Bay count, drive interface and the processor behind the applications · review

BUFFALO LinkStation 710, 8 TB review

The range five other listings on this shelf tell their buyers to look at, with current macOS support, cloud sync to three services, and — on a one-bay machine — no RAID claim at all.

By Jean-Benoit Buisson

Five pages on this shelf send their readers here. The LinkStation 210 at 4 TB, the 210 at 6 TB and the 220 at every capacity all open with the same sentence: “Check out the LS 700 for enhanced features, cloud capabilities, macOS 26, and up to 7x faster performance than the LS 200.” This is the LS 700, and its own first bullet repeats the claim from the other side: enhanced features, cloud capabilities, macOS 26 compatibility, up to seven times the performance of the LS 200.

Two of those promises are checkable on this page. The second bullet states compatibility with Windows and macOS 26 outright, where the older pages cap themselves at macOS 15 (Sequoia) with a footnote. And the ninth bullet names what “cloud capabilities” means: sync with Dropbox, Azure and OneDrive to form a hybrid arrangement. No LinkStation 210 or 220 page on this shelf mentions any of the three. The seven-times claim is relative to a range and has no figure behind it here, so it stays what it is — a comparison without a measurement.

The third promise is the one worth noticing because it is silent. The first bullet of the one-bay LinkStation 210 pages says “Value NAS with RAID”. This is also a one-bay machine, and its first bullet says no such thing — it opens on features and cloud instead. The claim that a single drive cannot honour has been taken out of the newer range’s copy. Nothing announces the change; it only shows when the two pages are read together.

So the capacity is simply the capacity: eight terabytes on one drive, stated in the seventh bullet, with no array to divide it. That makes this the largest single-drive LinkStation on this shelf — the 210 tops out at 6 TB — and at $382.99 on October 26, 2026 it works out at $47.87 a terabyte, all of it usable. The mirrored two-bay LinkStation 220 at the same eight terabytes gives four usable for $362.99, which is $90.75 each. The two machines answer different questions and the pages let the comparison be made.

The rest of the template holds, with the LS700 named where the LS200 used to be: a closed system keeping third-party applications out, SSL on transfers, folder-level access restrictions, NAS Navigator and PC backup software included — and here, unlike the older pages, with no “NAS Navigator 2 for macOS 15 and earlier” caveat attached. “Made in Japan”, 24-hour United States support, two years of warranty including the drive.

What is not published is what is never published on a LinkStation: no processor, no memory, no socket count, no port speed, no drive size, no decibel value, no figure in watts. The seven-times-faster claim therefore has nothing on either page to anchor it. The product record carries 1,315 g (46.4 oz) and 206 by 91 by 127 mm (5 in).

Prices quoted in this text were read on October 26, 2026. The live price is at the top of the page.

Where it holds up, and where it stops

Strengths

States compatibility with macOS 26 outright, which three other LinkStation pages on this shelf explicitly lack and send their buyers here for
Names what cloud capability means — sync with Dropbox, Azure and OneDrive — rather than claiming it in general terms
Makes no RAID claim on a one-bay machine, which is the error the older one-bay pages on this shelf do make
All eight terabytes are usable at $47.87 each, where the mirrored two-bay unit at the same capacity gives four at $90.75
Two years of warranty covering the drive, with 24-hour United States support and "Made in Japan" stated

Compromises

One bay, so no array of any kind is possible and the capacity is fixed at eight terabytes
The up-to-seven-times-faster claim has no figure behind it on either page it appears on
No processor, no memory, no socket count and no port speed, on the range sold as the faster one
No decibel value and no figure in watts, on a machine meant to sit in a home

Specifications

Bay count	One — stated in the title as 1-Bay and in the seventh bullet as one drive bay with the drive included. Unlike the one-bay LinkStation 210 pages on this shelf, the first bullet makes no RAID claim
Drive interface	Not published on the listing as a size or a bus — the seventh bullet states 8 TB of total capacity with the drive included, and no inch figure and no bus appears anywhere
Solid-state slot count	Not published on the listing — no M.2 slot and no cache slot is named in the title or in any of the ten bullets
Processor	Not published on the listing — no chip, no core count and no clock speed appears, on a page whose first bullet claims up to seven times the performance of an earlier range
Memory	Not published on the listing — no memory figure of any kind appears in the title or the ten bullets
Ethernet port count	Not published on the listing as a figure — the second bullet says to connect the unit to a router and counts no socket
Port speed	Not published on the listing — no figure in gigabits or megabytes per second appears, which leaves the seven-times-faster claim without anything to measure it against
USB ports	Not published on the listing — no USB socket is named or counted, and no copy-from-USB function is described
Supported redundancy levels	None possible, and none claimed — one bay cannot form an array, and unlike the one-bay LinkStation 210 pages on this shelf this page does not say otherwise. The eight terabytes are all usable because there is no mirror to halve them
Published operating system	Not named, and described as closed — the fourth bullet states that the LS700 uses a closed system to reduce exposure from third-party applications, with SSL on transfers. The fifth names NAS Navigator and PC backup software, with no macOS version caveat attached
Stated idle power	Not published on the listing — no figure in watts appears on the page
Stated acoustic figure	Not published on the listing — no decibel value and no claim about noise appears
Stated dimensions	Not published in the bullets — the product record carries 206 by 91 by 127 mm (5 in) and 1,315 g (46.4 oz)
Amazon reference	B08V5F9VJT
EAN	0747464134598
On Amazon.com	Amazon.com had an offer at $383 on October 26, 2026.

