Buffalo Technology TeraStation Live

[PJPro]

I'm considering getting one of these TeraStations instead of having to have my PC on to stream music. I have a PC with Vista Home Premium, a PS3 (60GB), a powerline network and a Netgear ADSL modem/router.

Will the TeraStation work with Vista and the PS3?

What actually manages the media on the TeraStation? I know that it uses DLNA, so my PS3 should just find it? But I don't get how I indicate which files are media I want to share. I am assuming that I copy the files from my PC and then some sort of browser HCI will allow me to identify these files and also set which devices I want to share to. Is this correct?

Can I connect two clients at once eg 2 PS3 and stream music/photos/video to both?

Does the TeraStation use significantly less power than an average 2 Core Duo PC?

 

[professorhat]

I've got an older Buffalo Terastation (not sure of the model, had it for about 1.5 - 2 years now). My PS3 didn't see it out of the box when I first got it, but I was able to install some software called TwonkyMedia on the Terastation which uses DLNA and this then allowed me to share certain directories which the PS3 could pick up, so I've got one for Videos, one for Music and one for Photos. It sounds like the new ones have something like this already installed so it should just work. My guess would be, you set the Terastation up with an IP address, then connect it to it through a web browser and you can then set up the directories you want to share.

Yup, you should be able to connect as many things to it at once as you like - I've been copying video files from my Mac / PC to the device whilst watching something on it from the PS3 and it works fine. No idea on the power requirements, but I'd imagine you can get those from Buffalo's website.

 

[PJPro]

Thanks. I think I am going to have to get one of these, setting up a mirroring raid. Thing is that what with cds, photos and shortly a new camcorder, I am predicting media overload. However, if I simply bung everything on my PC there is a danger that I could loose the lot. Less chance of this happening with mirroring. It's also cool to stream down photos and videos to the PS3 when the grandparents visit rather than crowding round the PC. IMO the future is NAS.

 

[professorhat]

[quote user="PJPro"]Less chance of this happening with mirroring.[/quote]

Definitely - sorry if I'm telling you stuff you know, but you could check out using RAID 5 depending on how many hard drives it has (needs 3 or more hard drives). Effectively, this gives you redundancy if one disk fails, but only needs one drive for this e.g. with 4x 250Gb hard disks, with mirroring you could only use 2 of the 4 as the other 2 would be mirrored so you'd have 500Gb available. With RAID 5 (or redundant striping I think it's called), you could use 3 of the 4 disks, giving you 750Gb of space to play with and the other disk holds the redundancy information if one fails. Obviously, the risk with this is if more than one hard drive fails, you lose everything, but that's rare.

 

[PJPro]

Thanks for that. Good point. Actually, I'm an IT Professional. But I am guessing that others reading this thread might not be aware of the various RAID configurations, each with their own Pros & Cons.

 

[professorhat]

Ahh, another one - we get about!

 

[JoelSim]

[quote user="professorhat"]
I've got an older Buffalo Terastation (not sure of the model, had it for about 1.5 - 2 years now). My PS3 didn't see it out of the box when I first got it, but I was able to install some software called TwonkyMedia on the Terastation which uses DLNA and this then allowed me to share certain directories which the PS3 could pick up, so I've got one for Videos, one for Music and one for Photos. It sounds like the new ones have something like this already installed so it should just work. My guess would be, you set the Terastation up with an IP address, then connect it to it through a web browser and you can then set up the directories you want to share.

Yup, you should be able to connect as many things to it at once as you like - I've been copying video files from my Mac / PC to the device whilst watching something on it from the PS3 and it works fine. No idea on the power requirements, but I'd imagine you can get those from Buffalo's website.
[/quote]

I'm sorry but have we fast forwarded to the year 2050?

This is just complete gibberish and I suddenly feel really old

 

[professorhat]

Ha ha - when IT and AV meet, the nerd is king!

 

[VoodooDoctor]

I have the current generation Buffalo Terastation. The PS3 finds it and plays video and music from it fine. I network it around the house with Netgear switches and Powerline boxes. It can be accessed by my wireless PC, Onkyo amp, PS3 and desktop PC. Great piece of kit. I use it as a printer server as well.

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="JoelSim"]I'm sorry but have we fast forwarded to the year 2050?

This is just complete gibberish and I suddenly feel really old[/quote]

Ahh, bless.

 

[Anonymous]

Guys,

This sounds great however the terastation is very expensive, wouldn't this do the job just fine too

Buffalo 500GB Linkstation Live Multimedia Storage Server

http://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk/product_info.php?sku=Buffalo_500GB_Linkstation_Live_Multimedia_Storage_Server&products_id=955&osCsid=09f7eb64c118f945ca41196aae266684

If so I'll definitely get this at 150 pounds seems reasonably for 500 GB NAS

 

[professorhat]

Yup, that'll do the same job. From the look of it, it only has one hard drive though. The advantage of the Terastations is they have more than one drive allowing for the mirroring / RAID 5 options talked about at the top of this post. This basically allows one of the hard disks to fail without you losing your data.

Of course if you have some way to backup the drive or if you're not really fussed about losing the data on the drive, then this doesn't matter.

 

[JoelSim]

A terastation Buffalo, network switches, hard disks, RAID 5 options. What the bloomin heck is going on. I route my hifi round the house by turning the volume higher the further I get from the living room...

 

[Anonymous]

[quote user="MattAdamson"]
Guys,

This sounds great however the terastation is very expensive, wouldn't this do the job just fine too

Buffalo 500GB Linkstation Live Multimedia Storage Server

http://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk/product_info.php?sku=Buffalo_500GB_Linkstation_Live_Multimedia_Storage_Server&products_id=955&osCsid=09f7eb64c118f945ca41196aae266684

If so I'll definitely get this at 150 pounds seems reasonably for 500 GB NAS
[/quote]

You could try these, but you need to add your own hard disks:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135622

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124390

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135155

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks but these seem a bit over the top just for a bit of music / photos and video.

I was going to have back up of all the files on an external USB drive anyway which is much cheaper than all of these RAID alternatives

 

[Anonymous]

That's fine if you don't mind the risk of losing all your music, photos and videos when a hard disk fails. A RAID 1 set-up gives you the peace of mind.

A separate back-up to a USB drive is obviously an alternative but you'll have to be disciplined about doing a regular back-up. RAID does is automatically. Plus I like to have the minimum number of boxes possible these days.