Buffalo NAS

I've been looking at the Buffalo network attached storage device with
installed Linux OS.

The model I am looking at included a USB printer server as well as a USB
(I assume that makes 2) soccket to allow an extra external hard drive for
expansion.

If anyone has experience of this device I am wondering; is it a DHCP
server issuing its own IP addresses and also, if a USB hub is plugged in
to the extra USB outlet would it effectively run numerous extra external
HDs on the network.

Geoff Lane

"Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed) ve.co.uk...
> I've been looking at the Buffalo network attached storage device with
> installed Linux OS.
>
> The model I am looking at included a USB printer server as well as a USB
> (I assume that makes 2) soccket to allow an extra external hard drive for
> expansion.
>
> If anyone has experience of this device I am wondering; is it a DHCP
> server issuing its own IP addresses and also, if a USB hub is plugged in
> to the extra USB outlet would it effectively run numerous extra external
> HDs on the network.
>
> Geoff Lane

I have two of the HG400LAN's (Gigabit NIC 400GB Disk)
It has a USB port on the back and one on the front - one is for the printer,
the other is for another disk - I haven't used either yet, but I understand
you have to use a particular one for each device. You can only install one
disk and one printer at the moment, maybe they will change the firmware at
some point (Let's hope)

It doesn't have a DHCP server, but it can obtain an IP from a DHCP server
(Or you can set it manually)

Sparks...

"Sparks" <postmaster@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news:44d79e70$0$634$(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news(E-Mail Removed) ve.co.uk...
> > I've been looking at the Buffalo network attached storage device with
> > installed Linux OS.
> >
> > The model I am looking at included a USB printer server as well as a USB
> > (I assume that makes 2) soccket to allow an extra external hard drive
for
> > expansion.
> >
> > If anyone has experience of this device I am wondering; is it a DHCP
> > server issuing its own IP addresses and also, if a USB hub is plugged in
> > to the extra USB outlet would it effectively run numerous extra external
> > HDs on the network.
> >
> > Geoff Lane
>
> I have two of the HG400LAN's (Gigabit NIC 400GB Disk)
> It has a USB port on the back and one on the front - one is for the
printer,
> the other is for another disk - I haven't used either yet, but I
understand
> you have to use a particular one for each device. You can only install one
> disk and one printer at the moment, maybe they will change the firmware at
> some point (Let's hope)
>
> It doesn't have a DHCP server, but it can obtain an IP from a DHCP server
> (Or you can set it manually)
>
> Sparks...

I also have the 160gb Linkstation- i dont use the USB ports either, but I
understand the front one is Printer only, and the back one can be both. You
can use some flash disks as well as an external USB harddrive apparently,
although data written to these by the linkstation will not be accessable if
you plugged the drive direct to a PC. I think it uses its own strange FAT of
some sort.

I run it from a DG834 with DCHP turned off and it allocated a fixed IP
address- I know what ip to type into a IE window to find it that way!

Does what it says on the box and is reasonably quick.- but for some reason
forgets the date and time settings when mains input is lost.

I think the netgear toaster is more versatile and expandable though??

Tim..

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 11:07:15 +0100, Tim.. wrote:

> I also have the 160gb Linkstation- i dont use the USB ports either, but I
> understand the front one is Printer only, and the back one can be both. You
> can use some flash disks as well as an external USB harddrive apparently,
> although data written to these by the linkstation will not be accessable if
> you plugged the drive direct to a PC. I think it uses its own strange FAT of
> some sort.

Internally, the Linkstations uses Linux ext3 with journaling. I've never
tried connecting my printer through the USB port since my laser is
network-ready and my inkjet is wireless-ready. I do believe the external
USB hardrive should be formatted using VFAT, since the kernel used
couldn't mount NTFS filesystem.. I might be wrong though since I never
have a need to add another external HD to my linkstation.

> I run it from a DG834 with DCHP turned off and it allocated a fixed IP
> address- I know what ip to type into a IE window to find it that way!

