BUFFALO LS-WX4.0TL/R1 4TB (2 x 2TB) LinkStation Duo Media Server (NAS)

Pros: The drives do work and I can store data on them.

Cons: It's a Duo Media Server. It's just to slow. It took 6 days to transfer my 1.1TB of movie and video files onto this drive. The max. transfer rate was 10.2 MB and it dropped as low as 4.07MB. I use it to stream via wifi to my WDLiveTV device. It is just to slow and the video slows down to slow motion and the voice drops out. If ANYTHING trys to use the network via wifi the thing stops streaming.
Keep in mind the the 10.3MB transfer rate was on a wired gigbyte network, just think what that may give you when it goes out on wifi.

Other Thoughts: I will use this thing as a data storage/backup device but it will never be a Media Server even if it does have the DLNA media server mode.
I would not recommend this device to anyone.

Manufacturer Response:

Grumpy, please drop me an email so we can trouble shoot your unit. On a Gigabit network you should see 20+MBps. If you initiated you 1.1 TB transfer from a wireless PC then that could explain the slow transfer speed. Even if you did a simple drag and drop on two wired devices, if you did the drag and drop from a wireless PC the data would travel from the 1st unit, to the wireless PC, then to the LinkStation. Also it would be best to update to the new firmware, where we have improved the performance for large file transfers.

thanks
marco
newegg@buffalotech.com

Pros: Solid unit, good features. Redundancy with RAID 1. Has lasted just fine.

Cons: It is a little slow, but not unusable. The web interface can be clunky in places, but the features are impressive. I couldn't get it to work with Time Machine, either. I also get a phantom fan failure error, even though it's clearly spinning and not overheating.

Other Thoughts: I enjoyed it, it runs fine and hasn't given me any major problems. I can stream video and music reasonably and it works fine with my backup software (snapshot). There are plenty of neat tools for partitioning and whatnot, so it's nice for that. I'd recommend it as an inexpensive, but reliable NAS unit. I might look at the Pro variant, since it has more advertised speed and whatnot.

Pros: Compact, has lots of features built in.

Cons: This unit as advertised by newgg as FAST and SILENT. It is neither. Connected to my gigabit port it is only reaching a maximum speed of ~25MB/s which is somewhat less than a regular USB2.0 external drive will do (about ~30MB/s). Just to say, 25MB/s is only ~200megabit, or about 20% of a gigabit link maximum.

Secondly, this unit is LOUD. The details page says it is fanless and silent. These are both wrong, the unit has a fan blowing out of the back and the hard drives GRIND quite loudly. It is far and away the noisiest piece of equipment in my PC room.

The Web interface is terribly slow, the login page takes 10 seconds to pop up. Navigating the settings pages each takes about 5 seconds to display any information.

Other Thoughts: NOT RECOMMENDED!

Pros: Easy Setup. It almost sets itself up. Wow, Web services included in product. Web Interface not browser dependent. Look like a LAMP server. Can access the drive with UNC or drive letter mount.

Cons: Slow transfers. Don't try to use this with backup software, BackupExec would time out. Great product needs to be able to handle higher transfer speeds though. USB is for attaching other non-host devices such as printer or Ext HDD. You can't use it to connect to a PC.

Other Thoughts: Strange, I had the loose screw too. Device worked great and as designed. I returned it though as it wasn't a good fit for me. Would have liked to played with the features of the product though. Could, I run a LAMP website with this device?

Pros: none

Cons: First off out of the box there were multiple I12 (message code not in manual but indicates degrade mode) and E23 (error hard drive crash). Noticed rattle noise and opened the bays and a small screw fell out! One hard drive non-operational.

Manufacturer Response:

please contact me so we can see what happened here and get a replacement unit to you. It sounds like this unit was roughly handled during shipping.

thanks

Marco
marcor@buffalotech.com