FTP, Backup

Figure 4 shows settings for the FTP server that's disabled by default. You can run it allowing anonymous logins (you can set the share), or restrict access to registered Users and Groups and the shares controlled by their settings.

Figure 4: FTP settings
(click image to enlarge)

The limitations for this feature are that you can't access external USB-connected drives, can't do simultaneous anonymous and registered user FTP, and there's no logging whatsoever.

The two USB 2.0 ports on the Giga can be used to connect a USB printer for print serving (to the front port only) or USB 2.0 hard drives (no Flash drives!) for backup or sharing. Only one external drive is supported, so forget trying to add more drives via a USB hub.

The drive you attach can be made available as a share, or as a backup drive and you can use the Disk Check and Format features on it as you can on the internal drive. Note that the external drive can be FAT32 formatted, which limits maximum individual file size to 2GB. But at least you'll be able to move the drive between the Giga and a Windows machine. If you use the internal Disk Format utility, however, the drive will get the EXT3 format used on the internal drive.

Figure 5: Backup job settings
(click image to enlarge)

The Giga's backup features (Figure 5) are for backup of its shares, not for backing up clients to it. If you want to back up clients to the Giga, you can grab a copy of Buffalo's LSbackup program (Windows only) from the info folder or try the 30-day trial CD of Tanagra's Memeo backup program (Win 2000, XP only).

The backup options shown in Figure 5 are for the most part self-explanatory. But note that you can't temporarily disable individual backups. A not-so-obvious feature (and not documented in the User Guide or on-line help) is the Giga's ability for over-the-network backups to another Giga. This feature works only between Gigas - 10/100 LinkStations can back up only to attached USB hard drives.

Tags: Buffalo, gigabit, NAS,

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