What's the difference between the Buffalo LinkStation and a server? Not much. The LinkStation is a network-attached storage device, but it also includes a print server, attachable via one of its two USB ports, and it creates a shared folder for use by anyone on your network. You can use the other USB port to attach an additional drive, but you have to format it with the LinkStation first.

The LinkStation is a compact but hefty device, measuring 7.0 by 7.4 by 2.4 inches and weighing 3 pounds. You connect the LinkStation to your router, like any other device on your network—but this is a network drive, not a plug-and-play device. You'll need to run software on each PC connected to the LinkStation, and then tell the drive to perform a DHCP lookup and obtain an IP address automatically. You then log into the root account of the embedded Unix operating system and manage the drive via its built-in Web interface. Give it your workgroup name, and the LinkStation appears as a shared folder in all of your other networked machines. Security features allow you to password-protect folders for access or writing.

Disk performance is limited by the network. 100 megabits per second is only a quarter of the raw capability of USB 2.0, so almost all of the other devices outperformed the LinkStation handily. But the convenience of having disk storage available to all of your PCs makes the slower speed tolerable. Buffalo does not currently provide centralized backup software for the LinkStation, but we had no problem scheduling and initiating backups from individual PCs using Windows Backup. The network connection was more than adequate for streaming music, even to multiple PCs.

For $300, we would prefer more than 120GB, but the shared printer and highly flexible network configurations increase the LinkStation's value significantly.