Buffalo DriveStation USB 3.0

Product Survey: External Hard Drives

Buffalo Technology recently announced plans to extend its range of 3.5'' external hard drives, adding support for USB 3.0. This new version of the DriveStation has a similar design to the rest of the range, with a case in glossy black plastic and a curvaceous exterior. There are three versions available with capacities of 1, 1.5 and 2 TB. At the moment, nobody has a motherboard with a USB 3.0 port, which is why Buffalo also sells an optional USB 3.0 controller. The manufacturer boasts of speeds of up to 130 MB/s, and if this new hard drive is going to manage that, it'll mean beating the fastest eSATA-based external hard drives. And although they're more than possible, these speeds are a long way off from the theoretical maximums for the USB 3.0 standard, which is supposed to be able to reach 4800 Mbps, or 600 MB/s, which is ten times faster than USB 2.0. These theoretical maximum speeds are a good opportunity to remember that for USB 3.0 (and eSATA, for that matter), the speed of an external hard drive will be limited by the drive itself, and not the connection you use. WD My Book Studio Edition 500 GB (USB 2.0) Buffalo Technology DriveStation USB 3.0 1 TB To underline the difference between the two standards, Buffalo has included different-coloured LEDs on top of the enclosure: red for USB 2.0 and blue for USB 3.0. Using the latter, we recorded very fast speeds, but nothing to make eSATA blush.