I've static DHCP set on my WRT54GS router and I could just use the
hostname I assigned to the linkstation (ls2) without a need to remember
the IP address at all. If I need to access it without going through the
file explore tree, I just use file:\\ls2

> Does what it says on the box and is reasonably quick.- but for some reason
> forgets the date and time settings when mains input is lost.

Most probably it doesn't set to retrieve the date/time from ntp server?
Since my is no longer a virgin linkstation (it is running full Debian
Sarge's Linux distribution), couldn't really check this one out.

> I think the netgear toaster is more versatile and expandable though??

You could freely open and add your own hard disk to the toaster and it
does run on Linux too. But the current linkstation has more powerful
processor and more RAM too (MIPS 400Mhz + 64MB RAM).

http://www.linkstationwiki.net if you need more information on hacking the
Linkstation and convert it to a small server (I'm using it to be my
network PDC and it has ftp and http server running at the moment).

On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:42:15 +0000, Wira One wrote:


>> I also have the 160gb Linkstation-

>> I think the netgear toaster is more versatile and expandable though??
>
> You could freely open and add your own hard disk to the toaster and it
> does run on Linux too. But the current linkstation has more powerful
> processor and more RAM too (MIPS 400Mhz + 64MB RAM).

Why do you think the netgear device is more versatile, I was personally
looking at the buffalo unit because of the printer server, this on its own
would cost me about 40 pounds so would make it quite useful for me.

Geoff Lane

"Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed) ve.co.uk...
> On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:42:15 +0000, Wira One wrote:
>
>
>>> I also have the 160gb Linkstation-
>
>>> I think the netgear toaster is more versatile and expandable though??
>>
>> You could freely open and add your own hard disk to the toaster and it
>> does run on Linux too. But the current linkstation has more powerful
>> processor and more RAM too (MIPS 400Mhz + 64MB RAM).
>
> Why do you think the netgear device is more versatile, I was personally
> looking at the buffalo unit because of the printer server, this on its own
> would cost me about 40 pounds so would make it quite useful for me.
>
> Geoff Lane

As far as I understand it, the Netgear "toaster" requires software loading
on each client PC, where as the Buffalo does not - this was the main reason
I got the Buffalo (Plus the fact I have read a lot of negative comments
about the Netgear "toaster")

Sparks...

"Sparks" <postmaster@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
news:44d79e70$0$634$(E-Mail Removed)

[snip]

> I have two of the HG400LAN's (Gigabit NIC 400GB Disk)
> It has a USB port on the back and one on the front - one
> is for the printer, the other is for another disk - I
> haven't used either yet, but I understand you have to use
> a particular one for each device. You can only install
> one disk and one printer at the moment, maybe they will
> change the firmware at some point (Let's hope)
> It doesn't have a DHCP server, but it can obtain an IP
> from a DHCP server (Or you can set it manually)

Sounds similar to my Maxtor H14R300 device. Although mine has two USB
sockets which are both usable for either printers or additional USB
drives.

I have one question though, why can I buy a 300GB USB drive for under £100
but the same capacity NAS device costs twice as much..?!

Ivor

"Geoff Lane" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
message
news(E-Mail Removed) ve.co.uk
> On Tue, 08 Aug 2006 10:42:15 +0000, Wira One wrote:
>
>
> > > I also have the 160gb Linkstation-
>
> > > I think the netgear toaster is more versatile and
> > > expandable though??
> >
> > You could freely open and add your own hard disk to the
> > toaster and it does run on Linux too. But the current
> > linkstation has more powerful processor and more RAM
> > too (MIPS 400Mhz + 64MB RAM).
>
> Why do you think the netgear device is more versatile, I
> was personally looking at the buffalo unit because of the
> printer server, this on its own would cost me about 40
> pounds so would make it quite useful for me.

A friend of mine claims to have spoken to one of the developers of the
Netgear device and was told to avoid it..! I don't know why, but I took
the advice and bought a Maxtor H14R300 which has so far been faultless.

Ivor