Buffalo Technology has a wide range of NAS solutions that can be used for
streaming purposes with the Buffalo LinkTheatre and to share Data and Printer
on your local Network with ease. Not only there lies the worth of these units
as also Raid configuration and expandability are covered. If you start of
with the 0.6TB version (600GB), you have the choice to use Mirror Raid or
Stripe Mode or normal Logical combined drive that offers you 600GB of Disk
Space. (Raid further explained below). All units use the same casing/Software
meaning the only difference is the amount of disks inside and/or the size
of them. This enables expansion for the future but...
ATTENTION:
Buffalo doesn't recommend the upgrading of units by the user but it will
work if you change 1 drive at a time. As some of the operating system is on
the hard drives, if you were to change all 4 at once then some of the operating
system would be missing and wouldn't even power on, but if you change
them in stages, then erase and recreate your array after that's done, it will
work. All of the TeraStation's features are identical regardless of the size,
the only difference is the hard drive inside the TeraStation itself. If you
don't know what you're doing, then absolutely don't start playing with it!!
By Adding a third/Fourth disk later on of 300GB, you can reach up to 1.2TB
of Disk Storage in Logical Drive Mode, that combines the 4 disks to one. On
the other hand, you can reach 900GB Storage Space in Raid5, 600GB in
Mirror mode or 1200GB is Stripe Mode. Now what are all these modes...?
Let's explain the Raid Modes a bit more in detail.
Raid 0: Stripe
For a Stripe Raid, you need at leased 2 disks or an even amount of disk
multiplied. (4, 6) Stripe Raid offers a decent boost in performance as it
allows 2 disks to read and write data at the same time. The risk in using
this system is the fact if one disk fails, both disks are useless as half the
data is located on disk one and the other half on disk 2. (It is not so that
two files are being written on separate disks). There's also no waste of
space for backups or other purposes so full use of all capacity is available.
Raid 1: Mirror
Mirror Raid needs a minimum of 2 disks multiplied by even numbers. A
Mirror Raid is not possible with 3 disks. Mirroring means the content of one
drive is copied to the other in real time so if one disk fails, your data is
safe on the other one. Downside of this configuration is that you loose half
the space of your Disk Capacity which is 50% causing to serve as backup.
Raid 10: Stripe and Mirror combination (Also known as Raid 1+0)
An extension to Raid1, when using a minimum of 4 disks is the Stripe/Mirror
Raid configuration or the so called Raid 1+0. This will as well cost you 50%
of the available Disk Space as with 4 disks in Mirror, 2 disks are copied on
the other 2, and you loose 600GB. The reason to use this configuration is
the higher speed of Read/Write data in combination with the safety of the
Mirror. The 4 Disks are combined in Stripe Sets meaning 2 disks will be
writing and reading data simultaneously while the Mirror part copies the
content of the first Striped Disk Set to the second.
Raid5: The most used for File Servers!
This configuration requires at least 3 physical Hard Drives of the same size.
(If using different sizes, the Raid Configuration will use the available space
* 3 equal to the size of the smallest disk in your Raid 5 configuration).
Raid 5 has no additional performance towards speed but you only use 33%
of the available space for a backup where in Raid1 (Mirror), you loose half.
The advantage of Raid5 lies in the fact, the higher amount of disks used,
the less space you loose. Raid5 only requires 1HDD for backup (Parity).
Three HDD of 80GB results in Raid5 of 160GB and 80GB Backup. Using 5
HDD of 80GB results in a Raid5 configuration of 320GB and 80GB Backup.
The fact only 1 disk is needed for backup is the use of parity where there's
no need to backup files completely.
ATTENTION:
Buffalo doesn't recommend the upgrading of units by the user but it will
work if you change 1 drive at a time. As some of the operating system is on
the hard drives, if you were to change all 4 at once then some of the operating
system would be missing and wouldn't even power on, but if you change
them in stages, then erase and recreate your array after that's done, it will
work. All of the TeraStation's features are identical regardless of the size,
the only difference is the hard drive inside the TeraStation itself. If you
don't know what you're doing, then absolutely don't start playing with it!!
There are other Raid configurations but those are hardly used in general.
If using higher capacity disks, off course the size of available disk space will
grow as well. We used 80GB and 300GB as a reference but it can also be
400GB.
We will discuss more on the TeraStation in our review early Next Week.
A unit is on it's way for test with the Buffalo LinkTheatre and we'll be back
with detailed feedback on the NAS solution from Buffalo Technology.
http://www.buffalotech.co.uk/products/storage.php
Enjoy
Hi-Jack
Streaming yur life away...
MyMovies for NMJ: 
