Digital Lifestyle > All Reviews > Hardware > Storage > Hard drives > MiniStation TurboUSB review

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 MiniStation TurboUSB review

Cliff Joseph

Manufacturer: Buffalo Technology
Pros: Cheap, Mac backup software, handy wraparound USB cable
Cons: Needs to be reformatted for use with Macs, no FireWire interface
Price: £49.98 (250GB)
We rate this 4 out of 5.Star rating:

Like most of these drives the MiniStation is sold pre-formatted for use with Windows PCs, so you’ll need to reformat the drive before using it with a Mac. However, it does include a Mac version of the Memeo backup software, which will come in handy for people that don’t have Leopard and Time Machine on their Macs yet.

It’s not the most stylish drive – it’s basically a matte-black plastic rectangle – but the wraparound USB cable is a good idea. The MiniStation has only a USB 2.0 interface but this provides acceptable performance, taking about 90 seconds to copy our 2GB batch of test files.

The MiniStation’s real selling point is its sheer value for money. Our 250GB model costs £50, which works out at just 20p per gigabyte, compared to an average of 30p per gigabyte for most of its rivals. It’s available in sizes from 120-500GB, so you can choose a model that suits your needs or your budget.

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