Refine search for Networking

  Leave a comment      Email this to a friend TrustedReviews Newsletters

Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge

So, after realising that the printer settings under the IP-Setup utility were pointless for PCs, I opened up the LinkStation Client utility and sure enough, there was a Printer icon. Clicking this will allow you to install a printer driver for the device that you have connected to the USB port. Installation is pretty much identical to connecting to a shared printer on another PC, and once the driver was loaded I was able to print without issue.

To be fair to Buffalo, this is a very early sample and I have been assured that there is a firmware upgrade imminent, which should make configuration less confusing. I hope that this is the case, because this is definitely a product that will appeal to the home user with a network, and it therefore needs to be fairly understandable.

But why are there two USB 2.0 ports? I hear you ask. Well you should also be able to connect USB storage devices through the LinkStation. So, in theory at least, you should be able to connect one of those USB external hard disks I was talking about earlier and use that across the network as well. I say, in theory, because I couldn’t actually get it to work. I tried connecting a Maxtor external hard disk to the LinkStation, but even though the LinkStation recognised it, I couldn’t connect to it over the network.

Contacting Buffalo again I was told that although the LinkStation can read FAT formatted disks, it can’t write to them. So in order to use a USB hard disk it has to be formatted via the LinkStation which uses a Unix-based filesystem. Now this is fine if you haven’t already got data on your external drive, but if you have, you’re not likely to want to reformat it just so you can connect it to your network via the LinkStation. Of course it also means that you can’t connect your USB hard disk to anything else once it’s been formatted. If you’re security conscious though, you might want to connect an external hard disk in order to backup the one inside the LinkStation in case of a hard disk crash.

Buffalo also said that USB flash memory keys were also supposed to work in the LinkStation but that the UK office hadn’t tested this yet. I however did test this and was unable to access or even format a number of USB memory keys.

One thing that Buffalo has definitely got right is the design of the LinkStation. It’s finished in white and grey plastic with a mirrored fascia. On the fascia you’ll find the power button and a USB 2.0 port. There are also indicator lights for Power, Link/Activity, Disk Full and Diagnostic. Pressing the power button switched the LinkStation on, but bizarrely it refused to switch the unit off no matter how long it was pressed for.

The second USB port is at the rear of the LinkStation, but it’s worth remembering that you can only have a single printer and a single hard disk connected, so you can’t have your colour inkjet and your mono laser both attached to your network via the LinkStation.

Add your comment