Buffalo makes big noise over tiny terabyte NAS box NAS boxes generally too bulky for you? Then how about Buffalo's new LinkStation Mini? Announced yesterday, the compact server packs in 1TB of storage capacity using a pair of RAID-configured 2.5in hard drives. Buffalo LinkStation Mini Buffalo LinkStation Mini: NAS, in miniature The 13.3 x 8.1 x 3.9cm device has a Gigabit …
Given that it's 1TB RAIDed across two disks, I can only assume they're configured in RAID-0 (The zero stands for how much data you can get back if one of the disks fails, I believe). In my experience, 2.5'' drives seem to have a higher failure rate than 3.5'' drives as it is. Never mind doubling that chance of failure with RAID-0.
It's cute and all that, but I wouldn't trust it with anything but the most trivial data. And even then I'd be cautious!
I suppose it's an impressive racket though: sell a single midrange disk + $5.00 worth of plastic and + a $2.00 chip for twice or thrice the price of a same size top range disk, and provide performance worse than a low end disk. Leaves lots of performance headroom for marketing if the punters ever catch on...
I've yet to see a small NAS box that has decent speed. Even some 4 & 5 disk RAID NAS boxes can't top 25 MB/s. The vendors need to put more muscle into the LAN interface and on board CPU.
"Tiny" NAS boxes have been around for a while. Tiny being how big the NAS hardware is minus the drive. So making them this small is hardly hard.
You are going to pay an excessive premium for this, on an item which already has a high markup. You do with all NAS boxes, get a generic one and put your own drives in.
The "el cheapo" I got from somewhere recently, is exactly the same firmware wise as a larger name manufacturer, and it cost me loads less. Win.
These seem like overpriced, low-performing boxes and don't sound too appealing:
1. 1TB in RAID 0 sounds ideal for losing all your data, or
2. 500GB in RAID 1 using a mirror to protect your data
If you know how to use a screwdriver then you could build your own NAS, get much, much larger capacity, and get bullet-proof data integrity thrown in for free:
http://breden.org.uk/2008/03/02/a-home-fileserver-using-zfs/
I don't really see the point of this, unless it can run off USB. Then it'll be a fairly fast big chunk of storage to carry around with a laptop. If it needs it's own power, then bigger cheaper drives seem to be a better option. Or the Lacie little big disk that I have my eye on for portability (RAID 0, but currently only 400GB 7200 or 500GB 5400, and bloody expensive :()
Well that's sorted the PS3's streaming :o)
Think I quite agree with most peeps here when they say that historically, the 2.5 drives are pretty pants when it comes down to durability. Then again, having a couple of these knocking around: one with MP3s, one with movies, and one with pics on them would be pretty nice for me!
... but let's hope they work and are reasonably priced..
I've always found the Linkstations to be very quick actually... certainly a significant improvement over the Western Digital MyBook World Edition II i recently bought, that too has RAID built in, but running it in mirrored config it registered <10Mbps data transfer rate over a wired connection!!!
The Time Capsule i now have, whilst losing out on RAID is supremely quick....
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