Buffalo Linkstation

The Buffalo Linkstation is a capable NAS. Here are some articles to make the most of it.

fcantusaldivar | March 25, 2013 at 5:02 pm

Hi Joseph,

I just bought a Linkstation pro and I found your blog very useful.

My main problem now is that I would like to install ownCloud on my Linkstation using the webserver but unfortunately it requires PHP v5.3 and above and the current firmware only includes 5.1xx.

Have you played with this before?

I think that I should be able to upgrade by rooting the linkstation but I’m not quite sure of the impact it will have if PHP is upgraded (I will probably need to upgrade MySQL)

Cheers!
Joseph Lo | March 25, 2013 at 7:22 pm

Hi there. I have not tried to update php on my Quad Pro. You might be able to do it by installing from ipkg. Worth a try I guess. And yes. You would need to root the NAS first. Good luck!
Billy | October 27, 2013 at 11:17 pm

Hi Joseph,

I just purchased a LS-QVL/E-AP but i was not able to config it properly… I found your page while searching around for the solution… Hope that you can give me some advice…

When i power on the unit, the LED blinks 6 times in equal interval. What should be the error code? And i cannot power it off by holding the power button. I have to power off by the switch at the back of the unit.

What should i do next to get the unit recognized by my PC? Thank you in advance.

Billy
Joseph Lo | October 29, 2013 at 9:44 pm

Hi Billy,

Try this info on this page:

What do the error/information codes indicate? (LS-WVL, LS-WXL series)

Hope this helps. Good luck.
Joseph
Boris Shen | February 14, 2014 at 8:44 am

What a great site!

Please contact buffalo if you need future help on any of our products
Sales@buffalo-anz.com.au
Dave Coles | March 4, 2014 at 6:47 pm

Hi Joseph – great blog, you have saved me hours of trial and error with setting up my Buffalo Linkstation Quad Pro – just got a few hours of reading ahead of me!

—
Regards – Dave coles
Joseph Lo | March 4, 2014 at 8:56 pm

Thanks Dave 🙂
wopr | July 21, 2014 at 2:42 am

Hello Joseph,

I just finished to setup my newly Linkstation, Thank you very much for your blog : it saves me a bunch of time !

Cheers,

.-wopr-.
emsegmen | July 20, 2015 at 3:22 pm

I’m following your format for cohabitating DropBox and Spider Oak on my computer. As a programmer of the 1980s turned physician of the 1990s and biologist of more recent times, the software has gotten beyond my level of sophistication. I like stuff that gets me on and off the computer quickly. Thanks for all that you do! Em Segmen
Brock | August 8, 2015 at 8:27 am

My link station 2 TB 2 drive has a solid orange light. What should I do if anything about it?
Pete | June 14, 2020 at 1:50 pm

Hi Joseph, I just stumbled across your blog while desperately looking for a fix on this problem with my Buffalo LS-QVL/R5 units:
I have two LS-QVL/R5 units (4x2TBDisks each on RAID5) and cannot open the settings website on both units (curiously happened at the same time?). I have no problem logging into the file system with either Windows SMP or WinSCP & Putty, however I’m unable to look/check system settings via the web-admin-interface.
Any ideas what could cause this and/or how to fix it?
Many thanks, Pete
Joseph Lo | June 21, 2020 at 1:41 pm

Hi Pete, sorry for the late response. I seldom check my blog these days…I don’t know how it happen but it looks like your admin login credentials are changed? If you can still access the files, i would suggest you back them up first and then reset the password. This will reset the admin password. Try that to see if you can gain access back to the NAS. Sorry I dont have any other smart ideas.

