Buffalo intros TS-HTGL/R5 TeraStation Pro NAS series

Keeping things fresh in its TeraStation lineup, Buffalo is dropping three new NAS units touting up to two terabytes of capacity and faster access speeds than previous models. Besides sporting the obligatory RAID 0/1/5 functionality (and looking exactly like its predecessor), the TeraStation Pro TS-HTGL/R5 series holds four hard drives behind a lockable door, gigabit Ethernet, and a snazzy LCD panel to show internal temperature and worrisome alerts. Slated to be available in 1.0, 1.6, and 2.0TB flavors, the units will also support "ActiveDirectory domain," which apparently pulls double duty as a security gate to ward off curious intruders and a data divisor based on group / role login preferences. Although pricing deets are currently unavailable, the trio will be getting NASty (read: shipping) in early December.

[Via Impress]

[M @ Sep 28th 2006 1:11AM]

Of course somebody will ask, who needs this, well I do, I work in full HD in a media company. Backup is a necessary part of life. A single show archive export is about 100GBs.
Malameel

[Simon @ Sep 28th 2006 1:16AM]

I don't realy need this, but I wana get NASty ... drool :)

[Ideal @ Sep 28th 2006 1:39AM]

Not sure if this is the same exact model, but I just set up a 2TB model yesterday (w/ specs to match). It also has 2 USB ports for external hard drives. Pretty nice.
I've copied a ton of CD's DVD's and I'm only using 1.76% of the space.

[Nogami @ Sep 28th 2006 3:49AM]

I just picked up a Thecus 5200R - loaded with the latest firmware it seems pretty solid so far. Now I'm just recabling everything with gigabit ethernet. Got 5 x 500gb drives on order to load it up (2.5tb RAID5 - 2tb usable storage).

[Ted @ Sep 28th 2006 7:56AM]

Our company (50+ computer users) has been using a TeraStation Pro 1TB for about 6 months now. Rock solid network storage with raid5 turned on (drops storage down to only about 700gb). The web interface to configure and manage does the job, but needs alot of work. It lacks some features that I would like to see (like HIDING network shares) and it's passwording system is not the friendliest to XP Home users (works seamless with PRO). The only thing I use to compliment it is my BAXTER MF Dual Layer DVD backup system to archive the Buffalo TeraStation once a month (Im paranoid about backups) http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/21/the-mf-digital-baxter-rip-25-music-cds-at-a-time/

[John Laur @ Sep 28th 2006 12:05PM]

I really have no idea why the users above are singing the praises of the previous model Terastations. I have one and let me tell you it is COMPLETE SHIT.

Read and write speeds are atrocious (Pushing 7MB/s on gigabit, 5MB/s on Fast Ethernet) as is access control. Even though it is running samba internally it refuses to authenticate against my samba domain controller. AFP is "supported" but doesn't even work (unless you still run OS 9 I guess), and there are no options available for Linux/UNIX such as NFS. Even the web-based management tool is riddled with spelling errors! On top of all of this, when a drive failed it took over an hour to disassemble the thing and switch it out.

It looks like they at least claim to have fixed most of the problems with this unit (at least drive swapping will be easier), but I'm not going to take their word for it... The readyNAS has had all of the features of this new unit for a long time and has proven itself already in the market (Plus it is cheaper). Once I can justify spending the money to replace this Buffalo TurdStation, it's going off the roof.

[Nakul Malik @ Sep 28th 2006 12:19PM]

I just bought the 1TB model last week for about $1000. Its a nice piece of hardware though it could do with some interface improvements.
It is already 80% full. I guess i'm gonna have to buy another NAS sometime next month.
-N

[aaron @ Sep 29th 2006 9:10AM]

So, since this new terastation may actually "work" with AD, does that mean they're going to upgrade their old models to actually work? I hate how their original version never worked with AD, only NT4 domains.

[CullerClassic @ Apr 10th 2007 4:44PM]

We got this drive based off it's price point. Let me tell you, you get what you pay for! I have had to reinstall the firmware three times... and if you don't install the firmware before it errors out, you have to reboot the unit. Also be VERY VERY careful about filling this puppy up. If you get near the limit, it will not remount the drives! Buffalo's Tech support has been atrocious on this! We've also had the same problem with the grotesque connect speed. We replaced the network cable it came with since it is obviously a 10/100 cable, and still got no where near the performance you should from a gigabit port. We lost 1.5 Tb to this beast! If you're looking for NAS on the cheap, do yourself a favor and go with Intel's variety. You have to get your own HD's... but man o' man is it rock solid... and has two gigabit ports.