User Manual LS-QL/R5 LinkStation Quad www.buffalotech.com v2.2...
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Back up all your stored files regularly. See pages 63 - 66 for instructions on how to use the LinkStation Quad’s built-in backup utility. If you run into difficulties or need additional help, feel free to contact our technical support. Contact information for Buffalo Technology and our technical support is available on pages 93 and 94.
Table of Contents Layout ......................4 Installation ...................... 7 Using your LinkStation with a PC ..............11 Using your LinkStation with a Mac®.............. 15 Add USB Devices ..................19 Function Button .................... 20 Web Admin Tool ................... 22 Language Settings ..................26 Network Settings ...................
Installation Insert the LinkNavigator CD into your computer’s CD-ROM drive. On a PC, setup should automatically launch. If it does not, manually launch setup.exe by clicking Start and selecting the Run... option. When the Run dialog opens, type d:\lang.exe (where d is the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive).
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LinkNavigator Setup Choose your preferred language. Mac users can skip this step. Click the Begin Installation button. Click Next to step through the installation.
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LinkNavigator Setup The wizard will guide you through installation. Follow the directions on each screen and continue clicking Next to step through the installation. When installation is complete, you may close the installation window.
Power Mode The “Power Mode” switch on the back of the unit has two positions: “Auto” and “Manual”. The “Auto” position Auto automatically powers the unit on or off with your PC. If Manual your PC is turned on the LinkStation will power up; if the PC is turned off the LinkStation will power down.
Using your LinkStation with a Windows PC Three new icons will be on your desktop: Buffalo NAS Navigator, LS-QLxxx Setup results.txt, and LS-QLxxx, where xxx is the last three characters of the unit’s MAC address. The LS-QLxxx Setup results.txt file contains the IP address and network info for the LinkStation.
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Accessing LinkStation Data from your PC Your LinkStation uses folders to hold data. The default folder is called “share”. This folder is where you place data that you want to share with other users. You can create additional folders using the Shared Folders option. To start using your LinkStation, you can either click on the LS-QLxxx shortcut on your desktop, or open My Computer, where setup has mapped the next available drive letter to the default share in your LinkStation.
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Accessing LinkStation Data from your PC You can map additional drive letters to shares on your LinkStation. From the Start menu, select Run..Enter your LinkStation’s hostname (if you don’t know it, you can get it from the NASNavigator2 utility) or IP address. Click OK. Your LinkStation will open.
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Accessing LinkStation Data from your PC From the Tools pull-down menu, select Map Network Drive. Choose a drive letter from the Drive: pull down menu. To specify the folder to map, either find it with Browse or enter \\LinkStation_ Name\share_name in the Folder: field, where LinkStation_Name is your LinkStation’s hostname (page 21) and share_name is the name of a folder on your LinkStation.
Using your LinkStation with a Mac After installing the LinkNavigator software, your Mac will have two new icons. On the desktop, the LS-QLSettings.txt file contains the IP address of your LinkStation. In the Finder, NASNavigator is the LinkStation’s client utility. With the information in the LS-QLSettings.txt file, you can easily connect to the LinkStation from any of your computers on your local network.
Accessing LinkStation Data from a Mac You can add a link to your LinkStation’s share folder to your desktop by adding it to the Mac’s server list. Begin by clicking Go, and then choose Connect to Server. In the Server Address field, enter your LinkStation’s IP address in the form smb:// ipaddress (where “ipaddress”...
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Accessing LinkStation Data from a Mac Select Guest and click on Connect. Note: If you have configured share permissions on your LinkStation, select Registered User and enter your login credentials. Select the volume that you want to mount, such as share, from the list of folders on the LinkStation.
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LinkStation at the time that the setup program was run. You can always get the LinkStation’s IP address from your router’s configuration utility. Many Buffalo routers list this information on the Client Monitor page, as shown to the right. Consult your router’s documentation for instructions on...
Adding USB Devices LinkStation Quad has USB 2.0 ports on the front and rear. These ports can be used for adding external USB Hard Drives, a USB Printer, or for connecting to a UPS. LinkStation will share connected USB devices, allowing everyone on the network to use them. To connect a USB hard drive to your LinkStation, simply plug it into the USB port.
Using the Function Button Direct Copy - You can copy digital media files directly to the LinkStation Quad from a USB storage device, such as a digital camera, USB flash drive, or external hard disk. 1. Connect your USB device to one of the USB ports on the LinkStation.
