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Buffalo DriveStation Velocity 2 TB
by aclevername
~ Why you need an external hard drive ~
I have heard many horror stories over the years of people having lost all of their digital photographs due to computers/ cameras breaking, being stolen etc.
Since my relationship with digital photography began in 2005, with my first camera phone (my beloved, much missed Sony ... Ericsson 6610) early in the year followed by my first digital camera (4 mega pixels) for Christmas 2005, I have lost about 20 photographs in total. Although this is nothing compared to the 25,000+ (about 45GB) which I have stored on my computer, I am still saddened to have lost them.
I lost most of the photos when I smashed a flip phone I had in half meaning I couldn't transfer the photos off the phone any more (before phones had micro SD cards). I kept the smashed up phone for a few years after I broke it in case I won the lottery and could see if an important man somewhere could retrieve them for me for a large fee, but that lottery win is still to come and I think the phone has long gone.
I invested in an external hard drive a few years ago to back up my photos and music, but it became evident quickly that my 320GB (which my boyfriend told me in 2006 that I'd never fill) was not going to be enough and I gave it to my sister and purchased this Buffalo 2TB external hard drive!
An external hard drive is perfect to store all of your photos, music, films/videos and even word/excel documents etc. Not only does this mean your documents are all backed up, deleting them from your computer can mean you have more space on your internal hard drive which means it should run quicker.
I keep all of my music on my external hard drive and don't have it on my computer or laptop at all as there is too much of it and it is all replaceable. All of my photos are backed up regularly onto my external hard drive and are also stored on my PC and laptop (possibly even my boyfriend's external hard drive as well) in a very strict filing system (I'm a geek with my photos)!
~ How much is 2TB? ~
A terabyte (TB) is 1000 gigabytes (GB), so obviously 2TB is 2000GB. That is quite a lot of space.
2TB will hold about 1800 good quality movies or
about 720 HD movies or
about 1,050,000 digital photos or
about 570,000 music tracks
or a combination of the above!
~ Why the Buffalo Drivestation Velocity 2TB external hard drive? ~
I would recommend the Buffalo Drivestation Velocity 2TB external hard drive as it is quick, reliable, easy to use and reasonably priced, currently available on Amazon for £93.75.
To use you simply plug it in to a socket and then plug another wire into the USB port on your PC, laptop or MAC and it is ready to use straight away. Your external hard drive will open in a new window and you simply drag and drop documents to copy them to your hard drive or right click and copy and paste them.
I have found that files transfer across quickly and the access rate is 7,200 rpm (which is quick apparently). I have always found it reliable. I have never had problems with the transfer where a file has been corrupted, damaged or part missing or anything like that.
The external hard drive itself is smaller than the one I previously owned. It is 25cmx20cmx15cm - about the size of a paperback novel. It is black and plastic with a piano finish around the front and top. The wires are at the back of the device. It can be stood upright or lain flat. Also the front of the hard drive has a yellow light to indicate that it is on. The hard drive only comes on when it is plugged into a wall socket AND the USB port is plugged in to your computer. It will remain turned off if the plug is in, but the USB is not plugged into anything, which is handy to save energy.
The hard drive makes very little noise, even when it's working hard - you barely know it's there - my laptop is much noisier.
Overall I think this hard drive is great - compact, reasonably priced, reliable, quick and easy to use. I think everyone should have one. I know so many lazy people who are careless with their photos, even of their children and I am incredibly glad that I am not them!!!
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Buffalo Drivestation TurboUSB 1 TB
by amy1993
For £50 for a 1TB hard drive, you can't really expect much in design.
If you want an external hard drive that you want to be able to take everywhere with you, this is not the product you are looking for. I'd suggest paying more for the tiny hard drives, as this bulk of plastic isn't very portable.
The hard drive ... does not have it's own on/off switch, so you have to plug it in and unplug in when you want it on or off, as it can overheat.
The internal parts work perfectly. As soon as you plug it into the usb, it's ready to go and shows all of the files straight away. Sometimes other hard drives can take a short while to load the files. It has worked with several windows pcs and laptops, macs and macbooks, ps3, xbox 360 and many tv sets.
The outer case isn't very strong, but it shouldn't be dropped anyway. It fell from a cabinet around 2ft from the ground, and one side cracked open. It somehow fixed itself by falling back into place after I left it on its side for a few hours.
