|
 |
|
General Information
|
Add To My Personal Library |
February 16, 2007
• Vol.29 Issue 7
Page(s) 20 in print issue
|
Pump Up NAS Without Inflating The Cost
Buffalo’s Updated NAS Solution Features Gigabit Jumbo Frame Support
|
| 
Buffalo TeraStation Pro II
$999 for the 1TB version; $1,699 for the 2TB model
Cost-effective NAS solution offers high performance at a low price
www.Processor.com/Buffalo17
|
It should come as no surprise that small to medium-sized enterprises are increasingly looking toward NAS technologies for some or even all of their filer or backup needs. As economies of scale continue to drive down the cost of large-capacity disk storage for SMEs, easily deployable network-based disk arrays are now viable alternatives for small business consumers and other IT professionals wanting to save money without sacrificing functionality. With the introduction of its TeraStation Pro II, Buffalo Technology has focused its sights on this significantly expanding market sector.
“The TeraStation Pro II incorporates all of Buffalo’s engineering strengths in networking, memory, and storage to offer unprecedented performance,” says Brian Verenkoff, product marketing manager at Buffalo.
Using a total of four hot-swappable 7,200rpm SATA hard drives, the TeraStation Pro II is available in capacities of 1TB (TS-H1.0TGL/R5) and 2TB (TS-H2.0TGL/R5). Initially configured as RAID 5, the array can also be configured as RAID 0, 1, 10, or JBOD (Spanning). With two USB 2.0 ports, the TeraStation Pro II can accommodate additional external USB hard drives for expanded networked storage or as backup targets. An LCD displays the unit’s activity status.
The TeraStation Pro features a 10/100/1000 Base-T Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 port, as well as Gigabit Jumbo Frame capability for even higher transfer speeds than those experienced on standard Gigabit networks. According to Buffalo, the TeraStation’s high-speed Marvell processor delivers data transfer rates of up to 35MBps.
With its native support for Microsoft Active Directory, the TeraStation lets administrators join it to an AD domain and leverage AD users and groups. Administrators can also set group or user-level security. The array's Disk Quota Management feature allows administrators to designate the amount of disk space each user can use on the device.
For additional data protection, this latest version of the TeraStation product line now includes Memeo Autobackup multi-language backup software. Intended for Windows users, Memeo runs in the background and can be configured to automatically back up client files to the array.
Buffalo’s TeraStation Pro II faces strong competition from a number of industry contenders, including LaCie’s Biggest S2S (www.lacie.com), Iomega’s StorCenter Pro 150D Series (www.iomega.com), and USRobotics’ USR8700 (www.usr.com). While all of these products feature similar capabilities, the TeraStation Pro II is the only one to also offer a built-in uninterruptible power supply along with Gigabit Jumbo Frame support. All but the Iomega array provide support for RAID 10. 
by Joseph Pasquini
|
|
