Buffalo LinkStation 160GB

Pros: Nice design, responsive customer support

Cons: Backup feature does not work properly, Clunky confusing interface

Summary: The Linkstation looks cool and somewhat iBook-like and network storage for all your mp3's and photos sounds like a great idea... but its web based interface is clunky and it does not perform "overwrite" backups as advertised so what's the point? Buffalo Tech support acknowledges this glitch and, unfortunately, their boilerplate answer to this problem is "go buy a 3rd party backup solution."

Not a big deal until you realize that backing up over a 10/100 Ethernet connection and controlling the whole process through software run software run on a networked computer is a really, really bad idea. A measly 80 GB backup using retrospect express (that came with my second usb2 drive) took 36 hours with error correction turned on. The same size backup from the Linkstation directly to a secondary attached usb2 drive takes a mere 3 hours. Too bad you can only do that once before the secondary drive is full (unless you just happen to have lots of spare 200 plus Gigabyte usb2 drives lying around). The only way to get the linkstation to perform another successful backup is to reformat the secondary drive (wiping out all data with an interface that leaves significant doubt as to whether you are or are not reformatting the linkstation itself...a frightening thought if all your music is on there).

Tech support is knowledgeable and the wait times are low, but Buffalo sold a product with the express intention of it being able to back up data over usb2 to another drive and it does not work in the way it was advertised. What good is a storage device if you can't back up the data stored on it reliably and quickly?

Until they fix the firmware issues and the clunky interface, you are better off just getting a stripped down 300 dollar bottom of the line pc with a decent hard drive for network storage and stick it in a closet or something. At least the backups would be reliable.