Buffalo 1TB MiniStation Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive with Thunderbolt Cable

Reviews for Buffalo 1TB MiniStation Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive with Thunderbolt Cable

Customer Reviews and Ratings

3.0 out of 5 stars

Based on 4 reviews

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  • 5.0 out of 5 stars

    Speed and Value

    • Written by from Fair Oaks Ranch

    96 of 101 people found this useful

    This drive is not as fast as a portable Thunderbolt SSD drive or a RAID0 conventional drive. But for 1 TB of storage, dual interface (both TBolt and USB 3), all cables included, this drive is a real bargain.

    And it is fast. Even though it is 5400 RPM, it is just as fast as if it was an internal drive by my comparisons with an older MB Pro. Lightning fast compared to USB2. Significantly faster than my 7200 RPM desktop firewire 800 drive. I use the drive with Final Cut Pro with no issues at all.

    I like the design. It is sturdy and is simple. I don't exactly baby it on the road. It bounces around in my roll-aboard weekly and is holding up just fine for 8+ trips so far.

    Fully bus powered. No external power needed so there is no A/C port or adapter to worry about.

    I gave it five stars because I think it is the fastest portable conventional TBolt drive on the market today and because of the exceptional value, including the cables saved me at least $50. It is the only drive I've found with Thunderbolt AND USB3 interfaces.

    If you want to daisy-chain it, it has to be on the end of the chain because it has only one TBolt port.

    Was this useful? Speed and Value

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  • 4.0 out of 5 stars

    Not that fast, but good enough...

    • Written by from Duluth

    87 of 94 people found this useful

    I bought this to do Time Machine backups using the Thunderbolt port on my Macbook Pro (early 2011) running OS X Mountain Lion. A Disk Speed Test using Black Magic Designs benchmark test was only showing 100 MBps or 800 Mbps. I think that is pretty slow.

    Time Machine saw it from the get go. The only thing on the drive was a PDF file.

    The bottom of the drive says, "made in Japan," which I thought was cool, since most things are now made in China.

    Like many people have stated, this drive comes with both the Thunderbolt cable and USB 3.0 cable, which in itself is worth about $50.

    The drive is powered through the single cable. I heard another reviewer stating that you could use both cables and not have any issues. The first cable plugged in would be the one used.

    Why did I give it 4 stars?
    The enclosure is solid. It feels like a quality product. The cable is solid. The drive is quiet. If it were faster, I'd give it 5.

    Was this useful? Not that fast, but good enough...

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  • 2.0 out of 5 stars

    Don't waste your money.

    • Written by from VIRGINIA

    8 of 10 people found this useful

    I'm giving the two stars only because the design is colored like my mac, and it's about the only thunderbolt hard drive out there right now that is portable.

    THIS DRIVES THUNDERBOLT INTERFACE FAILED ME WITHIN THREE WEEKS OF OWNING IT. I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE. The drive randomly ejected itself, and then would not come back up over thunderbolt. USB works, but why buy a thunderbolt drive if you are going to use the USB interface as primary? May as well save yourself 150 bucks if you're going to go that route.

    I used this for my time machine backups while on the road. First, unless you want to use thunderbolt because it frees up a USB port, don't waste your money on it. This is a 5200 RPM drive, and you will get the same speeds on USB 3.0. It simply cannot saturate the interface. It is by no means 10 Gb/s. You will get between 85 and 105 MB/s with this drive (less than 1 Gb/s). If you want speed, get the SSD Thunderbolt external. Apple will not allow you to return items after 14 days, I now have to deal with buffalo directly. I am not a happy camper. This drive's labeling is misleading, and it is NOT reliable.

    Was this useful? Don't waste your money.

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  • 1.0 out of 5 stars

    need for speed

    • Written by from PETERSHAM

    1 of 2 people found this useful

    I have several external drives all portable, all are firewire 800, I bought the buffalo thunderbolt drive expecting "lightning fast" speed... it runs considerably slower than my 800 drives. Whats up doc? If it runs at 54000 but has thunderbolt should it still not be faster than my 800 spinning at 7200rpm?

    All the above is while I am editing using FCPX

    Was this useful? need for speed

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