Buffalo Forums

Hi guys,

New user here so please don't be rough  :)  (BTW, I read FAQ's and browsed for a while but still couldn't figure out my doubts).

I just ordered a Linkstation Pro Quad from Amazon that I haven't received yed, it should arrive shortly, and I must confess that I'm a bit lost with NAS systems.

My use scenario is very simple and I'd appreciate some feedback from you, experienced users, on how to proceed:

I have amassed several usb HDD boxes over the years, stuffed with HD content I'd like to consolidate into a single box, so I can access the content using different devices connected to my network, especially my popcornhour C300 HD player.  I'm not interested at this point in backup or RAID features, so I'm guessing I should go with JBOD (standard mode?) configuration.

I bought a 4TB Barracuda HDD that will be the first to go into the Linkstation  for formatting and FW install, after that I will use that disk to dump the content from other full HDD's (2x2TB) and then I want to use those 2TB disks with the Pro Quad, as well as another 3TB disk I have, resulting in a 11TB box.

What would be the best way to add new drives to the NAS box? I cannot plug all the drives in at once, as only the 4TB is blank and I don't want to lose my precious content,  so I will need to dump the contents of each full disk to the 4TB disk before I can plug the next in.

Is it possible after the HDD's have been formatted by the Pro Quad (to work in standard mode or JBOD) , to put them in a USB HDD enclosure and copy data from and to them using a Macbook or a laptop running linux?.

Any of you have experience using PopCornHour players or similar streamers? What would be the best way,  in terms of network performance, to access the content of the Linkstation: nfs, samba, upnp...?

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Matthew.