Buffalo MicroStation 32GB SSD

Buffalo's MicroStation is a strange device. Despite its positioning as a ‘mini portable storage solution with the latest technology', it didn't quite make sense. The Buffalo is small, light and easy on the eyes and this is primarily because it features solid state disk (SSD) underpinnings.
   
The Buffalo can be bought with capacities of 32GB or 64GB but because of its SSD basis, the drives cost a startling US $170 and $300. This works out to a cost of $5.31 and $4.68 per gigabyte, making both drives very expensive compared to standard USB hard drives.       

While being based on SSD technology makes the MicroStation less prone to crashing on the go - as there are no moving parts - you don't get the full SSD bang in terms of performance because of the drive's USB 2.0 interface.            

Performing our 4.2GB file transfer from PC to drive and vice versa the Buffalo took two minutes and 43 seconds and three minutes and 23 seconds. In comparison Toshiba's SecuRed 200GB drive (reviewed last month) took two minutes and 37 seconds and three minutes and 19 seconds. Running Buffalo's TurboUSB software helped improve performance but the MicroStation was still slower than Toshiba drive.

The Buffalo is only faster if you're running seek-intensive software directly from the drive and this is thanks to the MicroStation's 0.6ms random access time.