Home > Consumer Reviews > Buffalo LinkStation Live 500 GB Multimedia Storage Server HS-DH500GL

Downgraded opinion of device from 4 stars to 2 - for some reason can not change original rating.

If speed or Support are important to you then my RECOMMENDATION IS DO NOT BUY - HP Media Vault may be a better option.

Support is appauling; when questioned about poor performance of the drive they replied

"The limiting factor is not the network card, but rather the processor and ram speed in the device itself. To keep the design compact, low noise, and low heat, the underlying hardware is fairly slow."


Have several PC's at home which are rapidly filling up with multimedia content, so purchased this so the files can be shared on a home network.

I am using the NAS product with a NetGear RangeMax Next Wireless Router.

Setup: Plug into a power supply and connect to the Router using an ethernet cable, and the box is up and running. The installation software failed to find the device but after manual setup it now correctly reports Host Name (user defined name for NAS device), Workgroup, IP address, Subnet Mask, MAC Address, Firmware Version and how much space is being used on the device. There is a download to correct this problem on the BuffaloTech website.

I manually assigned an internal IP address 192.168.1.5, reserved this IP address within the router and using the web interface on the NAS configured user groups, users and drive shares and was then able to map network drives from home PC. This way the mapping can be made permanent on the connected machines.

In order to enable automatic email noficiation from the device a primary and secondary DNS server address is required from your ISP. Print server within the device is also straight forward to install following the instructions in the user guide.

The unit can also act as an FTP server for internet file sharing. The configuration of this requires you have a static IP address and you open port 21 on your router. FTP from an external location is somewhat slower, probably due to home internet bandwidth. The NAS device needed to be rebooted for the FTP shares to be visible from the Web. If your ISP provides you with a static IP address this can be found by using a site like "whatismyipadress".

Overall when using a wired connection the read/write speed is poor. A 1GB download from the device to my desktop took 1 minute on a Gigabit network.

Note the laptop, router and NAS device for this test were using a 1000Mbps ethernet connection.


Using Wireless N from a laptop it is slower still and certainly degrades with distance of the laptop from the router. When using a PC with Wireless G network card to connect, wirelessly, 50ft from the router, some connection problems were initially experienced.

I have also attached an External USB drive, and created a share for this. This works fine for reading data, but I can not write to this drive presently, I suspect the drive would need to be reformatted to achieve this functionality.

The unit can also act as a media server - this is at the cost of the already poor performance being slowed further.

The drive is quiet. Another problem experienced is the internal date / time on the unit which seem to reset itself intermitantly. This is used for scheduled backups and a scheduled email notifcation detailing the status of the unit.

The web interface for management of the NAS is slow but as this is only done once to initially set the unit up this is no real concern.

NAS Settings:
IP address 192.168.1.5, Subnet 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway address 192.168.1.1 (router IP address)
Primary DNS, Secondary DNS from ISP provider

NetGear Router Settings:
Address Reservation (LAN IP setup):
192.168.1.5, NAS DISKNAME, Mac Address
Port Forwarding:
FTP, Start Port 20, End Port 21, Server IP address 192.168.1.5

Then to connect via FTP from web in windows explorer enter ftp://xx.xx.xx.xx/disk1 where xx.xx.xx.xx is the static IP address (use whatismyipaddress to find out this value). Right mouse click the file window pane and select LOGIN AS and use username/password setup as user in the NAS configuration. The shared FTP directories then appear.

Overall 2 out of 5 for the device. Review amended after 6 weeks of use.

I'm just writing this review because I believe this product and the company are dealt with a bit unfair in other reviews.

I just installed this device - I own a older Linkstation which works without any problems for non-stop 3 years now - and I would like to mention a few points. I also talked to Buffalo support before buying it (which yes, has a long waiting time on the phone but very compentent people, I believe, that answer at the end, and got clarification on a few points.