Using the Function Button Initialization - You can easily Power Switch bring your LinkStation Quad Power LED back to factory settings with the following steps. 1. Hold down the power button for 8 seconds. The LinkStation will shut down after about 30 seconds. Function Button 2.
Web Administration Tool The web admin tool may be accessed at any time by typing the IP address of your LinkStation into the URL bar of a browser running on a computer connected to the same network as the LinkStation. You may also open the Web Admin from NASNavigator2 by right-clicking on your LinkStation and choosing Open Web Admin from...
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Login This login prompt will appear. Enter admin for the user name. Until you change it, the password for the admin account will be password. Click the Login button when finished. User name: admin Password: password Instructions for changing your password may be found on page 46.
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Advanced Settings - Home Welcome to your LinkStation’s Web Admin tool! You are now at the Home screen. Notice that the Home button is lit up in yellow. You can navigate this menu by clicking on the buttons at the left of the screen.
Basic Settings You may modify your LinkStation’s hostname and description under Hostname Setup. A friendly, easy-to-remember name (e.g. “LinkStation”) is recommended. Make sure that the date and time are correct in Date and Time Setup. To synchronize time settings with those in your computer, click Use Local Time.
Language Settings To change your LinkStation’s language settings to English from an unfamiliar language, click on the second left-side button. At the bottom of the page, change the last two settings. Select English in the next to last dropbox and CD437 in the last dropbox. Then, click the grey button just below the dropboxes.
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IP Address In most networks, LinkStation will get its IP Address automatically from a DHCP server. You may disable DHCP here if you would rather set a static IP address manually. If DHCP is disabled and an IP Address is not set manually, it will default to 169.254.xxx.xxx with subnet mask 255.255.0.0.
Disk Management This page shows the properties for the drives in your LinkStation Quad. If you have USB hard drives plugged into the LinkStation, their properties will appear here as well.
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RAID The LinkStation Quad uses RAID (“Redundant Array of Independent Disks”) technology to control its four hard drives. RAID may be configured several ways: RAID 0 - All four drives are combined into one large, fast drive, giving the maximum capacity for your LinkStation.
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Disk Management (RAID Setup) This page shows your current RAID arrays. You may delete old arrays or create new ones by clicking on the underlined RAID Array # under RAID Array Configuration. The RAID Scanning Settings set a specific time for the LinkStation to scan and inspect its RAID arrays.
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Disk Management (Change RAID Array) A configured RAID array may be deleted by pushing the Change RAID Array button. This will free up all hard drives listed under Disk Structure. You will need to enter a confirmation number from the screen before the RAID array will be deleted.
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Disk Management To configure an unconfigured array, begin by double clicking on the array you want to configure, e.g. “RAID Array 1”. Choose your RAID mode under RAID Settings and put checks next to the hard disks you want included in the array under Disk Structure.
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Disk Management When RAID Configuration is done, a disk check will run automatically. This may take several hours to complete. Performance of the LinkStation will be slower than normal while the disk check is running.
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Disk Management Disk Management (RAID Configuration) You’ll see this screen when your new RAID Array is completely configured. Click on Shared Folders in the left- side menu and turn to page 40 to begin setting up shares on your LinkStation.
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USB Hard Drives From here you can see your USB hard drives’ system information. If the hard drives’ information isn’t displayed properly, try restarting your USB hard drives and then restarting your LinkStation. Some USB hard drives must be reformatted from within LinkStation before they can be assigned shares.
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Disk Check Disk Check checks any of your hard drives for errors. To use Disk Check, select the disk that you want to check from the target pulldown and click Select Target. Then click on Start Disk Check.
Disk Format To format a hard drive or array, select it from the Target Disk drop box. Choose the file system desired from the File System dropbox (internal drives can only be formatted with XFS). Note that FAT32 has a 4 gigabyte filesize limit for individual files.
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Disk Erase To remove all data from a Disk, use Disk Erase. Once erased, this data cannot be restored. Note: Disk Erase may take several hours to complete.
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Folders To add new shares on your LinkStation, select Shared Folders from the left side menu, and then click the Add button under Shared Folders Setup. To delete a share or shares, check the checkbox next to the shares you’d like to delete, and click the Delete button.
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Add a new Shared Folder To add a new shared folder, enter a name for it in the Shared Folder Name box and choose which Volume it will reside in. You may also choose which operating systems and features the share will support by putting the appropriate checks next to Shared Folder Support, and Enable or Disable Recycle Bin.
