Buffalo DriveStation Combo 4 review

Buffalo's desktop drive is one of the best-specified models in terms of interfaces that we've seen this month. As well as the usual USB connection, super-quick eSATA is included, and Mac owners will be heartened to see the inclusion of FireWire 800 alongside the more standard 400.

In addition to this multitude of interfaces the Buffalo is one of the sturdiest drives in the Labs. A small stand can be screwed to the bottom of the main unit to help it avoid toppling over, and the chassis itself feels rock-solid. The DriveStation is also the second heaviest drive on test, although a weight of 1.4kg is far nearer to the rest of the pack than that of the huge 3.2kg Freecom.

The Buffalo is quick as well as being packed with interfaces. It was second fastest in the multiple file read test, taking a mere 5.5 seconds to read the 100MB-worth of 1,000 files over USB. And in the rest of our USB tests it was very close to the fastest.

Running the same tests with the eSATA connection returned equally impressive results. The Buffalo was consistently the fastest of the desktop drives, lagging behind only when writing a single 50MB file.

Only FireWire performance was disappointing - it took a lengthy 45 and 35 seconds respectively to write our 1,000 files and the 650MB single file to the disk.

Even if you can ignore this anomaly, however, the Buffalo's relatively high cost per gigabyte of 14p puts it out of the running for an award this month: the Maxtor trumps it this month by virtue of its higher capacity and lower cost per gigabyte. Nevertheless, if it's sheer speed you're after - particularly if you can take advantage of eSATA - then it's a great choice.

Author: Mike Jennings