Buffalo LinkStation Pro review

Average user rating

2.7

terrible

Average user rating from 3 users

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Buffalo LinkStation Pro user reviews

March 31, 2008

Posted by: itczech

"Fundamentally flawed"

What I like:

Core sharing

What I don't like:

Support

Review:

I bought one of these for a customer and found that it had a number of issue that Buffalo support do not consider to be faults:

1. I tried 4 different external usb hard disks and only 1 was recognised. Apparently only Buffalo USB hard disks are supported.

2. When I physically unplug a USB device the Buffalo generates an error message that suggests that I need to replace a disk. Buffalo support suggest that the device be powered down before removing USB connected devices. This is impractical in a multi user environment.

3. When I purchased the product I checked and found that APC UPSs were supported so I purchased an APC Back-CS unit, connected it and found that the Buffalo did not detect messages from it. It now transpires that only the more expensive APC SUA series UPSs are supported.

4. Buffalo does not maintain the documentation in line with firmware updates so the firmware has features that are not documented.

5. Both the documentation and firmware are riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.

6. The latest manual describes 4 backup methods. My firmware shows 3 methods with 1 shown twice.

7. I cannot get the device to join an active directory without errors being generated.Buffalo support have been unable to resolve these.

8. Buffalo support need to be chased for action. They claim (unsurprisingly) that they are busy.

Given all of the above, I decided that the product was not fit for purpose and so I bought a Qnap TS-109 Pro which is great. I have also found Qnap support to be excellent.