Buffalo MiniStation Velocity 960GB external SSD Review

Buffalo have a whole range of MiniStation external drives with capacities ranging from the 120GB MiniStation SSD up to the monster 3TB and 4TB MiniStation Safe drives using conventional hard drives. There's also a mix of interfaces across the ranges from USB 3.0 to USB 3.1 Gen 2 and Thunderbolt.

The standard MiniStation SSD range comprises three drives; 120GB. 240GB and 480GB whereas the MiniStation Velocity range drops the smaller capacity drive and adds the flagship 960GB drive.

Even though we couldn't quite get to the maximum read/write speeds quoted by Buffalo (over 500MB/s reads and 480MB/s writes) under test conditions, what the drive did achieve is still very impressive. Using the ATTO benchmark we got a Sequential read speed of 480MB/s while writes came in at 462MB/s. Using our real file folder tests, it took a shade under five minutes to copy the 60GB Steam folder to the MiniStation Velocity, at 210MB/s and three minutes to copy it back.

Although the drive doesn't have any utilities bundled on it, Buffalo has installed a quick link to the appropriate download section of their website to enable you to download a couple of useful bits of software, SecureLock Mobile2 and DiskFormatter2.

With SecureLock Mobile2 you can lock and unlock the drive as well as being able to provide extra security for any sensitive documents using AES encryption technology. DiskFormatter2 does what it says on the tin.

We found the 960GB MiniStation Velocity available for pre-order at Insight for £451.19 (inc VAT) HERE

Pros

• Performance.
• Huge capacity.
• Compact size.

Cons

• Encryption software not bundled on the drive.
• Not cheap.

Kitguru says:  Large in capacity, small in stature, Buffalo's MiniStation Velocity is a real pocket rocket.

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