Another issue that you may wish to investigate (but probably moot since you say you can access the content of the NAS itself) is that the Buffalo NAS is 10 years old now and uses the older SMB1 protocol which the latest windows 10 drop support for already due to its security issues. You will need to reenable SMB 1.0 protocol via the Windows features control panel to get back SMB 1.0 support.
Pete | June 23, 2020 at 9:10 am

Thanks Joseph, no problem … however it’s not a password problem since I can access the units via Putty and/or WinSCP with my PW. Basically the website which displays the login does not even open and the browser says that connection failed. As mentioned previously, this happened at the same time on both units which is very peculiar and initially I thought it was just due to some update on my W10 workstation, however I tried connecting from my MacBook and a Linux machine with the same result. I have no problem opening all my data folders via the various file-managers and work with the files. It’s just that the system settings website is not responding and while I can get to the system webpage files via WinSCP and Putty, I’m not sure how to check why the website is not opening. One thought crossed my mind that the internal webserver(?) might be out of action, however when I tried to check on services etc, the Buffalo Linux version appears to be stripped of all major command functions.
I just thought (hoped?) someone else might have come across this problem and found a fix.
I know the last resort would be to backup all the data and then reset the units to factory settings, but I’m not sure if that would help either?
Ideas please … Thanks again
Pete | June 23, 2020 at 9:27 am

Hi Joseph, just another question please: if I was going to backup all my data files and then reset the units to factory settings, would you suggest to replace the Buffalo Linux with another Linux version AND which would be best and easiest to apply. I’m not keen to create a couple of bricks here?
Thanks
Joseph Lo | June 23, 2020 at 9:35 am

Hi Pete i personally use the custom firmwares previously from Shonk and later i used the one from Chris.
Pete | June 23, 2020 at 9:37 am

Hi Joseph, thanks but I’m not familiar with these names, any chance to get relevant links please?
Joseph Lo | June 23, 2020 at 9:49 am

Maybe check my blog there should be a jump page to those firmwares. I also have a guide that describe the process.
Pete | June 23, 2020 at 10:02 am

Hi Joseph, thanks, I found the pages, however, I’m slightly confused as the article only talks about updating the firmware and not replacing the original Buffalo Linux. Also, and maybe more importantly, it talks about v1.4 & v1.43, but my units are already on v1.74, so I would be going back on versions?
Are there any good articles about replacing the stripped down Buffalo Linux to a fully functional Linux? That’s probably something I should do if I decide to update at all?
Joseph Lo | June 23, 2020 at 10:19 am

Hi Pete, no it is not possible (at least I don’t know how and I am not aware this has been achieved successfully by someone else) on the linkstation quad pro. The best option would be to use an alternative firmware which is essentially the same as Buffalo’s version but the alternative firmware allows you root access so you can SSH into the NAS and install third party apps such as from the optware. The latest alternative firmware that I am aware of is v1.71 by Chris. I am actually using the v1.69 version at some point. I don’t know if you can still download them anymore as people have moved on from this NAS (being 10 years old and counting). But I still have mine humming along perfectly fine. it is now my web server at home. Yes you may have to “downgrade” from v1.74 to v1.71 (or v1.69) if you wanted to use the alternative firmware. I have been using alternative firmware since I have the NAS.
Pete | June 23, 2020 at 11:18 am

Thanks Joseph, it’s just that I seem to remember having noticed some mention of alternative OS installation when I first researched this issue on my units about a month ago. Btw, just to make sure we talk about the same systems: both my units are LS-QVL/R5 v1.74 and I did buy them locally (AU) about 8-10 years ago. Anyway, I’m getting more and more of the opinion that I have to reset to factory settings, but will have to get me a couple of large enough external disks (~6TB) to backup all the data first as I don’t want to loose it. You are quite right that these units have been working extremely well until now and I only had to replace a couple of HDDs, which wasn’t a problem with the RAID.
Thanks again
Joseph Lo | June 23, 2020 at 6:43 pm

No worries Pete. I have a feeling that none of the custom firmwares are available for download on the web so if you need the Chris firmware let me know I will upload to my dropbox for you temporarily.

The process of updating the firmware is pretty simple. Assuming you don’t already have the admin password (this is not your login password), go to maintenance -> restore settings page and restore the firmware to original state which will restore the admin password in the process. The default username/password combo is “admin” and “password” respectively.

Then after you have downloaded the custom firmware, navigate to the folder where LSUpdater.exe resides, start it and it will find the linkstation and prompt for a password. Enter the password “password” (without the quotation marks of course) and it will update the firmware. The linkstation will reboot a few times and it will flash orange and red but it should work.

If you intend to flash the firmware please make sure u have already backed up ALL files. Generally it is safe but given you are relatively unfamiliar with the NAS, there is therefore a significant risks that you will lose access to these files.