This hard drive is definitely for sitting next to the tv or games console, holding films. It isn't portable as the outside is weak and bulky.
I'd give it a 3/5 as the design is inferior to other products, but it is cheap and works perfectly.
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Buffalo Ministation 1 TB
by StampedingTurtes
I bought a new laptop a few months ago and I decided to replace my old Western Digital external hardrive with a new, larger capacity one.
One of the reasons I was draw to this Buffalo one is because it is a "plug and play" type. You don't need to install any software to make it work. This was one of my biggest ... gripes about the Western Digital one so this one sounded perfect for me.
~~~ Product information and technical specifications ~~~
I am not particularly technically minded but I have an okay understanding so bear with me.
The Buffalo mini-station was made in China for Buffalo which is part of Melco Holdings Inc.
The hard-drive measures 10.5cm by 8 cm by 1.5cm so as you can see, it's quite small and neat. It comes with a short USB cable to connect it to your laptop.
The size of this hard-drive is 1 terabyte - that is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. In real-speak, the ministration can hold 24,000 songs or 280,000 photos. Basically, it's big enough to back up your laptop and have loads of space left over! The drives uses a USB 2 connection and seems really quite during file transfer.
As you will be aware, many of the larger external hard-drives require an external power supply from the mains. One of the things I liked about this one is that it does not require extra power; the USB connection does it all.
The Buffalo MiniStation is compatible with Windows7, Windows Vista, Windows XP and Mac OS 10.4 or later.
Buffalo provides a 2 year warranty for all of its products which gives some peace of mind!
~~~ My Experience ~~~
I ordered the Buffalo hard-drive from Amazon and it arrived in a small, neat box. Inside the box were the hard-drive, USB cable, warranty info and a set-up guide.
The set-up guide is basic - it basically just says plug the USB into the computer and into the hard-drive. It gives you information about how to get on to the user manual which comes pre-installed on your Buffalo.
On plugging it in, my laptop installed the device drivers in about 30 seconds and that familiar window popped up asking what I would like to do. I chose "Open Folder to View Files" and found the user manual etc. I was really relived to find that this hard-drive works just like a USB pen drive. You can just click through the contents in the file folder.
I began to back up my computer. You can run an automatic back-up or you can do it manually. I actually decided to do it manually because it was so easy and gave me greater control of what I was backing up and what I needed to delete.
To copy a file on to this hard drive you just open the window on your computer and then copy and paste whatever you need into the Buffalo folder. It is ridiculously simple. It also works really quickly. I managed to copy and paste a couple of thousand photos and songs and video files on to my Buffalo in less than 30 minutes. It seems like a really quick, smooth transfer with no glitches of hiccups.
While the Buffalo is plugged in you will feel the internal mechanism spinning. I am always wary about moving things like this while they are "going". I accidentally knocked my Buffalo while I had files transferring and nothing happened! They just continued to transfer over quickly and smoothly. Perhaps it was just lucky, but on some other hard drives this would have led to an error message!
Also, while it is plugged in you will see a blue light in the bottom section of the drive. This is quite useful to let you know that the drive is working but it is not entirely necessary and is perhaps there partly to make it look pretty, which it does.
The drive is almost completely silent while it is running and seems to be entirely unobtrusive. It does not slow my computer down or get in the way, it just sits like a silent sentinel, backing up my important information. So far I have backed up my whole laptop and I have more than 60% of the memory left. The hard-drive still runs quickly and I can access information by simply searching within the hard driver or by actually clicking through folders. It's completely simple to use.
To disconnect the drive you just do the same as you would with a pen drive and eject it. It ejects quickly and easily. During periods of long use it may become a little bit warm but not to any great degree.
I like to keep my Mini-station safe in a little specially designed shell type case which I got from Amazon for £7.
~~~ Conclusion ~~~
This is a very simple, efficient and reliable hard drive. It is highly effective for people like me who live with a pen drive attached to them and enjoy the simplicity of "plug and play" technology. It feels like a great, reliable place to store all of my important information and is certainly very handy for backing up files and organising my laptop.
I highly recommend this External hard drive. It is so easy to use and there are no clunky, extra software programmes to run. You just plug in and use it. Simple, easy, quick. If you are looking for a good external drive, this is definitely one to go for.
The Buffalo Mini-Station is available on Amazon for £79.99.
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