Yamaha Home Theater
Entered CNET Catalog: 03/02/2006
SKU: HS-D1.0TGL/R5
Manufacturer: Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc.
Manufacturer description
Buffalo's TeraStation Home Server Series of Terabyte Network Attached Storage offers powerful storage, server and multimedia solutions for both the SMB and consumer markets. Combining advanced fault tolerant data solutions, robust file security and Gigabit Ethernet networking, TeraStation allows users to deploy a simple, cost-effective data or media server to their office or home network in literally minutes without cutting corners on features or expandability. By offering a total of four USB 2.0 ports, the device can accommodate additional external USB hard drives for expanded networked storage or as backup targets. Additionally, a USB printer that can be attached and shared over the network via TeraStation's built-in Print Server. Designed to DLNA guidelines, the TeraStation Home Server is compatible with DLNA supported devices, including Buffalo's LinkTheater Mini Network Media Player for direct streaming of multimedia files to your TV. Compatibility with Buffalo's LinkTheater Wireless High Definition Network Media Player allows wireless streaming of all your music, videos, images in high definition. With its sleek, aesthetic design and ultra-silent operation, the TeraStation will get envious looks whether it is located in a busy office environment or on the entertainment system in your living room without adding any distracting fan noise or taking up much space.User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 User Rating: 
2/10
Customer Service?? What's that??
Pros: Small size
Cons: Had since Dec. '08, and not been able to back up ANYTHING. Right out of the box it had a hard drive failure. It took them over 1 month to ship replacement drive. It was refurbished. It failed too, Customer service is TERRIBLE and RUDE. STAY AWAY!
Review: The Customer Service department is definitely lacking. They hang up on you, berate you and insult you. They don't stand readily behind their product, and you will have to fight for any service you may get. They take their time shipping replacements and are oblivious to any of their customers concerns. I bought the 4 TB unit and have had nothing but problems with it. I have not even been able to back up on it!!! Seriously, STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY. You would be better served getting a (ack!! dare I say it!!) microsoft home server!!! ouch! Very Disappointed in this purchase, planning a trip down to texas to talk with these morons.
User Rating: 
1/10
Lousy reliability and customer svc, no repair option
Pros: Good while it worked.
Cons: No out-of-warranty option. Poor customer service. Poor reliability. Could not delete some of the folders created. Inconsistent success with updating firmware.
Review: After just 18 months, hard drive controller went bad. Since unit out of warranty, Buffalo will not repair, not even if you wanted to pay for it. Basically, I have a $500 paperweight. How ironic to purchase a unit with such poor reliability to backup and safeguard your precious photos and other valuable files. Buffalo customer service not very helpful. Even their tech support was not very helpful at first - had to call in a second time since first person left me hanging on the phone with dead air. I will never buy a Buffalo product again! And I caution all of you to read their warranty information first before purchasing. Most other vendors I have dealt with, at least offer a way to fix the product that went bad by allowing you to purchase replacement parts.
User Rating: 
3/10
Terrible product...terrible support
Pros: price per GB
Cons: slow transfer; worked for awhile, then crashed
Review: After a couple of months of slow performance, the unit stopped working one day. After hours on phone with support with no success, I had a heavy paperweight on my desk.
Now looking for another brand.
Now looking for another brand.
User Rating: 1/10
Don't By Any BuffaloTech Product
Pros: Worked OK, When It Was Working
Cons: BuffaloTech Does Not Care About It's Customers
Review: I recently tried to update the firmware on my (out of warranty) Terastation and it ended up "bricked" There was no issues updating the firmware. It finished without any errors but then would no longer work. Tech support had me try several things but to no avail. The really bad part is BuffaloTech will not service, even for a fee, an out of warranty unit. They accept no responsibility for bad firmware update software. So now I have a very expensive door stop.
User Rating: 
4/10
The company is staffed by a bunch of clowns
Pros: Good price point
Cons: Support is lousy
Review: I am still waiting for my 3rd unit from this company. The firmware that came with this box was incorrect version. The DLNA media server function did not work. And the patch from support site would not install. Sent first box back, asked for expedite on 2nd box. Expedite requires charge to CC. 2nd box was sent. Guess what, still had the bad firmware version. 2nd box returned. 3rd box was suppossed to be sent week ago, right away. Of course it sits there for a week before being sent. First box sent back 2 weeks ago. Does the credit to your CC show up? No, you have to call them and get them to act on it. I had to prove to them the box arrived at their location.
When you ask for phone calls back from support or customer service. Dont expect to receive it. This is definitely the last time I will do business with Buffalo Technologies.
