14 DAY TRIAL // There was a time when the hard disk drive was a component purely aimed at desktop PCs, but technology has evolved enough that many electronics can use them nowadays, allowing the LinkStation LS-XL from Buffalo to fit perfectly in the picture formed by the current storage market.
Buffalo has been making storage units for years and revealing them on a fairly regular basis, or at least often enough that the end-market won't easily forget the company name.
For instance, the outfit's newest portable HDDs were announced just little over a week ago, though the MiniStation series has been getting larger and larger since well before that.
In this new instance, Buffalo has built not some new mobile HDDs, but a member for the LinkStation collection.
For those that need an explanation, the LinkStation series, as the name implies, is composed of HDDs meant to link to networks and share data between devices.
The list of items that should be capable of accessing the files stores onto it includes not just PCs, but also Mac systems, TVs, media players, smartphones, tablets etc.
Buffalo developed the LinkStation LS- XL, with a capacity of 1 TB, 2 TB or 3 TB, all of which look fairly identical.
DLNA is supported, so that media can easily be streamed, and users can program when the HDD turns on or off thanks to a timer function.
Technically speaking, Gigabit Ethernet is supported, as is wireless web connectivity via WiFi and a passive cooling design, all inside a frame measuring 45 x 175 x 150 mm. The weight is of 1 kilogram and, finally, the way it is built lets one place it upright or horizontally.
Set to start selling in Japan around the middle of July, the 1 TB, 2 TB and 3 TB models will be priced at $195, $260 and $327, respectively.