In a world awash in external USB hard drives, the NAS – or Network Attached Storage – toils in relative obscurity. And that’s too bad, because for the networked home they can be an invaluable addition, taking a surprising amount of hassle out of everyday computing tasks.
A NAS is basically a hard drive bundled with a low-power computer that sits on your home network (router or switch), allowing you to access files from every computer on the network, along with tablets, smartphones and media players (PS3, Apple TV, Media Center PCs, etc.). You can use a NAS to centralize music libraries, documents, installation files, backups, video collections, photos, etc., all without a direct connection to your devices.
Several companies offer inexpensive NAS solutions and most are pretty good. But I’ve long been a fan of Buffalo Technology’s networking products, and their NAS offerings are no exception. The company’s newest home NAS is the LinkStation Live LS-X, available in 1TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities. The 2GB version, the LS-X2.0TL, retails for $219, but is available from Amazon.com for just $129 with free shipping – that’s cheaper than many external and internal hard drives with the same storage capacity.
There are a few changes to be noted from the last generation of the LinkStation Live, the LS-CH models:
First, the LS-X series features gigabit Ethernet connectivity, previously available only on the more expensive LinkStation Pro models. Second, there’s no onboard USB port for adding additional storage via a USB thumb or hard drive – this may seem like a loss, but NAS-based USB performance has never exactly been stellar (if you need USB connectivity, you can go with the LinkStation Pro). Third, the LinkStation now supports automatic uploading of photos to Flickr.
Other features remain from the LS-CH series, including DLNA media streaming support, iTunes Server, built-in BitTorrent for downloading while your computers are powered off, power management settings that including sleep timers and automatic detection of powered-on systems, and the NASNavigator utility that allows you to map the NAS to a drive letter, access settings, etc. It also includes a copy of NovaBACKUP Professional for backing-up Windows data, and it’s compatible with TimeMachine if you’re a Mac user. If you’re an iPhone, iPad or Android user, you can also download free apps that allow you to connect to the NAS from your network – or over the Internet.
If you’re looking for an inexpensive NAS with lots of storage and features, the Buffalo’s LinkStation Live LS-X Series is hard – if not impossible – to beat. Highly recommended.
-M
