Buffalo TeraStation TS6400DN 16TB SMB NAS Review

Pricing

At the time of this review, the Buffalo TeraStation TS6400DN can be yours for $1591.99 in the US and £1289.00 in the UK. That might sound like a lot at first glance, but you should keep in mind that this unit comes equipped with drives out of the box. Other capacity options will, of course, have other prices.

Final Thoughts

What a NAS. I’m impressed. The Buffalo TeraStation TS6400DN is a NAS that I would pick for my SMB, if I was to pick one. It is easy to use, works straight out of the box, and it is fast.

The exterior design is simple and effective. The drive trays are hidden behind the door which both protects from noise and dust. The display at the top delivers vital information such as network status, but also more. In the event of failures or notifications, the display is also used. During my testing, a new firmware was released which the display also informed me of. There was no need for me to log in to the interface and manually check that.

The unit is cooled by a large fan which doesn’t make a lot of noise while the unit offers 10GbE ethernet as well as 5Gbps USB. The only downside is that I couldn’t get the USB to work with my docking station. Other USB drives work fine though.

The user interface is a thing which always splits the waters between like and no like. It is personal preference whether you like a simple interface such as this or want a more mobile OS-looking interface. I quite like this type and it is faster for someone like me to navigate than an icon oriented design.

Performance

The TeraStation TS4600DN delivers an impressive performance thanks to the 10GbE connection. Coupled with the 8GB of ECC memory, the unit delivers impressive results in all our tests. Even with drive encryption turned on, it delivers. There’s nothing you can fault the unit in that regard. In fact, it performed better than I would have expected in some areas.

Should I Purchase One?

If you want to keep things simple and have a great security in the form of replacement service should a drive fail, then it is definetly a great purchase. It isn’t even expensive when you consider what you get. Especially small companies without a dedicated IT department will enjoy the ease of this unit while enjoying all the benefits it offers.

Pros

• Simple to set up and use/works straight out of the box
• Fast through modern drives, large memory, and highspeed Ethernet
• Available with up to 32TB raw storage
• 10GbE Ethernet as well as dual Gigabit
• Quad-core Intel processor

Cons

• No large app/add-on library as seen on other brands.
• Couldn’t get it to recognise my Silverstone HDD docking station

“The Buffalo TeraStation TS6400DN is the type of NAS I would use in my SMB, if I had one. It has all the vital features and none of the entertainment options found in SOHO devices. It’s made for what it is needed for. It’s also fast and easy to set up.”

Thank you, Buffalo, for providing us with this sample.