| Reviews : Buffalo DriveStation Quattro 1 TB Hard Drive Array HD-Q1.0TSU2/R5 |
Buffalo DriveStation Quattro 1 TB Hard Drive Array HD-Q1.0TSU2/R5 Product By BUFFALO Available From 3 Sellers |
Technical Details
- 1TB DRIVESTATION QUATTRO USB2.0 ESATA/CMBOEXHD
Product Description
The DriveStation Quattro is a high speed data Storage solution using integral eSATA connection, the ideal extension for computer storage. DriveStation Quattro uses four separate high-speed SATA hard drives for greater reliability and security. Includes simple Plug-n-Play connectivity and four RAID modes. RAID 1 for simple redundancy, RAID 5 for a good balance between storage capacity and security, plus Spanning and RAID 0 for maximum storage.Similar Products
Customer Reviews
By John A. Brown
Do NOT buy Buffalo products! This is single handedly the worst company I've ever dealt with. In June 2007, we purchased the 2TB Drivestation Quattro. A month and a half after use, one of the four drives dies. The drive will continue to operate, as any RAID5 drive should, but only if you do not turn the drive off. Once you power the drive down, upon startup it recognizes a drive has failed and turns off! I've never seen a RAID drive do that, it's supposed to continue to operate regardless to give you a chance to get at data while working on swapping out the defective drive. I tried Emailing technical support, and never received a response. I placed three calls to technical support, remaining on hold for a total of 1 hour 25 minutes before I finally got someone on the line. I explained the problem, told them what I needed (a new 500GB IDE drive), they went to check with a supervisor, and then informed me that they no longer use IDE drives in their products, they've switched over entirely to SATA drives. Not a problem, they will send an entirely new Drivestation. I receive the new Drivestation, it uses IDE drives! Their tech support people are the most difficult to reach, and the least knowledgeable I've encountered in my 25 years in the computing industry. To make matters easier on my end, I simply swapped out a drive and kept the original Drivestation and returned the replacement - they paid the shipping. Three months later, the same drive fails again! Since I now have direct Email addresses from the last claim, service is a little quicker. After a few messages, I think we are set and a replacement is on the way. Three weeks later... no replacement, so I follow up with another Email. I'm told they're waiting for a fax. Fax of what? I ask. Apparently it doesn't matter that I have a previous claim on record for the same unit, I have to re-fax the original purchase receipt, serial number, address, etc. to them AGAIN. The new unit finally arrives. I copy the data over from the old one then wipe all the individual drives on the old system to prepare them for return. I request the shipper information to finalize this transaction and I'm told *I* am supposed to pay the shipping charges! I respond that I didn't pay the first time, I am not paying this time, this is their problem and if they want the drive back they're going to pay for shipping. They have not responded. This seems to be their standard response. They have a credit card on file, they'll just bill that for the whole drive. If they want to play that game, I'll get legal involved and bill them for the time I've invested to get their product working. I've not lost any data, fortunately, but the aggravation and downtime hardly makes up for that. You've been warned.
By R. DeSimine (NJ)
I'll be the first to admit, I'm a chronic complainer. But I rarely feel so peeved that I'd start a blog and complain publicly.
I'm an IT person with a handful of computers at home. My hard drives have accumulated a lot of files on various computers over the years and felt it was time to consolidate these files on a RAID device so I wouldn't lose all those pictures, video files, and code snippets that I worked so hard to create.
After some research, I bought a Buffalo Technology DriveStation Quattro. Chiming in at around $800, this nifty device can hold up to 2TB. Better yet, it can hold 3/4 of that in RAID 5 mode, so my data will be protected from loss.
When the unit arrived it came with little documentation. I popped the PCI SATA card in an available slot and turned the unit on. Now I'm not sure if I even needed this card, since I had SATA ports on my motherboard, but the documentation mentioned nothing about this, I figured I'd play it safe and use their card.
Setup was simple. It was quiet and fast. I had the unit up and running in under 15 minutes. When I tried to copy files on to the device, it failed. Seems I needed to reformat the drive in NTFS in order to store large files. Ok, so I popped in the CD and ran the Drive Utilities. A dialog popped up with unreadable characters, no luck getting this to work. I read all the documentation and I appeared to be doing the right thing, I tried again, still no luck. I tinkered with the format utility which came on the same CD and got the same result. A windows dialog appeared with unreadable characters. Strike one.
After some research, I decide to run Microsoft's convert command to reformat the drive to NTFS. This works well and I resume copying files from various computers on to the Quattro Drivestation.
