Buffalo has updated its range of USB and NAS external storage products with new designs for its DriveStation TurboUSB, LinkStation Live and LinkStation EZ series.

The LinkStation EZ is available at $169.99 USD for a 500GB version and $269.99 for 1TB. It comes pre-installed with a 7200 RPM SATA hard drive and supports Gigabit Ethernet. As per the name, setup takes just four steps, the first of which is "take it out of the box and plug it in".

Moving up the range we have the LinkStation Live available at $199.99 (500GB) and $299.99 (1TB). The extra coin gets you iTunes and DNLA media sharing, web access, expandability via USB as well as printer sharing among other features. As with the EZ series, Live models include a 7200 RPM SATA hard drive and Gigabit Ethernet port.

On the other end of the scale we have the DriveStation TurboUSB available in a range of capacities from 320GB ($89.99) to 1TB ($229.99). Buffalo says that these boxes are able to transfer files over USB up to between 20% and 37% faster (40bps) than other USB hard drives, but we'd have to test this out in our labs before we can back that claim.

Finally, Gizmodo has details of an upcoming LinkStation series box with support for up to four 3.5" drives in RAID 5. This device is said to include iTunes/DNLA media sharing etc. as well as support for Apple's Time Machine backup system.

Expect these to hit late September in $560 (1TB), $710 (2TB) and $1,300 (4TB) versions.

More info here and here.