When you ask for phone calls back from support or customer service. Dont expect to receive it. This is definitely the last time I will do business with Buffalo Technologies.
User Rating: 3/10
Don't buy Buffalo
Pros: Quick and easy to use,
Cons: Poor reliability, worse support
Review: You buy these things so you can run RAID and be protected. Don't be fooled! If you are fortunate enough to just have a drive fail, you're OK. But, if the component board fails, you are in deep trouble. Buffalo cannot help you get your data back, because the boards are out of production, they have no old parts in stock, and the data is now INCOMPATIBLE with newer boards. You can't even put your drives in another array, not even a Buffalo, unless it has the same or newer version of firmware and it also must be THE SAME MODEL (which is out of production btw and nearly to impossible to find). Their response was - don't you back it all up? I said, "Some, but not an entire gig of data. I thought that's why I bought your product in the first place?" Then they referred me to a data recovery service.
So, you better buy two, and back up to the other one, or better yet, don't get a Buffalo at all.
So, you better buy two, and back up to the other one, or better yet, don't get a Buffalo at all.
User Rating: 1/10
Dont buy anything from this company!!!!
Pros: there is a lot of storage when you can use it
Cons: No Support, No Deveopment BAD Performance!!!
Review: The box delivers a lot of storage and it was not a cheap price. It ran okay fort a while (performance was ALWAYS HORRIBLE). It didnt crash or require resets till I moved it to a new system. Then it failed and I found out just how nonexistent Buffalo's support really is. No one would even pick up a phone when called and following the instructions in their knowledge base broke the array so that it could not be accessed. over 400GB of data POOF!! and a new boat anchor, YAY! I will NEVER do business with these guys EVER again!!
User Rating: 
7/10
Good cheap NAS solution!
Pros: Gigabit ethernet works better than MACBOOK
Cons: RAID5 limits write speed a little, but not too bad
Review: The bad reviews I have seen of this product revolve around people wanting warranty items cross shipped for free. No one does this, not even Dell, so it's mute and childish to bring it up. The performance of this drive itself is great for the money. We use 3 of them to offload a MySQL database and for backups of other data. No issues to complain about other than I wish the RAID configuration were a little more flexible. But for the price, it's not a bad little box with a whole lot of room.
User Rating: 
6/10
Good Solid Inexpensive Network Attached Storage
Pros: Easy setup, Good HTML Interface, Buffalo Phone Support, Serves media nicely, Sheer Capacity!!
Cons: Not Active Directory capable (domain), Noisy; Slow indexing of media files; Poor written instructions; Lousy web site for BIOS upgrades (which you will need)
Review: If you are looking for a relatively inexpensive Raid5 redundant solution (vs, single platter backup solutions) to keep your picture, files, music, and some videos on, in a secure-safe manner, this is a good solution with some notable limitations. For a home network - this is pretty darn good. This device won?t cut it at the office where you have a Domain Server / Active Directory.
Buffalo phone support was used several times, and they nailed the issues quickly, and gave me pathways and instructions to fix the issues (automated backup, and FTP service glitches). The attached USB drives have NO security functionality if you don't use their XFS file formatting on them - which then locks you out if you ever need to directly connect back up to your PC with that USB drive. That is one significant flaw in their "system". The associated literature is incomplete ? if you are looking for a stellar manual to help you, think again. You?ll need that phone support there. Otherwise, this thing rocks, and it has been very reliable. For the price, you can not build your own Raid5 system! If you are noise adverse, you should look elsewhere. This thing is not silent, but tis not overwhelming either. Good reliability so far. Stay tuned.
Buffalo phone support was used several times, and they nailed the issues quickly, and gave me pathways and instructions to fix the issues (automated backup, and FTP service glitches). The attached USB drives have NO security functionality if you don't use their XFS file formatting on them - which then locks you out if you ever need to directly connect back up to your PC with that USB drive. That is one significant flaw in their "system". The associated literature is incomplete ? if you are looking for a stellar manual to help you, think again. You?ll need that phone support there. Otherwise, this thing rocks, and it has been very reliable. For the price, you can not build your own Raid5 system! If you are noise adverse, you should look elsewhere. This thing is not silent, but tis not overwhelming either. Good reliability so far. Stay tuned.
Updated
Buffalo ended up bailing on support, and WARRANTY. Presented an RMA to return it, but was rejected when they wouln't honor the proof of purchase from a non-ebay store receipt. Won't EVER BUY ANOTHER BUFFALO PRODUCT AGAIN. BUYER BEWARE. Ten years from now this outfit won't exist.
