Review: Buffalo Terastation Pro network attached storage

It may look like a small server but Buffalo's Terastation Pro is a Network Attached Storage (Nas) appliance, dedicated solely to sharing files on a small business network.

And, although it's Linux based with a state-of-the-art journaling file system, you don't need to be a Linux expert to use it, with everything configured and managed via a user-friendly browser interface.

The hardware is delivered ready to use. A Gigabit Ethernet port connects it to the network while the disks are mounted on special carriers behind a lockable front door.

A set of four 250GB Western Digital Sata-150 drives were installed on the model we looked at, giving a total of 1TB (terabyte), with a slightly smaller 0.6TB model also available (£430 ex VAT), along with a 1.6TB version at £1,000 ex VAT.

As delivered, the disks are configured as a single Raid 5 array which, on our test server, meant just 750GB of usable space. The remainder holds parity information, which enables lost data to be recovered automatically should a disk fail and have to be replaced.

Note that despite being mounted on slide-in carriers, the disks can't be hot-plugged, which means powering the server down to replace a faulty drive.

If you prefer, you can reconfigure the disks as two mirrored shares or, if space is an issue, as either a single 1TB or four separate 250GB volumes.

However, some thought is called for before doing so as, although it's not difficult, 750GB is more than enough for most small networks and the Raid 5 protection is well worth keeping.