Storage isn’t as a rule sexy, but it grows in importance as more and more of our lives, archives and entertainment moves into the digital. New to Australian stores next month is the Buffalo MiniStation. Sexy? No, but they are colourful, and potentially fast.
The Buffalo MiniStation is small, and available in either 500 gigabyte or 1 terabyte size. It can move your data around using the new USB 3.0 protocol, clocked to be around 10 ten times faster than USB 2.0. Inside the drives are silicon shock dampeners, necessary for those of us that treat our external hard drives with the kind of wear and tear you don’t find in a pristine computer lab environment.
The MiniStations will work with both Mac and Windows operating systems, though Windows users will have the added software benefit of Automatic Hardware encryption to help keep your data private. Although I did say this drive will work with Macs it will do so at USB 2.0 speed, as Macs don’t support USB 3.0, Apple having thrown its weight behind the new Thunderbolt system.
Buffalo MiniStation price and availability
The Buffalo MiniStation is available in a choice of red, black or silver – or, if you like to order your hard drives like you order house paint, that’s ruby red, spada silver and indigo black. They will go on sale in Australian retail stores in early July. The 500GB model will have an RRP of $99, the 1TB model $139.
You can also buy the Buffalo MiniStation
Buffalo Mini Station specifications
- Drive interface: SATA 3 Gb/s
- Standard compliance: USB 3.0 / USB 2.0
- Connector: Micro-B type
- Number of ports: 1
- Max. data transfer rates: 5 Gbps (USB 3.0); 480 Mbps (USB 2.0)
- Dimensions: 82 x 118 x 16 mm (500GB); 82 x 118 x 19 mm (1TB) (W x H x D)
- Weight (oz.): 175 grams (500GB); 230 grams (1TB)
- Power supply: DC 5 V (USB powered)
- Power consumption: Max. 3.1 W
- Client OS support: Windows 7 (32-bit/64-bit), Windows Vista (32-bit/64-bit), Windows XP, Mac OS X 10.4 or later