Japanese storage expert Buffalo is one of the few relatively new companies on the market that managed to impress in a short time. The peripherals manufacturer is especially concerned with producing external storage devices, such as portable hard-disk drives, Blu-ray players, USB flash drives. Buffalo was also the first company to break the 100GB barrier in the solid-state drives industry.

External hard drives have become extremely popular since laptops invaded the market. Easy to install and carry, these drives offer additional storage space out of the box. The Buffalo MiniStation is one of the storage devices that impress the user even before having it plugged into the system. Its matte black plastic case is extremely elegant and can take up serious shocks with ease.

On top of the disk's case, there are two LEDs that indicate both hard-disk activity and its power status. The disk connects to the computer via an USB 2.0 cable, that also supplies the drive with the necessary electrical power. Bus-powered devices feature increased portability and are much more appealing to the user than their outlet-powered siblings.

The USB cable wraps around the disk enclosure that comes with a specially carved groove. This way, the cable and the unit can be kept together in a convenient manner and minimizes the necessary time for setting up the drive. Inside the case, the 2.5-inch drive "swims" in a sea of shock-absorbing material, that minimizes the physical shocks and vibrations, thus increasing the drive's lifespan.

The MiniStation drive comes with an interesting speed-boosting technology, called TurboUSB. The feature is alleged to boost data transfer rates up to 64 percent when the disk is connected to an USB 2.0 port. Although the company is pretty unclear about the reference, the drive is moving extremely fast and can deliver speeds of up to 34.7 MB/s read and 25.5 MB/s write, which is pretty impressive for a 4200 RPM drive.

The USB drive comes bundled with the Memeo AutoBackup software, a one-click backup and restore solution. Another important piece of software is the SecureLockWare utility, but you'd better refrain from using it unless security is vital for you.