Product Reviews

External hard disks with multiple interfaces tend to be expensive, but Buffalo's DriveStation Combo4 proves that this doesn't have to be the case. In addition to USB, it also has FireWire 400, FireWire 800 and eSATA ports, but costs less than £100.

The Combo4 performed consistently well in our file-transfer tests, no matter which interface we used. It was especially fast when copying small files over eSATA. Like other Buffalo hard disks, the Combo4 also has a TurboUSB mode. Buffalo claims that with the TurboUSB driver installed on your PC, transfers are 20 per cent faster than with standard USB Hi-Speed. We found that it boosted file transfer speeds by only 5MB/s in our large-files test and there was almost no improvement in our small-files test.

Nevertheless, with a price per gigabyte of just 21p, the Combo4 is good value, especially as it comes with Memeo's AutoBackup software, which backs up your files in the background as you work. It's one of the best external desktop hard disks we've seen.