Access Restrictions To use Access Restrictions for a share, select Enable. Highlight groups or users in the All Groups/ Users column and use the left-pointing arrow buttons (located just to the left of each box) to move individual groups or users from the All Groups/Users column to the Read Only box (if you want to give them read access only) or all the way to the Writable box, if you want to give...
Shared Folders (Services) To allow FTP Access to your LinkStation, choose Enable for FTP Server. To enable legacy AppleTalk support, choose Enable for AppleTalk Protocol. Click Apply. If enabled, FTP lets users access the LinkStation from anywhere. Type ftp:// username:password@IP_address/share into a browser window to access the LinkStation remotely.
Groups Groups allow for easier management of permissions in some networks, specifically networks with a lot of users in different departments. To Delete a group, put a check next to its name and click Delete. To add a group to your LinkStation, click Add.
Users LinkStation is preconfigured with two users, admin and guest, out of the box. The admin and guest user accounts cannot be deleted. To delete any other user, put a check next to their name and click Delete. To add a new user, click Add.
Changing User Passwords To change an account’s password, click on the name of the account under Local User Settings. Note: if a user name and password are used to log into a user’s windows computer or domain, the same user name and password should be used when creating the user’s account on the LinkStation, or problems accessing shared folders may occur.
WebAccess With Buffalo’s WebAccess, you can access your LinkStation from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. It’s easy to access your files, or share them with other people, wherever they may be. WebAccess is set up from within the Web Admin.
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Configuring WebAccess Select Folders Setup in the left-side menu. Any shares on your LinkStation will appear on the list to the right. Click on icon beside it to select a share to access remotely. Choose your desired level of Web Access from the ‘Web Access Settings’...
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Using WebAccess To access your LinkStation remotely, open a browser window on any computer connected to the Internet and go to buffalonas.com. In the dialog box, type the BuffaloNAS name that you set on page 46. Alternately, you can go directly to your share by typing BuffaloNAS.com/your_BuffaloNAS_name in the URL window.
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Using WebAccess To access individual folders on the right, click on their open links. Clicking on individual files will give you other options, depending on the filetype. Clicking on the Audio link at the bottom left corner of the page will give you options for playing music files, including the opportunity to launch a Flash-based music player that will stream your audio files directly through the Web interface.
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Using WebAccess (Uploading Files) To upload files to the LinkStation, click Upload in the bottom left corner of the window. Note: This option will not appear unless you are logged in and at least one user (besides admin) has been given access to the share. This window will pop up.
FTP Server WebAccess is not the only way to access the files on your LinkStation remotely. The LinkStation also includes an FTP server. If enabled for a folder, then you can read, edit, and save to any files in that folder from anywhere. 1: Set up your account.
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Accessing with FTP To access your LinkStation remotely, type ftp://username:password@ipaddress/share into a web browser where username - is your username password - is your password ipaddress - is the WAN side IP address of your router (can get this from your ISP or go to http://whatismyip.com) share - is the name of the folder on your LinkStation that you’re accessing.
Configuring Media Server If you have a LinkTheater or other DLNA compatible media player, this page is where you configure your LinkStation to work with it. Select Enable for Media Servers and choose the folder where your media files are stored. This may be located on a USB hard drive connected to the LinkStation if the USB Disk box is checked.
Direct Copy To use Direct Copy, plug a USB device into the LinkStation and press the function button on the front within 60 seconds. Media files will be copied to the LinkStation automatically. On this page, choose the folder on the LinkStation that Direct Copy copies files to and click Apply.
Printer Installation If a USB printer is plugged in to your LinkStation, you can easily add the printer to any Windows PC on your network. Follow these steps for each PC that you want to be able to access the printer. •...
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Printer Installation • Access the LinkStation by clicking Start, selecting the Run... option, and entering \\LinkStation_Name (where LinkStation_ Name is the DNS name of your LinkStation). Click the OK button when finished. • Right click on the lp icon and select Connect. •...
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Printer Installation • The Add Printer Wizard will launch. Select the proper driver for your printer. If the specific printer is not in the list, you will be required to insert the CD that came with your printer into your PC’s CD-ROM drive and click the Have Disk button.
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Printer Installation • To print a test page or configure additional printer settings, right click on the lp printer icon and select Properties. This will open the printer’s driver properties page. Click the Print Test Page button to print a test page. You •...