The questions that come up before an order

Does it support current macOS?

Yes. The first and second bullets both state macOS 26 compatibility. The LinkStation 210 and 220 pages on this shelf cap themselves at macOS 15 and direct macOS 26 buyers to this range.

What does the cloud capability mean?

The ninth bullet names sync with Dropbox, Azure and OneDrive to form a hybrid cloud. No LinkStation 210 or 220 page on this shelf names any of the three.

Can one bay do RAID?

No, and this page does not claim it can. That is the difference from the one-bay LinkStation 210 pages on this shelf, whose first bullet offers a NAS with RAID on a single drive.

How does it compare with the 8 TB two-bay LinkStation 220?

Same raw capacity, different arrangement. This one gives all 8 TB usable for $382.99. The 220 mirrors its two drives and gives 4 TB usable for $362.99 — $20.00 less on October 26, 2026, for half the usable space and survival of a drive failure.

Against the rest of the network and storage gear

This network and storage gear share the category and the price bracket. Only what each one states is shown; an incomplete column would mislead.

Model	Price	Bay count	Drive interface	Solid-state slot count	Processor
BUFFALO LinkStation 710, 8 TB	$383	One — stated in the title as 1-Bay and in the seventh bullet as one drive bay with the drive included. Unlike the one-bay LinkStation 210 pages on this shelf, the first bullet makes no RAID claim	Not published on the listing as a size or a bus — the seventh bullet states 8 TB of total capacity with the drive included, and no inch figure and no bus appears anywhere	Not published on the listing — no M.2 slot and no cache slot is named in the title or in any of the ten bullets	Not published on the listing — no chip, no core count and no clock speed appears, on a page whose first bullet claims up to seven times the performance of an earlier range
BUFFALO LinkStation 220, 8 TB	$363	Two — stated in the title as 2-Bay and in the seventh bullet as two drive bays holding 8 TB in total, with the drives included	Not published on the listing as a size or a bus — the seventh bullet gives 8 TB across two bays with the drives supplied, and no inch figure and no bus appears anywhere	Not published on the listing — no M.2 slot and no cache slot is named in the title or in any of the ten bullets	Not published on the listing — no chip, no core count and no clock speed appears anywhere on the page
BUFFALO LinkStation 720, 4 TB	$409	Two — stated in the title as 2-Bay and in the seventh bullet as two drive bays holding 4 TB in total, with the drives included	Not published on the listing as a size or a bus — the seventh bullet gives 4 TB across two bays with the drives supplied, and no inch figure and no bus appears anywhere	Not published on the listing — no M.2 slot and no cache slot is named in the title or in any of the ten bullets	Not published on the listing — no chip, no core count and no clock speed appears, on a page claiming up to seven times the performance of an earlier range
Synology DS225+, two-bay enclosure with one 2.5GbE and one 1GbE socket	$421	Two — stated in the title, and the second bullet places the model in the two-bay Plus series as the replacement for the DS224+	Not published on the listing as a size or a bus — the first bullet states that the unit requires compatible drives and directs the reader to the maker’s own compatibility list, which is where the answer is kept rather than here	Not published on the listing — no M.2 slot and no cache slot is named, and the only expansion the page describes is a memory module	Intel Celeron J4125, quad-core — named in the second bullet; no clock speed is printed

What separates the models, in network and storage gear

If price decides: BUFFALO LinkStation 220, 8 TB, at $363.

The buyer this one serves, among network and storage gear

Eight terabytes of network storage on a current Mac, all of it usable, where a second drive is not wanted and a backup will live somewhere else.

What this one costs among network and storage gear

Details checked on October 26, 2026.

Sources

Specifications: the manufacturer sheet for network and storage gear and the matching Amazon product page. Prices and availability: Keepa. Every figure on this page names its source.

What we look at on this network and storage gear