Buffalo's new HS-DHGL LinkStation NAS serves up some iTunes

While it's fun to watch manufacturers stuff ever-larger hard drives into their ever-sexier NAS products, it gets a bit tried after a while. That's why we're excited to see Buffalo mixing things up a bit with some fancy new iTunes sharing. For the most part, Buffalo's new HS-DHGL "LinkStation Living" lineup sticks to the general HDD bump scheme, with options for 250GB, 320GB and 500GB hard drives (at the respective prices of roughly $287, $306 and $441), but spices things up a bit with DLNA for media pushing, and breaks new ground with iTunes server functionality. We're not exactly sure if that means these things can serve up iTunes DRM'ed music, or just your standard fare MP3/AAC files, but it's a welcome addition all the same. We did see that iHome Multi-Center a couple months back that was touting FairPlay compatibility, so we know the former is at least possible. Stir in a bit of gigabit Ethernet and TV recording functionality (over USB and Ethernet, it seems), and it looks like Buffalo has quite the winner here, though it looks like most of this winning will be happing in Japan for now.

[Via Impress]

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 29th 2006 1:28PM]

"and breaks new ground with iTunes server functionality"

In what way exactly? Like the other NAS enclosure that already does (and has done for ages) iTunes sharing?

http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=1&pid=1

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 29th 2006 1:54PM]

Hammo,

Yeah I saw that too. D-Link does it on their new Network Enclosure (http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=509). Not really breaking "new ground".

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 29th 2006 2:18PM]

Did you mean: "it gets a bit tired after a while"

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 29th 2006 2:31PM]

but can you hook up any of these to a 'airport express' (the ethernet port). its not mine but a girls, she wants wifi itunes storage, with limited 'streaming' hiccups
is that possible? or is wirless technology the limiting factor?

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 29th 2006 2:49PM]

"with limited 'streaming' hiccups
is that possible? or is wirless technology the limiting factor? "

Umm, even 802.11b has _plenty_ of bandwidth to support even the highest bit rate music encoded with a lossy algorithm. For instance, a 320 kilobit/second mp3 only represents about 5% of the total bandwidth you can realistically expect using 802.11b (let's say 4megabit/s). You may experiencing temporary outages because of interference or because you're too far from the AP, but this isn't typical if you have a decent setup.

[drakino Posted Nov 29th 2006 8:14PM]

iTunes DRM decoding is done on the client, not the server, so this device should stream DRM songs to any iTunes running computer just fine. I currently use mt-daapd on my linux NAS, and the few DRM files I have (from the old Pepsi caps) play fine on the machines authorized. If a new one connects, it is prompted to authorize if one of the songs comes up.


Anyone know how these handle creating playlists? I'd like to replace my linux NAS server with a true NAS soon, and one big use I do use is music streaming. I have a lot of smart playlists on the server that I'd like to keep.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 29th 2006 4:06PM]

Pete L, AirTunes employs Apple Lossless no matter what you play back, and ALAC tends to be somewhere around 1000kbps. As you corretly point out, 11b now only has about 4mbit of realworld performance anyway. Count in some overhead and you actually doing something else on the the network while you stream music - like browsing the web at 2mbit for example - and you will run out of bandwith with ease. The only way is to go 11g all the way. At least that is my experience.

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 29th 2006 4:18PM]

thanks Pete and Beaver, i think all Airport expresses are 11g but won't there always be some 'lag'? with her current attempts at airtunes she experinces less then optimal results, for me it wouldn't matter but she wants to be able to skip from song to song...

I'm not a laptop nor mac user (but i was just given a g3 ibook to play around with ha!). I'm also not a itunes user (gasp! they exist?) so, i guess to clarify the goal is to have an external firewire drive plug in to the airport express ethernet port(different problem) in the users room. Then be able to use airtunes at supposedly 11g speeds. Is that possible?

I figure it would be best to plug in a NAS instead to the AExpress and use it as wireless storage (as well as itunes streaming), nay the best would be if apple let people plug anything in to the usb port....

[(Unverified) Posted Nov 29th 2006 6:45PM]

Infrant's ReadyNAS line also serves iTunes.