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Print Server (Delete Print Queue) If a corrupt print job is sent to a printer, printing may suddenly fail. If your print jobs seem to be locked up, clearing the print queue may resolve the issue. To delete the print queue, click the Delete button.
Accessing Multiple Shares from a single PC When accessing multiple shares to a Windows PC, you may see this error message. This is caused by having multiple shares to the same resource using different login credentials. The error occurs when connecting to at least one secure, restricted share. Due to a constraint in Microsoft Windows, only one set of login credentials can access or map drive letters for a network resource such as the LinkStation.
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Mapping Multiple Shares When mapping any share, select the Connect using a different user name option. A login and password prompt will appear. Use the username and password required by any secure, restricted shares for all shares. All mapped shares on a single PC must use the same username and password! If only unrestricted shares are being mapped, then it’s not necessary to set a username and password for shares.
Backup The LinkStation’s built-in backup utility can back up files on your LinkStation to an attached USB hard drive or to another LinkStation on the local network. For best results, reformat attached USB hard drives with ext3 before use as backup storage. If backing up to another LinkStation, then the target LinkStation should be connected to the same network as the LinkStation doing...
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Edit Backup Job A Backup Job can run regularly on a daily or weekly schedule, or immediately by appropriate choices in the Backup Job Schedule field. Date and Time for the backup may be entered, and Encryption and Compression enabled or Enable Overwrite Backup to have disabled.
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LinkStation List The LinkStation list shows other LinkStations in your network that you can configure network backups to. Click Refresh to get a list of LinkStations on your network.
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Disk Backup (Add LinkStation) To add a remote LinkStation to your network, enter its numerical IP Address in the Remote LinkStation IP Address field and click the Add to List button. For remote LinkStation backups, make sure both firewalls are configured to allow traffic in and out of their networks. Note: Disk Backups between two LinkStations use port 8873 for encrypted backups and port 873 for backups with no encryption.
Time Machine To use the LinkStation as a location for backups from a Mac running Time Machine, begin by creating a folder for the backups. Choose Shared Folders from the left-side menu. In the main window, click Add. Name the folder. Make sure that Apple is checked for Shared Folder Support.
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Time Machine Now, chose Time Machine from the left-side menu. Enable Time Machine functionality. For the Target folder, select the folder that you created for the backups on the previous page. Click Apply. Enter the Mac’s “Computer Name” (from its Sharing page) as the Target Host Name.
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Time Machine For the Target Host Name field, enter the Mac’s “Computer Name” from the Sharing page. Navigate to this page by selecting Sharing in System Preferences. To work with Time Machine, the Computer Name should contain only the following characters: 0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstu vwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.
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Time Machine It will take several minutes for the image file to be created. To be safe, wait seven minutes before continuing. After seven minutes have passed, the file TargetHostName_TargetMACAddress.sparsebundle will have been created in the chosen folder. In the Finder, click on All below Shared.
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Time Machine Move the switch to the “On” position. Click on Change Disk. Choose your LinkStation from the list and click Use for Backup. In 120 seconds, Time Machine will begin running a backup.
BitTorrent LinkStation’s built-in BitTorrent client will download your files for you. To enable it, click Enable. Chose a target folder for downloaded files to go to and click Apply. Then, click Open Download Manager.
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BitTorrent To add a torrent, click Add and then Browse. Navigate to the torrent file and open it. The file(s) will automatically download in the background.
Notification If your LinkStation is remotely managed, you may choose to receive daily status reports and be notified of any disk events by email. To set this up, enable Mail Notification and enter the IP Address of your SMTP server in the SMTP Server Address field.
UPS Settings If using an Uninterruptible Power Supply, configure the LinkStation’s UPS settings here. Supported UPS products include USB models in APC’s Smart-UPS and Back- UPS series. Note: Settings on this page can only be changed while a supported UPS is connected to the LinkStation.
Power Management You may configure up to three situations where the LinkStation powers down for a set period. Example: To have the LinkStation enter sleep mode every day between noon and 3 pm, set a timer with Daily as the timer interval, 15:00 as the wakeup time, and 12:00 as the sleep time.
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Restart From the Restart page, click Restart Now button to reboot the LinkStation, bringing it back to functionality after about 120 seconds.
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Initialization Initialization is a reset procedure that restores all settings back to the default, out of box, configuration. All configuration, users, groups, and backup jobs are lost, but actual data and shares on the hard drive are NOT lost. If you want all data to be erased, erase the drive (page 39).