Good luck!
Pete | June 24, 2020 at 11:31 am

Thanks Joseph, I bought a 6TB disk and will backup one unit initially and just try a factory reset first. If that works I’ll do the other unit. I do have access to both units at ‘root’ level which I use when logging on with WinSCP & Putty. Would you know where I can get a command list on the Buffalo stripped down Linux version? because most of the commands I know from my Linux on a laptop don’t work. Even any of the update commands fail and it also appears that the original Buffalo website for updates is no longer available.
I suspect that Chris’s firmware wouldn’t change anything on the Linux installation either? I just wished these units had a more standard Linux installed?
Thanks again for all your help …
Joseph Lo | June 24, 2020 at 12:28 pm

Hi Pete, sorry I don’t have a command list for the Buffalo’s linux. The NAS is ARM based and you can check the linux version when you SSH into the NAS. It will be great if these small NAS boxes have a more “standard” linux version but this is not necessarily feasible. If you look at Synology NAS, some of their lower grade models based on the ARM based CPUs also have similar limitations. It is only when you get to the higher price model which uses the intel/AMD cpu that you can have a more “standard” linux. The Buffalo NAS is as good as it comes.

Hope this helps. Good luck!
Pete | June 25, 2020 at 12:23 pm

Hi Joseph, no need to be sorry, I’m grateful that I’ve got someone to talk to about this weird problem. I simply can’t understand that it’s THAT difficult to get this settings website going again. You’re right that my knowledge with Linux is very limited otherwise I would have fixed this probably a long time ago AND it’s probably something very simple. I’m pretty certain that it has something to do with access levels to the website files and must have happened on both units at the same time as both fail to open the settings website with this error: “Problem loading page”. I did try to disable the virus and malware software but that made no difference.
Anyway, I’d be grateful if you can send me the firmware link and any other links necessary to carry out an update (or downgrade?), with some instructions please!!!
Thanks
Joseph Lo | June 25, 2020 at 11:35 pm

Hi Pete, the most recent custom firmware that I am running on the Buffalo NAS is v1.71 as packaged by GaryT. I don’t think you can download this from his website anymore but I have uploaded this to my dropbox shared folder for a limited time. Since I am short on storage space I will be deleting this in short notice so please download this as soon as you can.

The link is here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yu06dt9c5t5voo0/ls_series-171-Halloween.zip?dl=0

For instructions this is no different to updating the NAS with any normal firmware but you can have a look at my blog for some tutorials/tips.

Buffalo Linkstation

Hope this helps. Cheers.
Pete | June 26, 2020 at 8:35 am

Hi Joseph, all done, many thanks and I’ll try to update my units over the weekend. Curious about the firmware name (Halloween) and trust it doesn’t turn into a halloween party???
Thanks again for your help, cheers
Joseph Lo | June 26, 2020 at 5:00 pm

Hi Pete, this particular firmware is christened “Halloween” by GaryT (the guy who packaged the custom firmware) during the Halloween season, hence the name. More info on his website here -> https://gadgets.tomatosoft.hu/portfolio/buffalo-linkstation-plex/index.html

Since you are done with the firmware I will delete the files off my dropbox. Cheers.
tim | September 3, 2020 at 11:07 pm

hello Joseph, do you still have a copy of the Halloween firmware, if so would I be able to get a copy? non of the links on the above website seems to work
thanks
Tim
Joseph Lo | September 3, 2020 at 11:19 pm

Hi Tim yes i do have a copy. I will have to copy manually to my Dropbox however so will try to do it this weekend
tim | September 3, 2020 at 11:20 pm

thanks
Joseph Lo | September 5, 2020 at 9:10 pm

Hi there. the firmware is now hosted here. Hope this helps.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r1t1s1vo4cgl0cm/ls_series-171-Halloween.zip?dl=0
tim | September 5, 2020 at 9:31 pm

hi Joseph, downloaded it thanks.
ps24u | November 8, 2020 at 11:32 pm

please make an article on Linkstation Quad Pro LS-QVL + SMBv2.
thank you
alanbjr | March 5, 2023 at 4:43 am

Joseph Lo, Do you have any firmware that has Transmission as a Torrent client in it? Alan