Three days went by and the unit started beeping. One of the panel lights turned red, and the unit appeared to be operating despite this condition. I go to the documentation to find out what is wrong. There' s nothing relevant in the documentation. No description of what the lights mean, nor is there any meaningful troubleshooting information.
I called Buffalo Technology and they informed me that a drive has failed. They say this is normal and I need to send them the old drive and they'll send a replacement. Great. I packed up the old drive and shipped it off via UPS. The Drivestation is unusable during this period, and I need my files. Once I got the confirmation of delivery, I continually called Buffalo to follow up to insure they shipped the replacement. 10 days later a refurbished replacement drive arrives.
This is where all hell breaks loose. I popped in the replacement drive. I am under the impression that this drive should rebuild itself automatically. Instead all 5 LED lights flashed red and the unit halts, and a steady beep was emitted from the unit. I turned it off , disconnected the refurbished replacement drive, and powered up the unit again. Nothing. No lights, no beep, no activity, just silence. I called Buffalo Technology support. They walked me through a series of steps but were unable to help, nothing can be done, the unit is dead. I'm told they'll send a complete replacement unit. I asked for an advanced RMA so I can put the working drives from the old unit in the new unit before I ship the old unit back. They agree.
Five days went by and I called Buffalo Technology support. They say they haven't received my paperwork. What paperwork?? Nobody said anything about any paperwork. So I dig out my receipt and give them credit card info and fax it over. 5 days wasted. The next day I call to confirm that they received my paperwork. I am put on hold and no-one ever picks up the phone. This goes on for three days.
On the fourth day someone answers the phone and says my replacement unit has not shipped. The cannot give me and estimate. I called practically everyday for THREE WEEKS. I'm put on hold for an average of about 8-10 minutes each time. Each time they say they are contacting the warehouse. Each time I am given a different story. After 2 weeks, a service rep tells me the unit is out of stock and they have no replacements. The next day, a Friday, I am told the unit will ship on Monday and to call back on Tuesday. On Tuesday I called back and they said they have not received my paperwork!! Strike Two.
I called back the next day and was again told the unit had not shipped. Buffalo Technology billed my credit card $900 for the advanced RMA despite not having sent the unit. I told cutomer support to refund the $900 and not to charge my credit card until the unit shipped. They said if they gave me a credit they would have to cancel the RMA and the whole process would start all over again after I returned the original unit. I insisted that the money be refunded since I had no faith they were ever going to send a new unit. The customer support rep said she would cancel the RMA and send the request to accounting for a credit.
Would you believe it. One hour later Buffalo CALLED ME. Wow! They wanted to let me know they had a tracking number and my unit had already shipped. Guess they wanted their $900 bucks. Now the real question is, did they ever make any attempt to fill my RMA in the before I demanded a credit? It seems like when you call their customer service, the put you on hold and make up some story about how they're checking the warehouse or your item will ship tomorrow or whatever, but in reality they're just cracking jokes and laughing at you and maybe they won't even bother to pick the phone back up, they'll just leave you hanging on the line.
It took 42 days to get a replacement unit. The replacement was obviously used. It arrived in a brown cardboard box, had the wrong cables and included no documentation. There was a power cord, a CD, and an ethernet cable in the box (there is no ethernet port on a Buffalo Technology DriveStation Quattro).
I connected the replacement unit to the existing cables and the replacement drive ran fine. I changed the format to NTFS to match the old unit.
Now the whole point of this exercise was to recover the data from the old drives. So I took the three working drives out of the old unit and put them in to the new unit. I powered up the replacement unit only to be greeted by flashing red lights and constant beeping. What to do now??
Perhaps I should consult the dcoumentation and see what the lights mean? Yeh, right. Maybe the drive jumpers are wrong, hmm, let me consult the documentation. Maybe I have to do something to instruct the unit to rebuild the drive. Procedures for rebuilding a failed drive MUST be in the documentation, right? No. There is not a single mention of what to do when a drive fails, what the jumper settings should be, or what the flashing lights mean. I called customer service, I was put on hold and noone picked up the phone for 25 minutes. I made three such calls to customer service still no one picks up.
I am stuck, I cannot get to my data, the whole point of buying a RAID drive is now defeated. Strike Three, I am out.
I would rate this product a negative 1 out 5. That's generous. The unit is supposed to protect files. I lost all the files. I had to spend extra money in shipping charges to replace parts. I spent hours on the phone dealing with customer support. In the end I wound up paying $800 and got an enormous amount of frustration and aggravation, lost all my files, paid extra money for shipping, and now have a unit which I am afraid to put any files on BECAUSE ONCE A DRIVE FAILS, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET YOUR FILES BACK, which defeats the purpose of buying a RAID drive in the first place.
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