Buffalo Technology's LinkStation Network Storage Center

The LinkStation comes with management software and backup utilities. I was unimpressed with the thick-client management software provided. It failed to autodetect LinkStations on the network and didn't include a way to manually enter the LinkStation information. On the other hand, the Web-management interface worked flawlessly--all you need to do is give the system an IP address.

From the Web interface, I configured the system, defined the shares and set up access rights. I accessed shares through Explorer by mounting drives and by browsing the network. I created and deleted files and changed access rights, then tried to create files in shares and delete files in directories to which I had no access rights. The rules worked as they should have.

The included backup software works fine if your machine is configured to run from the same workgroup or domain as the LinkStation, but does not work for clients in a different workgroup. Apparently, the software looks only in the current workgroup to determine available LinkStations to back up to--a negative, but not enough to dismiss the LinkStation. If you have mapped a drive, a task that can be done from any workgroup, you can utilize other backup tools with the LinkStation.

The only other issue I had with the LinkStation 160 was that it has only a 10/100 NIC. Although this is fine for a home or SMB environment, you won't want to edit your CAD drawings directly off the disk.

I ran performance tests with both wired and wireless clients accessing the LinkStation, while the device itself was hardwired via 10/100 for all of our tests. I utilized Quest Software's Benchmark Factory FileBench file-access specifications with a 1K sequential read/write pattern. When accessing the LinkStation from both wireless and wired clients, my tests showed an average performance of 5.5 MB per second reading and 34 KB per second writing. This is where the system peaked out--I added up to 30 clients and the performance numbers did not change significantly. Both wireless and wired showed very similar low numbers--a serious limitation.

Write performance is such that you wouldn't want to use this device for primary storage in a multiuser environment. On the other hand, reading performance is good for this class of product-- if you store data to be accessed mainly for reading, you should be very happy with LinkStation.

If you are running a Windows PDC, the LinkStation can be configured to connect to it and obtain its user list from the domain. You can also enter users into the system manually and assign them rights to folders and subfolders, all from the Web-based management interface.

I entered a few users via the Web interface and tried to gain access under an invalid user name, then tried getting in using known account names. The LinkStation denied access without a valid user name and password. My attacks were simplistic, but they proved that the LinkStation covers the basics. Utilizing a PDC, I logged in as several different users, including some with administrator rights, and was able to gain access to the shares on the LinkStation.Any external USB 2.0 drive can be attached to Buffalo's LinkStation, including tape drives and Iomega Rev drives, giving you a simple, low-cost D2D2T (disk-to-disk-to-tape) system that should meet the needs of the SOHO environment. This also leaves you no reason not to back up your data in your basement.

All in all, this little box has a simple hardware setup--plug in power and network cables--and a simple network setup--just run the configuration program and it searches the LAN for LinkStations and lets you configure their IP settings. And configuration is as easy as setting up shares and rights if necessary. Total time: less than 15 minutes. Total benefit: 120 GB to 300 GB of networked storage, depending on the model. The performance will not be the same as a large NAS system could provide, but that's not the point. This little box is designed to give you centralized storage with security wrapped around it for an affordable price. To that end, Buffalo Technology has succeeded.

Don MacVittie is a technology editor at Network Computing. Write to him at [email protected].