System Status (System Information) This page shows you the System Information for your LinkStation. Firmware updates are occasionally available from www.buffalotech.com for the LinkStation Quad. These must be executed from a Windows PC on the same network.
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System Status (USB Details) This page shows you details on USB hard drives and UPSs plugged into your LinkStation. In this example, no USB hard drives are plugged in to the LinkStation.
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System Status (Drive Properties) This page shows you the properties of all hard drives in and attached to your LinkStation.
NASNavigator2 Client Utility This is the Buffalo NASNavigator2 Client Utility. Installed on your PC, it allows you to access each of the LinkStations (and LinkStations) on your network. Click View to get icons for each of your LinkStations. Click on a LinkStation’s icon to show its Host Name,...
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NASNavigator2 Client Utility IP Address Setup From the IP Settings tab, you may enter your IP Address and Subnet Mask manually, or enable your LinkStation to acquire them automatically from a DHCP server. Click OK when you’re done.
Troubleshooting Disk Errors If LinkStation encounters a disk error, it will be reported in the LinkStation status on the top of any of the Web-Based configuration screens. Run a Disk Scan in the event of this error. If that doesn’t work, try a reformat. Reformatting the drive will delete all of the data on it so try to backup any data you can before beginning.
LinkStation. Your product warranty may be void if you mount a non-approved hard drive in the LinkStation. Buffalo’s OP-HD series drives are recommended. For best results, replacement drives should be blank, with no files or partitions on them.
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Replacing a Hard Drive Make sure that the LinkStation is turned off and disconnected from power. Pull front cover straight off to open case. Push tab to left to release lock.
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Replacing a Hard Drive Swing locking mechanism to left to release drive. The hard drive tray will now slide out.
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Install a new hard drive by doing the same steps in reverse order: Slide the new hard drive into the case. With the lock mechanism open for the last bit, slide the drive into place. Close the lock mechanism. It will “click” as it engages. Replace the front cover.
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Rebuilding Your Arrays After replacing a hard drive, the data arrays on your LinkStation will have to be rebuilt. If the drive that was replaced was part of a RAID 5, RAID 1, or RAID 10 array, and the replacement drive was blank (with no partition or data stored on it), then the array will be rebuilt automatically when you power on the LinkStation.
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Rebuilding Your Arrays If the failed drive was not part of a RAID 5, RAID 1, or RAID 10 array, or if the replacement drive is not blank, then you may need to rebuild the array manually. In the Web Admin Tool, select RAID Setup from the left-side menu.
Technical Specifications Data Transfer Rates: 10/100/1000 Mbps Hard Drives: 3.5” SATA II (3 Gb/s) 512 Mb DDR-SDRAM Main Connector Type: RJ-45 (Ethernet) USB Interface: USB 2.0/1.1 Protocol Support: TCP/IP SMB, FTP, AppleTalk (File Sharing) HTTP (Management) NTP (Time Synchronization) Power Supply: 100-240V 50/60Hz Client OS Support: Windows...
Contact Information (North America) Buffalo Technology USA Inc. 11100 Metric Blvd., Suite 750 Austin, TX 78758 GENERAL INQUIRIES Monday through Friday 8:30am-5:30pm CST Direct: 512-794-8533 | Toll-free: 800-456-9799 | Fax: 512-794-8520 | Email: sales@ buffalotech.com TECHNICAL SUPPORT North American Technical Support by phone is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. (USA and Canada).
2 Bracknell Beeches, Old Bracknell Lane Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 7BW United Kingdom GENERAL INQUIRIES Email: sales@buffalo-technology.com TECHNICAL SUPPORT Buffalo Technology provides technical support in English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. For opening hours and relevant telephone numbers, please go to: www.buffalo-technology.com/contact...
Within the envelope containing the self addressed padded CD shipping envelope, please include a bank draft or money order for $20 (USD) (made out to Buffalo Technology) to cover our handling fee, postage and CD preparation. The CD-R should have the name of the product and revision number clearly written on the actual CD-R (not on the insert).
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Within the envelope containing the self addressed padded CD shipping envelope, please include a bank draft or money order for €20 (Euro) (made out to Buffalo Technology) to cover our handling fee, postage and CD preparation. The CD-R should have the name of the product and revision number clearly written on the actual CD-R (not on the insert).
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