The good:
+ fast, just copying 75 GB in around 90 minutes on a 100 MBit network, and the speed is just fine
+ good looking, this device looks great
+ easy to install

The bad:
not much really
- if you enable the media server it reads/writes constantly, the reason is it indexes the disk for new files all the time - buffalo support is aware of this and will release a new firmware which allows you to index manually with a button on demand, this is a good solution for me
- no more bad, sorry ;-)

I find many of the reviews here a bit strange, lets talk about some examples:
- Scanner does not work (well, ALL these devices dont support Multifunction printers, because they technically can't, this is not Buffalos fault
- I put a new firmware on my device and now it's broken - well, apparently, earlier firmwares where different for the Pro and Live model, if you put the wrong firmware on it can't boot anymore, is this Buffalos fault??
- noisy hmmhh, mine is SUPER quiet - actually quieter than the old modell, how quiet do you expect a harddisk to be??
- web interface slow, that's true and I find it a bit strange, but how often are you changing parameters over the Web gui? It's a bit strange, but only a very minor nuissance.

I get the feeling that many users buying a media server are a bit novice at IT devices. Also because the PRO line gets better reviews.

Anyway, I nearly would not have bought this device because of all the bad reviews. But it would have been a mistake. I love it. It's not expensive and I personally recommend it!

Hope this helps.

Armin

I purchased my Linkstation two months ago and liked it initially. Data transfer rates were slow, but it was one of the cheaper home NAS products and I bought it primarily for backing-up and its printer server feature. It was easy to install and gave me no problems at first. Two weeks later, however, the unit broke down completely. I found it beeping one morning, showing a fan failure via its status LED. I could no longer connect to the unit.

Buffalo provides a 24-7 tech support tech support line, which is a complete waste of time. I never spoke to a real person; I was just put on hold until they dropped the call half an hour later. I setup a service request via email, though it took them two weeks to reply with an RMA number. I was required to pay the shipping charges of their faulty product back to their site.

A week later I received my brand new replacement unit. I installed it as before, and everything looked good... for about six hours. Shortly after I had finished backing up my media files (which does take a significant amount of time, given the speed of the unit), I found the new unit had failed in the exact same manner as the last. I attempted to contact tech support again via phone, with the same result as last time... I spent forever on hold, and then the line goes dead. At this point I just want a refund, since I think there must be a design flaw with the Linkstation Live, but Buffalo makes it very clear in their policies that isn't an option.

I strongly recommend looking at other available products. I was under the impression that Buffalo was a quality brand, but something has gone terribly wrong in this design or with their manufacturing process. If you do decide to purchase this, do yourself a favour and check the return policy of the store... if you buy a lemon, you'll want to avoid having to deal with Buffalo directly.

I'm a fan of the Linkstations. I've bought a first generation Linkstation for the office a long time ago and was happy with that. I currently own the Linkstation Pro 320GB at home and I've loved it. It was very fast and very reliable. I bought the Linkstation Live 750 GB because I needed more storage and because I was happy with the Pro.

But I was wrong the expect the same performance! This version of Linkstation is far slower, especially the read speeds compared to the Linkstation Pro. I compare them by writing and reading various files times on both devices and the Live ALWAYS comes in slower. The most aggravating thing are the extremely slow lags when you're accessing different folders, which the Linkstation Pro almost never did.

Linkstation Live has the same speed as the first generation Linkstations, and that's pathetic considering it's got a faster SATA hard drive and should have better tuned firmware.

I'm sorry I bought this device. I don't know why Buffalo let themselves fumble a good thing they had going with the Linkstation series. The only reason I give it two stars instead of one is because the print server is a nice extra. BUT it's still NOT WORTH the major speed decrease.

The Linkstation Live works with my 3 Macs as a file server. No problem (I'm not too concerned about speed).

If you enable DLNA, the drive appears in my iTunes "devices" list and you can stream songs from it like another user's computer on the network. It did not work at first. I called Buffalo tech support repeatedly, and finally got through. The guy was chewing his lunch while he talked to me. Said they only have one Mac to test stuff out on and he would try to replicate my issue and call me back. No call back.

I then submitted an email request for a response and got an automated response saying a support rep would get in touch within 48 hours. It's been over a month. Nothing.

Luckily it seems to work now but, as others have mentioned, with the DLNA feature (iTunes streaming) enabled, the drive spins constantly (even while all computers are asleep). In order to ensure the drive lasts, I've disabled it -- so no more iTunes streaming, it's just a plain old file server.