14 DAY TRIAL // In theory, it was always possible to make flash drives take up only the smidgen of space required by the connector and the NAND Flash chip holding the data, but it wasn't practical or easy to build such items, until now.
Buffalo has formally launched a flash drive unit that is about as small as a USB receiver used by wireless mice and keyboards.
Which is to say, it's actually smaller than you'd have been likely to hope for when asked how small such things could ever get.
Indeed, the RUF3-PS Series, as the collection is called, only sticks out of the USB port by 5.2 mm or so. Negligible.
You can push the drive into your laptop port and forget about it if you like, although it kind of defeats the purpose of removable media. Flash drive units are supposed to be carried around in a pocket or on a key ring.
Not that it will be that easy to do the latter with any of the RUF3-PS Series members. They don't have a hole, you see, where the ring or chain can pass through.
Indeed, the drives are so tiny that you're quite liable to lose them. So make sure your pockets don't have even the smallest puncture before slipping one of these things inside.
Anyway, there are four units, in capacities of 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB (that last one is actually pretty amazing for the size).
Prices range from around $21 / €15.31 to $87 / €64. Reasonable sums, all told, though this might only lead to irritated huffs for a while, simply because availability is restricted.
For some time, the Buffalo RUF3-PS Series will only be up for sale in Japan, where shipments will begin at the end of the month (May 2014). No telling how fast other regions in the world will receive shipments.
The transfer speed of up to 121 MB/s is pretty high too, thanks to USB 3.0 technology. It's enough to make one wish this were an OTG unit (USB On-The-Go, for using smartphones/tablets as host systems). Then again, that would have demanded a second, micro-USB port on the back, eliminating the possibility of the product being as small as it is.
Finally, the Buffalo RUF3-PS Series of tiny flash drives includes silver, black and red color options. Since they are fewer than the capacity options, we can safely assume that every 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB drive can be colored in any of the options, instead of them being color-coded according to storage space (as in, all 64 GB drives being silver or whatnot).
