Buffalo Terastation

Aimed at business users but equally useful on a home network, Buffalo's Terastation is a stylish network attached storage device with a terabyte of space.

Four internal 250GB hard drives provide the storage, which can be configured into two arrays based on Raid levels 1 or 5 for either speed or redundancy. By default the drives are spanned creating a single terabyte volume but, although you set up multiple shared folders on the same array, you can't specify their size.

The unit is managed through a web-based interface, which is password protected for added security. The Terastation can be configured quickly and will fit into both a Windows domain, although with some limitations, or a normal workgroup.

Users and group level permissions for network shares can also be set. Status LEDs on the front panel of the unit lets you monitor drive activity.

Connection to the network is via a single Gigabit Ethernet port, which should provide sufficient bandwidth. Meanwhile, four USB2 ports allow you to plug in additional external hard drives for more storage or backup and a single printer - the Terastation includes built-in print server.

The Terastation can also be used in conjunction with Buffalo's Linkstation for wireless media streaming and supports TV recording USB tuners.

Buffalo includes a backup utility and, should a drive fail, disks are accessible and can be swapped out. UPS compatibility allows both automatic and manual shutdown.

The Terastation would fit into any small office network but it's also well suited for a home entertainment network.