Clever little box that does internet-accessible/NAS - but how do you get it to work?

[Spitoon]

OK, so I've read about these things in magazines and seen them in the shops. And they seem like a spiffing idea - a box that plugs into your router and provides NAS and also provides accessibility to the stored data through the internet....my own little cloud.

So I've tried an iomega box which quite simply didn't do what it said on the box and went back. Now I've got a Buffalo LinkStation Duo - which does the NAS and internet accessibility and runs two HDDs in RAID 0/1 configuration to boot!

Has anyone got one of these little beasties? And got it to work? I'm reasonably computer savvy (well, standard hardware and software anyway) but I've never done much with networks...and I think this is where my problem lies.

If any kindly soul might be able to help I'd be eternally grateful. I'm trying to get it to work with Win7 Pro and a Netgear WNR1000 wireless router.

[Milo Minderbinder]

The key thing is your router
You need to open a forwarded port from that to the NAS device, and preferably put the device into the "DMZ" with a fixed IP address
That way you can access the NAS device from inside and outside, with less risk of anyone who acccesses the router from outside being able to break into the network
Of course yo need to password the router as well.....

So first question:
What router do yo have> And can it handle incoming port forwarding and the allocation of an IP address to a "DMZ" (so-called demilitairzed zone)

[Bushfiva]

The Buffalo Linkstation may or may not need port forwarding explicitly set on the router, depending on whether you have uPnP enabled on your router. It doesn't need to be in the DMZ. You have to explicitly enable the "webaccess" feature, give the unit a name, and from then on it will ping bufallonas.com from time to time. To access remotely, you visit that site, enter the device name, and robert may be a close relative.

The web interface varies greatly between models, ranging from adequate to almost unusable, and many of the models are astonishingly slow. If you know your external IP address, you can also access the device directly but there's no added benefit.

There's a rudimentary guide to the web side of things at Using WebAccess - 35011367 ver.03 (http://buffalonas.com/manual/en/). There are a couple of nice features, for example if you want someone else to download a file, you can send them a single-use email link.

[peterh337]

FWIW I have a Buffalo Linkstation, and while it works great as a NAS, large parts of its extra functionality just don't seem to work e.g. the media server.

I wasted a day on it and then left it. A lot of stuff on the net about the issues...

Any NAS with an HTTP server should be web accessible. You need to open up Port 80 in the router, set up some reasonable login security in the NAS device (because the open port 80 means it will be attacked with dictionary attacks within days if not hours), and then arrange for a fixed IP to be directed to the device (and there are multiple ways to do that, with a straight fixed IP from the ISP being a simple solution).

[Bushfiva]

Are you saying you've done this personally? You understand that, on the Buffalo (depending on the model) you're opening access to the NAS management pages and not to the media management pages?

[Spitoon]

Thanks for the input - I should be home again later today and it becomes project number 1!

The router is a Netgear WNR1000 - I remember seeing references to a DMZ but I don't recall whether it was on this one or someone else's whom I helped with setting it up.

If all travel arrangements go according to plan I'll report back later!

[Spitoon]

Again, thanks for the input.

It's working perfectly now - I'm using it as a doorstop.






It's another of those impulse buys that I'll maybe try and get working on a wet a rainy Sunday!

[India Four Two]

a wet a rainy Sunday!

Spitoon,

Base on my experience with these kinds of devices, you might need "forty days and forty nights" of rain. ;)

I've got a couple of doorstops of my own.

I42