14 DAY TRIAL // I've heard of Safe Modes many times, but they're usually special states that operating systems can enter when needed, not modes of operations for external hard disk drives like Buffalo's new HD-LCU3 Series.
Nevertheless, that's precisely what the company has announced: a range of external HDDs that can enter Safe Mode thanks to the bundled TurboPC EX2 software.
This safe mode compresses the data transferred to it, allowing more content to fit on the 1 TB, 2 TB. 3 TB or 4 TB of storage space.
In that order, the drives cost roughly $134 / €99, $169 / €125, $225 / €166 and $397 / €293, give or take.
There are both black and white HD-LCU3 Series drives, but the white ones only come in up to 3 TB.
USB 3.0 is used for the connection and the physical size is of 187 x 120 x 39 mm / 7.36 x 4.72 x 1.53 inches. Large enough to prevent the drives from qualifying as mobile, but justified by the space needed for the anti-vibration system, and to be able to sit both upright and horizontally.