - Mon 21 Feb 2011 14:09
the closest I know of is the ReadyNas NV+ . but thats not wireless and comes in at about £200 for a diskless 4 bay job.
Posted by crossy - Mon 21 Feb 2011 14:39
Don't like this device - Windows-specific is an immediate no-no for me (although I'm pretty sure it'll work with Linux).
Definitely don't like the price - £150 for a 1TB unit is hopeless when, for example, PC World have a WD My Book World 1TB for a list of £129 and a reduced price of £99.
Okay, the MBW is far from perfect - but it works - and you get backup software etc with it. In fact, if PCW prices are the benchmark, then the Buffalo is way overpriced. There's 2TB drives available for less - and PCW have the Iomega IX2-200 (2 x 1TB drives) for £189, which is quite tempting.
miniyazz
I do want a NAS, but it'd need to have space for 4+ drives and perhaps have a wireless card, for probably <£150 before I'd be sufficiently tempted to buy. Drive-free, of course. I think I may be asking too much :(
Hmm, I'm wondering if (minus the WLAN option) you could get close to this price point by using some cheap-as-chips Mini-ITX board, along with similarly cheap case, etc.

If you figure out how to do that for the price, then let the rest of us know, since I'm willing to bet that there's more than just you who'd be interested in something that aggressively priced.

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