By: jesseinsf (23-Mar-08)      Experience with product: 7 Days

Strengths:	Media Server, Internet Sharing, Streaming Audio/Video, Quiet and good looks
Weaknesses:	None yet

Full User Summary
This peice of equipment is perfect for anyone who wants to stream digital media locally or over the internet. The file transfer is slow if you have a cheaply made giga router, so the speed is "Bottle neck" dependant. It also uses 64bit technology. The drive also self defrags itself so you never have to worry about disk fragmentation. If your computer has a giga connection and supports "Jumbo Frames" then you can adjust "Jumbo Frames" in the linkstation to match the exact settings on your computer (This greatly inprooves file transfer). File sharing over the internet is what I feel is the best feature this usnit has. There is no software to install, just goto the Buffalo web access site and log in. Great Product Buffalo :-)

By: plkarani (09-Jan-08)      Experience with product: 45 Days

Strengths:	* Easy Setup* Very Quiet* Elegant looking* Very fast. Seamless to use, just like using a local drive* Value added features USB Printer, additional USB port for another USB external drive
Weaknesses:	* None found

Full User Summary
This is a quality product. Was up and running within a few minutes. Easy intuitive interface. Provides a client utility for each PC/Laptop to connect easily. Security features are built in.

By: ahkayos (17-Dec-07)      Experience with product: 30

Strengths:	"Find me" beep, DLNA server capability, large capacity, easy set-up, web capable
Weaknesses:	Slow, noisy

Full User Summary
I originally purchased this drive to function as a network media server, mostly for music and video. The built-in DLNA server has the added function of quick and easy connection with the PS3 in the living room, allowing me to quickly access music, photos and video wirelessly-- which works great. And now that the PS3 will support DivX (as of Dec 18), I can remotely access those videos too. I haven't used the web server capability yet, but I think that would be a nice feature too. The only two complaints I have is that the drive is a little noisy (for a recent hard drive) and that it is a bit slow (although much faster than any other network hard drive I have seen). There are many things I will be upgrading to increase speed, but I am reasonably satisfied with the wireless network speed.

By: SDTechDeals (13-Oct-07)      Experience with product: Not specified

Strengths:	Lots of storage; nice form-factor; not too loud
Weaknesses:	Shaky install process; non-intuitive GUI

Full User Summary
I was looking for a network storage appliance to host up my MP3s on my home network, and make them available for my Sonos media player. I was trying to decide between the Maxtor Shared Storage II, and this Buffalo LinkStation Live. They had identical storage capacities (500GB), and both hosted Gigabit Ethernet for fast connections. I ended up keeping the Maxtor, as I found it easier to use, and nicer to look at! They had comparable noise levels, as each had a tiny fan. Setup on the maxtor was easier, and the web-based and user GUIs looks much more professional. I had a buffalo NAS before (the first Linkstation), and while their GUIs have improved, they still have a ways to go. I found the performance for serving MP3s comparable. I didn't try any testing to see which was faster for writing or reading, as I don't need that performance. Overall, I would say the other drive is a better value. It can be found cheaper, primarly as it has more mainline resellers.Oh, and I had an issue with trying to get my Windows XP machine to recognize the name that I gave it. Its something called names resolution. I waited on hold for 45-minutes with Buffalo tech support to get help (which they were not able to do!).

By: radekmazur82 (16-Sep-07)      Experience with product: 1

Strengths:	very nice looking, quite, 2USB ports, fast
Weaknesses:	price could be lower

Full User Summary
This is very good NAS. It has 2 USB ports that can be used as print servers or add more USB drives to make the storage even bigger. It has 1GIGA Ethernet connection which makes it very fast to share files on the network. Worth money.