Maximum Drive Capacity for Buffalo Linkstation 220 2-Bay NAS

[Boomwebsearch]

Hi LinusTechTips community,

 

I have a Buffalo Linkstation 220 2-bay NAS that came with 2 x 1TB drives a few years ago which are still in use today in RAID 1. There was a 8TB version with 2 x 4TB drives in RAID 1 would mean having around 4TB of useable storage space., although the drives that come with these things are regular Seagate Barracuda desktop hard drives and I just bought the lowest capacity one since it would be good for the time and I knew that I was planning to upgrade the drives anyway in a few years time. What would be the largest capacity hard drives that could be installed in this NAS (Buffalo Linkstation 220 2-Bay NAS)?

 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

@Boomwebsearch

[Electronics Wizardy]

It will probably work with 16tb+ drives. There normally isn't a software liminit on drive size.

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

It will probably work with 16tb+ drives. There normally isn't a software liminit on drive size.

That assumes it recognizes GPT formatting, modern NAS do, older ones, it's hit and miss...

 

[Velcade]

 

Believe it or not Buffalo does show Capacity support for their systems.  link

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

That assumes it recognizes GPT formatting, modern NAS do, older ones, it's hit and miss...

 

If it says it supports 4tb drives it has to use gpt for data drives.

 

5 minutes ago, Velcade said:

 

 

Believe it or not Buffalo does show Capacity support for their systems.  link

They normally support much bigger drives than that as those were just the drives available at the time. 

[Boomwebsearch]

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

It will probably work with 16tb+ drives. There normally isn't a software liminit on drive size.

3 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

That assumes it recognizes GPT formatting, modern NAS do, older ones, it's hit and miss...

2 minutes ago, Velcade said:

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If it says it supports 4tb drives it has to use gpt for data drives.

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

They normally support much bigger drives than that as those were just the drives available at the time.

 

Thanks for the replies,

 

What drives should I install if I wanted the most storage per the dollar, I am thinking to install WD Red 5400 RPM 256MB Cache 4TB NAS drives although am wondering if they are worth the additional cost over traditional desktop drives (I need long-term reliability, so if the WD Reds will last longer then I don't mind paying extra)?

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If it says it supports 4tb drives it has to use gpt for data drives.

That part is obvious, but I was unsure how old the NAS was (and frankly, I'd made the assumption the OP had looked this up to begin with, and couldn't find the specs, hence the question here) 

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, Boomwebsearch said:

WD Red

Oh boy....now the fun begins

[Electronics Wizardy]

21 minutes ago, Boomwebsearch said:

 

Thanks for the replies,

 

What drives should I install if I wanted the most storage per the dollar, I am thinking to install WD Red 5400 RPM 256MB Cache 4TB NAS drives although am wondering if they are worth the additional cost over traditional desktop drives (I need long-term reliability, so if the WD Reds will last longer then I don't mind paying extra)?

For best value, shuck the external hdds, Great deal, you can get 8tb drives for about $130.

 

Id stay away from 6tb and below wd reds. There smr, and you don't normally want that.

 

Relability is about the same amoung drives, have good backups to prevent data loss.

[Boomwebsearch]

15 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

For best value, shuck the external hdds, Great deal, you can get 8tb drives for about $130.

 

Id stay away from 6tb and below wd reds. There smr, and you don't normally want that.

 

Relability is about the same amoung drives, have good backups to prevent data loss.

 

Extracting external hard drives would not be ideal, I want at least some warranty on the drives for a few years, and 8TB external drives cost $ 154.99 and the internal 8TB drives cost $154.97 (cheapest ones I could buy at the moment) so it's not going to save me anything and comes without warranty + hassle of disassembling the enclosures. I still have enough storage for now, so I think I will wait until the drives go on sale. Also, would there be any way to clean out the internals of this NAS, I think that some dust may have accumulated since it is not fanless?

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, Boomwebsearch said:

I want at least some warranty on the drives for a few years

You normally still have warranty. Where are you?

 

You can normlly take the nas apart and clean it.

[Boomwebsearch]

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You normally still have warranty. Where are you?

United States, although I think that the warranty would be voided if you extracted the internal hard drive out of an external hard drive if I am not mistaken.

 

11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can normlly take the nas apart and clean it

I know how to swap in and out drives and configure RAID and other access settings, although don't know about how to disassemble and clean this specific NAS, the fan is taking air and blowing it out of the unit, although I believe that some dust may still have went inside the unit. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, Boomwebsearch said:

United States, although I think that the warranty would be voided if you extracted the internal hard drive out of an external hard drive if I am not mistaken.

in the us warranty won't be voided

 

5 minutes ago, Boomwebsearch said:

I know how to swap in and out drives and configure RAID and other access settings, although don't know about how to disassemble and clean this specific NAS, the fan is taking air and blowing it out of the unit, although I believe that some dust may still have went inside the unit. 

IDk how exactly, but normally take the screws out and the main panel comes out.