Buffalo ended up bailing on support, and WARRANTY. Presented an RMA to return it, but was rejected when they wouln't honor the proof of purchase from a non-ebay store receipt. Won't EVER BUY ANOTHER BUFFALO PRODUCT AGAIN. BUYER BEWARE. Ten years from now this outfit won't exist.
User Rating: 3/10
Nice features, lots of problems
Pros: Big storage for the price; RAID redundancy
Cons: Unreliable, many problems, very poor support
Review: Don't get this if you will have Macs connecting to it. The sales liturature says it supports Macs, but only using AFP over Appletalk, which is not supported by Apple any longer, and the folks at Buffalo say they don't recommend using it! Why advertise a feature they don't recommend using? The only reliable way to connect would be using SMB over IP, which works, but is problematic. Also, the automatic backups never worked right, and support was unable to help us get it to run.
User Rating: 2/10
Useless piece of junk!
Pros: Lots of space, RAID ability
Cons: Not Mac OSX capadible, weak interface
Review: We both this Terastation thinking it was going to work with our backup software (Retrospect) and found out that it doesn't. We work on Macintosh computers and found out that it won't allow file name conventions larger that 32 characters. So now it just sits there and looks like a cool looking piece of furniture. I would not suggest buying this equipment. Not worth the money, even if it was on sale.
User Rating: 1/10
Buyer beware!
Pros: May work fine for awhile...
Cons: No service available after warranty, and awful support.
Review: I bought one of these and a tera'pro' before learning from Buffalo tech support that no one supports these things after the one year warranty is up. So if after sinking a hefty chunk of money into one of these, you find that it suddenly will not boot (as my pro tera did) a week after warranty, you are out of luck. Buffalo tech is apparently only a reseller of this Japanese product and does not have access to the root operating system. And tech support is just atrocious in every aspect- looong waits on hold only to be told to leave a message that might be returned a day later. On rare occasion that I could reach a human, the technicians did not understand their drives too well and gave conflicting advice. An RMA was also a confused mess on Buffalo's part that took weeks to sort out. They charge you for a new drive to be shipped out and then credit you if you can ship the old one to them in 15 days.
User Rating: 2/10
Piece of junk
Pros: RAID 5 protection
Cons: poor quality, poor customer service, and very poor replacement policies
Review: Do not buy it! I had the unit for only 3 months and it booted the first time fine. I was able to transfer most of the crucial data to the array, but it was extremely slow over GB ethernet from a Linux file server to the Terastation. We had to leave for an extended trip and shut the Terastation down for the duration and it has never booted since. It took a some time to find any information on the Buffalo Tech website that explained what the flashing red light meant. I called Buffalo for a replacement and was on hold for hours. Finally, they offered me a callback option within an hour, but I didn't get a call until well 18:00 and the caller id said "security screen". When I finally talked to a real human, I found my alternatives are to send in the unit with all of the important data on it to perfect strangers or to give FAX my credit card information to them so they could send me a unit to swap the drives into and send back the defective unit. It seems to me that the company should send me the replacement without me having to supply credit card information via FAX - when the warranty is supposed to cover the device. If they want me to send in the bad unit, then it should be without the drives that have my data on it. The customer service agent was worthless and wouldn't connect me to a manager or anyone higher up the chain to resolve this, which again is unacceptable. It is cheaper for me to buy an empty Infrant Technology RAID device and put my current drives in that than to risk having Buffalo charge my credit card or have someone steal the credit card information while they are sending the replacement.
User Rating: 7/10
Limitation on USB devices
Pros: Price, capacity, concept
Cons: USB implementation
Review: I guess I am disappointed.
This may not be an issue for others, but I discovered that the only way to write to external USB devices is to have them formatted as XFS.
I have a number of external USB drives that are in practice semi-portable for me. Apart from the issues of reformatting a mostly-full drive (I bought the TS for additional, not replacement storage), it means if I do reformat them that I cannot port them to another location and plug them in directly to my laptop, for example.
This may not be an issue for others, but I discovered that the only way to write to external USB devices is to have them formatted as XFS.
I have a number of external USB drives that are in practice semi-portable for me. Apart from the issues of reformatting a mostly-full drive (I bought the TS for additional, not replacement storage), it means if I do reformat them that I cannot port them to another location and plug them in directly to my laptop, for example.
User Rating: 
9/10
A fantastic unit
Pros: Fast, easy setup
Cons: built-in vpn support would be nice
Review: I never think about this machine. It just runs, never gives trouble and never loses data. Before buying the TeraStation, I tried a number of other solutions, including building a PC-based NAS which was too much of a headache. Now I have no worries, it's perfect!
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