BUFFALOTeraStation 3420RN 4-Bay SMB 32TB (4x8TB) Rackmount NAS w/Hard Drives Included Network Attached Storage

Perfect for my little office. I needed someplace to dump my constantly growing number of image files and documents for my small office. Server space is extremely expensive and ultimately starts the endless cycle of dragging down performance. Solution: network attached storage. Stupid easy to setup. So reliable! Just keeps trucking along. Now my application server runs at peak and I sleep at night. Solid investment! Best ROI possible.

Purchased this a few months ago, I haven't put it to work yet (for reasons that I'll explain below) so I may adjust this rating (I assume reviews are editable) as I gain experience with it.Initial setup was easy. It works fine on an isolated LAN and does not require Internet access to function; though Internet access is required to download firmware updates and to register it, of course. I haven't seen a way to get any kind of console access to it yet so it feels like a 'black box' which I don't like. But you can pull system logs from it and it provides some config options for remote logging (which I haven't set up yet).After it had arrived and I got it set up, I had let it run for a while (it ended up being 2-3 weeks) without using it because I had other things to attend to. However, when I finally got around to starting to use it, it started throwing errors that appeared to be drive access errors. I was dismayed because this was still a basically new, fresh out of the box, unit.I contacted their customer support team and received a response in less than a day's turn-around. They told me how to download the system logs and provided a support site where you can submit them for review. A day later, Buffalo support confirmed the drive failure. After verifying my purchase date, they set me up with an RMA case to replace the faulty drive. I shipped the failed drive to their facility and received a new one in exchange (note: it seems they shipped the replacement with overnight priority, at their expense, though I did not request that - I very much appreciated that). Installed the new one and it seems ok. This is why I haven't really used it much yet, intend to gradually move data on to it to build up trust in the hardware before I start loading it up. Since I hadn't stored anything onto it yet when the drive failed, I don't know how well data recovery works in that case (I'm using a RAID config that should be able to survive up to 2 simultaneous drive failures without loss).So in short: Admin UI feels a little clunky but is usable. It seems to provide pretty flexible configuration. Was very easy to set up overall. Support response time (while under warranty) was fast and communication was easy. Just a little dismayed that it only ran for a few weeks out of the box while mostly idle during that time (not being used to store anything) before a physical drive failed. But maybe that was just a fluke and doesn't speak to the reliability of the rest of the hardware.. maybe that drive got damaged from stresses during shipping.EDIT [7/14/2022] - Just updating to add that I have been actively using the unit for a little over 6 months now since that initial drive replacement and have had no failures or other problems. It has gone through several automatic firmware updates which all went smoothly.

As always from Buffalo, a perfect product. This is an expansion NAS for me and integrates perfectly with the other Buffalo devices I own.I saw another review here about this device not being compatible with Apple. That would be user error, it works seamlessly with all Apple platforms.

I'm using this unit as an iSCSI backup target in our vmware environment. Super easy to setup, robust, fast and reliable.

Ive been using Buffalo Tech products for 15 years. I use them for a backup target for my backups from Veeam. These things are perfect for archival or backup storage.

Easy to set up and install. Seamlessly integrated with my existing active directory. The management interface is very intuitive.

Great product. A good buy.

I bought this server to consolidate 4 desktop NAS devices on my local network. A bit naive (old time pro, but out of the business for 15yrs), I followed the brief instructions and attempted to install it in an old desktop rack. The mounting rails provided by Buffalo are obviously intended for a 4 post, 19 inch or greater depth rack - not my 14 inch deep one two post. I had to jury rig it to make it work, using all the rails instead of the two suggested by the instructions. After powering up, I didn't like the blinking lights and decided to wait a few (6) hours before attempting to setup the server - good choice! Although it has a nice GUI web interface, it quite a bit thin on the interactions of groups, users, permissions and shares. I wound up using the provided/loaded RAID 5 configuration and loading the 4 desktop NAS units to this one as the administrator and putting it online with defaults. I'll have to solve the user-group-permission security thing later. Overall I like the unit a lot, and expect it to be the solid center of my network. My advice: HAVE A Written PLAN before buying this unit. It will do what you need, but it is not a USB plug and play NAS box.Added 5/19/2021 - Buffalo Service/Tech support: I down graded the rating to 3 stars after dealing with Buffalo on an RMA for a drive. The drive failed within the 3 year warranty, Buffalo tech support was excellent (I had the proof of purchase, the unit log files, and all the drive details) and quickly determined the drive had failed and my warranty was in effect. My issue is I have to pay for shipping of the replacement. They only pay for shipping of the old drive. Trivial amount, just crappy policy since you know Seagate is going to take the hit really.

The device sets up fine, but if you try to use the NovaStor backup to create an Image backup under Windows 10, good luck. The network speed runs under 10Kbps on a 1Gpbs network and ultimately fails. Despite the matketing hot buttons, I have serious doubts about the actual long term value of this unit and mostly the software associated with it. They also sell 16Tb but actually recommend running it at 7Tb. It took 3 hours to get everything set up. I regret the whole purchase and the waste of time.