UFS Explorer Data Recovery to Recover Data from Buffalo LinkStation NAS

A Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo Network Attached Storage (NAS) – LS-WVL/E recently developed a problem where one of the drives had failed. The symptoms indicated that it was a drive, with the clicking sound and the red light for the drive as a fail. A replacement drive did not resolve the problem. After several other tests, it turned out that the unit went bad.

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The next thought was to buy a replacement Buffalo Linkstation 220. To find a purchase one on the cheap was a difficult task, but eventually found one. The thought was I would be able to take the two original drives plug and play into a new system. After several attempts at attempt to gain access to the data on these drives from the replacement NAS, the frustration led to panic. Even putting in a test set of hard drives, applying correct firmware, and copying over a sample set of data which tool a considerably long time, timed out, and required many reboots. Gave up on the garbage!

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If I cannot find the same hardware to restore operations and gain access to the data, what is the next step. Attempt to recover the data by any means necessary. Send off a hard drive or buy software.

Enter, UFS Explorer Data Recovery. One of the Buffalo forums suggested this product to access and save the data elsewhere, even on a split mirror, (RAID 1). UFS Explorer even has a writeup on the process (link below). After reading through their array of products, I purchased the UFS Explorer Standard Recovery, Personal License (as it was applicable to me). The cost was only $69.95.

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The application is real easy to figure out and it didn’t take very long to successfully retrieve ALL the data without issue. Even the time stamps were transferred over to a new backup. This product was a great surprise to me. Never on my radar. So pleased to have found it and will use likely have a need for again.

Now that the data is secure, the need for a replacement NAS remained. The purchase of a Synology 2 Bay NAS DiskStation DS220+ (Diskless) NAS from Amazon was a more expensive and better quality decision. The data restoration was super speedy and couldn’t be happier.

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Lessons learned. Buy quality. Buffalo products are not. Synology, QNAP, and Netgear NAS systems have never let me down.

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