Pros: Expandable; just add a USB hard drive, or two. Fast (gigabit networking). Web access.
Cons: No auto-on/off setting.
The bottom line: If you're looking for simple and fast network storage, with expandability and the peace of mind of automated backups, the LinkStation Live may be for you.
A few years back I got into digital photography. Now I've got many gigabytes of images stored on DVD's and CD's. What a pain it is to hunt through all those old CD's trying to find an image. You might find yourself in the same situation as me. Maybe it's mp3 files, movies, images, or some other document, but chances are you've got a need for dependable storage. Furthermore, you've probably got a network at home. If you don't, you have probably contemplated installing one to facilitate WiFi connections to the Internet, or to print remotely, or to centralize file storage for several computers. If you are like me, the Buffalo LinkStation series of network storage units is an ideal solution.

The Buffalo LinkStation Live 320 is part of the 3rd generation of Buffalo network drives. It supports 10/100/1000 megabit (ie, up to gigabit) networking, multiple share folders with independent permissions, multiple users and multiple groups each with unique privileges, automated backups to other LinkStations or to an attached USB drive, remote FTP access (can be enabled per-folder, or disabled altogether), remote Web access (also can be enabled per-folder or disabled altogether), configuration through a web interface, automated emailing of status reports, and so on. But what it does best is sit there quietly, serving files off its 320GB drive, doing its job without your intervention.

The LinkStation Live also features two USB ports. You can plug a printer into one of them, and a USB drive into the other. Or plug one USB drive into each port for even more storage. The primary drive is automatically mapped (via the LinkStation's supplied software) to L:. And USB drives can also be set to automatically map to M: and N: (or any other available letter). That means each drive, including the USB drives is treated like a network drive, and given equal status from the end user's vantage point. I'd say that's pretty good future-proofing; if you ever start to feel like the 320GB drive is too small, just plug in a USB drive and you're good to go.

I have a USB drive plugged in that the LinkStation uses as a home for automated backups. That gives my data storage redundancy, which in turn gives me peace of mind.

A feature I haven't used is the LinkStation Live's media streaming. It supports streaming to other media devices on your network. Pretty cool, but not really why I bought the thing. I just wanted its convenient shared storage.

I do like the FTP and Web access. Older LinkStation models supported FTP, where you could set up a folder to allow FTP remote FTP access. You could configure for anonymous or password protected access. The LinkStation Live also supports FTP, but allows you to set up multiple folders. But it goes a step further by allowing you to serve files via the web. You can set up folders for web access, and then give your friends and associates a URL supplied by Buffalo that, when referenced by a browser, sets up a peer to peer connection for file retrieval via the web. The nice thing is that you don't have to know your IP address. Apparently the LinkStation communicates that with Buffalo (if you turn the feature on), so all you have to remember is the Buffalo NAS website. It's pretty slick.

Update: This report really isn't complete without a discussion about speed performance. Plugged into a gigabit router with draft 2.0 Wireless-N, its performance seems quite good. I Wirelessly I transfer files at about 7 megabytes per second for large files, or 6 for clusters of smaller files. Wired with a gigabit network card, I am able to transfer at around 17 megabytes per second, without even turning on Jumbo Frames. To me that's great. Some reviews I've read have suggested that this device isn't up to the same performance as its sibling the LinkStation Pro. I believe that may be the case if its media streaming capability is enabled, but I run with it disabled. It should also be mentioned that this drive uses the XFS filesystem, which is slightly slower than FAT32 or NTSF, but which provides journaling, consequently reducing fragmentation, and promoting improved data integrity. I'd say its a worthwhile trade-off.

Data rates between the LinkStation and a USB2.0 attached drive seem a little slower; more in the neighborhood of 12 megabytes per second. That could be my cheap USB drive enclosure getting in the way of performance, or it could just be that drives cascaded off the LinkStation via USB don't get quite the same data rates. Either way, 12 megabytes per second isn't bad for a secondary drive. Just not as good as the LinkStation's primary drive. Attached USB drives should be formatted to XFS too. Alternatively FAT32 is supported for USB attached drives, but not with the same data integrity assurances and fragmentation prevention of the XFS filesystem.

Power consumption is low; around 21 watts when it's in use. My older Linkstation supported auto-start-up and auto-shut-down based on a schedule. This unit doesn't offer that, but it does draw less power than my older unit, and the fan shuts off when it's not needed. Noise level is significantly lower than my older LinkStation 160, primarily due to a better multi-speed fan.

Let's talk for a moment about configuration and setup. Unbox the unit, plug it into your router, turn it on, and that's it. Your router (if it supports DHCP, which most do) should assign it an IP address, and you can then map it as a drive on your computer. In fact, if you want you can install the software that comes with it which handles the mapping for you automatically. I actually like the software, because it's smart enough to only attempt to map the drive once it is detected on the network. This silences all those annoying "Cannot map network drive" messages that Windows would otherwise give you. What an improvement! The rest of the configuration is handled through a web interface. Most of it is self-explanatory, though there are also help screens to assist. Total initial setup should take ten minutes, unless you want to deal with adding private folders and privileged users.

So now all my pictures reside on one central network storage unit that gets backed-up often. My wife and I can each access our photos and other documents from our own laptops via our network. We also play our MP3 files via the LinkStation, and store all of our important documents on the drive. Every night I backup to the secondary USB drive takes place while I sleep. I'm happy with the peace of mind the backups provide me. And there the device sits, quietly doing its job. What a great solution.