When it comes to portable hard drives, we don’t normally think of a large four legged animal that resembles a wooly ox to be one of the usual suspects. Questionable tech company naming aside, Buffalo has been around since 1975 and provides a wide range of wireless networking products. The Japanese based company also creates a range of storage, memory and multimedia devices. Buffalo sent along their MiniStation 320GB TurboUSB Portable Hard Drive, a portable hard drive that features a shock proof enclosure and a utility that boosts performance up to 64% over standard 4200 RPM drives. Let’s check it out!
Features and Specifications
- Dimensions (WxHxD in.) 5 x 0.8 x 3.3
- Weight (lbs) 0.42
- Power Consumption (Watts) Max. 2.5 W
- Operating Environment (Fahrenheit) 41-95°
- Setup Utility OS Support Windows®Vista, Windows®XP, Windows®2000, Windows®Me, MacOS®
9.0, Mac OS® X - Client OS Support Windows®Vista, Windows®XP, Windows®2000
- Power Supply n/a (Power supplied through USB)
The MiniStation comes from a family of five drives that range in size from 120 GB to 500 GB. A mentioned, it features TurboUSB Data Transfer Rates that boast up to 64% faster transfer rate than standard 4200 RPM drives and is housed in a shock resistant chassis. Inside is 5400 RPM Hard Drive and Supports USB 2.0 and 1.1. The drive is fully Plug-n-Play, USB Powered, and features a convenient wrap around USB cable which saves space and reduces clutter.
What’s In The Box?
Inside the box, you of course get the drive itself, including your standard documentation and software CD that contains the included Memo Backup Software and SecureLockWare Security software. The wrap around USB cable comes unattached and is also present. You also get an additional USB cable that allows you to squeeze juice from another USB Port. This can be an issue with some older systems or systems that have anemic USB ports.
First Impressions
The MiniStation 320GB drive features a shock resistant casing that allows you breathe a sigh of relief if your drive hits the pavement. The drive is suspended inside with shock absorbing blocks which translated into a slight squishy feeling in the casing. I did drop it a few times, sort of on purpose, but if squishy keeps the drive intact, then I’m OK with squishy. Unlike other drives on the market, I really loved how the USB cable simply wraps around the casing, keeping things tidy.
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Shock Proof but Maybe Not Coffee Proof
What I didn’t like were the large gaps left open by the USB and auxillary power ports. I’m sure that there is an easy way to simply block them off with a rubber boot of some sorts. Although I’m sure that the drive will absorb shock, it might not be able to survive a coffee attack.
Installation and Setup
The software CD gives you access to all the included backup and security software and electronic versions of the manual. One other thing that is included on the CD is a utility that enables the MiniStation’s TurboUSB utility. Although you can easily use the drive as a standard plug and play drive without the utility, it is this special software that unleashes the Turbo action. We’ll discuss this in short order.
As far as physical setup goes, just plug it in and if necessary, attach the extra power cable to another USB port to get more juice. The aforementioned TurboUSB utility requires you to manually enable it. Once you do that, you will be required to unplug and replug the drive as utility will momentarily disconnect it. Let’s move on to performance.
Performance
As mentioned earlier, I did give the drive a couple drops, maybe a kick from about four feet above a laminate floor to see if the cushioning system did its job. Thankfully, the squishy casing made it out unscathed and the drive powered up with no problems. Performance tests were done using an ASUS U1F laptop running Windows Vista Business and we used HD Tune to capture our results. In order to see the affect of the TurboUSB feature, we ran the benchmark with the drive plugged in as a regular mass storage device, and then with the TurboUSB Utility installed and enabled. Let’s begin!
Without the TurboUSB utility installed, the MiniStation performed worse than the Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini, another portable USB drive that we’ve reviewed. While the Maxtor put down a CPU usage of 21.1%, the MiniStation had a whopping 41.3% CPU usage. It also failed to meet the minimum transfer rate of 27.4 MB/s set by the Maxtor. Let’s see what happens when we turn on the TurboUSB utility.
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TurboUSB to the Rescue?
With the TurboUSB utility enabled, we found an increase in performance in maximum, minimum and average transfer rates across the board. It also appeared to affect the CPU utilization, but not to the extent that I would have hoped. I did manage to find out that the drive in the enclosure was a Samsung HM320JI that featured an optional Free-Fall Sensor that protects data from drops, as well as an optional Rotary Vibration Controller that minimizes the influence of external vibration. Perhaps it is these features that not only protect it from the drops, but may be responsible for the high CPU utilization.
From a practical approach, I did do the standard drag and drop test and found out that in the real world, the utitlization of the TurboUSB utility resulted in a 5 second lead when dropping a 408 MB folder of raw photo files. Times were 30 seconds without and 25 seconds with TurboUSB respectively.
Final Thoughts
Bigger numbers always sound good and I do feel that the 64% increase in performance isn’t as “no bull” as it should be. 4200 RPM drives already have a penalty compared to 5400 RPM drives, and even more of a penalty when compared to 7200 RPM drives. It would be more fair for Buffalo to have based their numbers on performance with drives that share similar platter speeds and comparable sizes. When we compared the numbers we produced on the MiniStation to the Maxtor OnTouch 4 Mini in our performance testing, we saw things start to even up. In fact, without the TurboUSB utility enabled, we saw the MiniStation put out lower performance in some areas with an extremly high CPU utilization. Having said that, the TurboUSB utility does give the MiniStation a TurboBoost in performance and there’s no reason not to keep it on.
Although the performance numbers were an area of debate, there is no debating the fact that I love the way Buffalo designed the USB cable to wrap around the enclosure. It’s such a great feature and I’m truly puzzled when a manufacturer builds such a small and compact enclosure, only to clutter it with a generic USB cable that is larger than the drive itself. The anti-shock feature was also a welcome addition. Losing data to an impromptu drop really sucks and the MiniStation does this well with its somewhat squishy yet shock absorbing enclosure. I’m sure the features of the Samsung drive inside the enclosure have something to do with it as well. Now if they could only do something about patching those huge gaps near the ports. It’s a coffee disaster just waiting to happen.
Overall though, the Buffalo MiniStaton 320GB TurboUSB Portable Hard Drive has a lot going for it. With faster than average transfer speeds, a shock absorbing casing and a smartly designed USB cable design, it’s definitely no slouch. With a few tweaks, I could definitely learn to love it.
Pros
- Excellent USB Cable Management
- TurboUSB feature really does increase performance
- Shock proof enclosure really does do its job
Cons
- What’s with the gaping holes near the ports?
- High CPU Utilization
Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10.0
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