Product Reviews

Buffalo's range of portable hard disks includes this 40GB model. It uses a notebook-sized 21/2" hard disk, so the device is small enough to slip easily into a bag. It also features a USB Power Booster attachment that's designed to help PCs with low-powered USB ports.

The biggest problem with USB hard disks is that it takes a lot of power to spin up and mount them, but after that they need relatively little power to keep running. The Power Booster is a capacitor that builds up enough charge to spin up and mount a hard disk by drawing power from your USB port. Once the disk is spinning,

ADVERTISEMENT

the drive reverts to standard USB power as normal.

None of Shopper's test PCs had any problems mounting the Buffalo hard disk or reading and writing data to it. The manual states that the Power Booster is not recommended for use with USB hubs, which traditionally have low- or under-powered USB ports, so it's difficult to determine how useful the Power Booster attachment actually is. It's also flimsily attached, which doesn't inspire much confidence.

The disk performed respectably. In our large files test, the drive wrote data at 25.44MB/s and read at 28MB/s; in our small files test, it wrote at 8.90MB/s and read at 10.41MB/s. This is average for a 21/2" hard disk, although LaCie's Mobile Hard Drive (Shopper June 2005) beat it in all but the large files write test. This is surprising given that the Buffalo's hard disk spins at 5,400rpm compared with the LaCie's 4,200rpm.

The LaCie Mobile is not only faster than the Buffalo but is also more attractive and it provides 60GB of storage for just £12 more. Unless you've experienced particular problems with the power supply from your PC's USB ports, we recommend LaCie's Mobile over Buffalo's portable disk.