Read our user comments about the Buffalo DriveStation HD-HXU3 USB 3.0 Hard Drive

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DEB

12:17 AM on 21 January, 2010

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*Correction* where USB 2.0 took 135 seconds compared to 46 seconds for USB 3.0

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HK

5:38 AM on 21 January, 2010

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Pun half intended, but hurry up already.

I need a new laptop, I need a new external hard disk. I'd like to get them now, but the tech is just too new and there's hardly any USB 3.0 products out there. A couple of HP laptops and now this one HD. Seems I have to wait another couple of months before I can go shopping.

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Geoff Richards

6:54 AM on 21 January, 2010

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@DEB - thanks. Fixed now.

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PoisonJam

9:34 AM on 21 January, 2010

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This drive is great value. That's quite a small premium to pay in my book for much better speeds!

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John McLean

9:43 AM on 21 January, 2010

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You say USB 3.0 should allow more devices to run without a separate DC adaptor, but the DriveStation has a DC in port. Obviously this is necessary for running in USB 2.0 mode, but does it need to be connected if the drive is attached to a USB 3.0 port? Sorry if I missed this, but I don't think it is covered in the review.

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james1000

11:06 AM on 21 January, 2010

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Why is the usb 3 performance under par? If its billed as 10x quicker than usb 2 why ISNT it 10x quicker?

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adulaisow

11:17 AM on 21 January, 2010

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@James It can go only as fast as the slowest interface, in this case the hard-drive.

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Ed

11:29 AM on 21 January, 2010

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@james1000: Further to adulaisow's point, the performance difference is only theoretical. The 4.8Gbps and 480Mbps figures are the maximum speeds as specified by the standard and there are many reasons why this limit won't be reached in the real world. It's the same with the vast majority of interconnect standards from ATA to Zip drives.

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DavidHollinshead

11:53 AM on 21 January, 2010

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I wanna usb 3.0 floppy drive!

But seriously how did this drive get a an average write speed of 114.5 megabytes / sec? I didn't think hard drives were that quick - was that the burst speed? or should it be Megabits / sec?

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Ardjuna

2:37 PM on 21 January, 2010

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@David Hollinshead:

Haha, don't we all!

The average write speed is correct, and is megabytes per second - don't forget that USB3.0 currently gives roughly the same real-world bandwidth as SATA for drives to play with.

This figure is admittedly a tad high when compared to older (internal) hard drives we've reviewed, but then both hard drive and controller efficiency have moved on since last year.

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Tony Walker

6:01 AM on 22 January, 2010

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@Ardjuina

The drive must be tweaked to perform so well at HDTune (cacheing?) as the real world performance of the drive shows up in the 3.5Gb single file copy which take 46 seconds. This breaks down to about 76MBytes/sec which is a little slow (I presume you were copying the files off a drive with a read speed greater than this). My "last years tech" Samsung F1 just did a 1911MB file in 21 secs (approx 91MBytes/sec).

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MrGodfrey

10:35 AM on 22 January, 2010

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I've had a few Buffalo drives and had no problems with any of them; they all used either WD or Samsung drives so the brand snob in me was happy. I'd still rather know what's inside before buying though.

What annoys me more is the lack of any controls on the drive. My previous Buffalo drives had a power switch. This might not sound important, but is very useful for me - I regularly move files to an external HDD so I tend to keep one plugged in at all times, but that doesn't mean I want it powering on and off all the time.

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supersizeme

5:15 PM on 22 January, 2010

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could you clarify John McCleans point about power. Running in USB3 mode, would this drive require the power supply to be connected?, if so, is their enough power for USB3 to run an external hard drives and therefore should we be waiting to see what comes along?

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Ardjuna

10:22 AM on 26 January, 2010

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@Tony Walker:

I doubt the drive is tweaked, and its performance in HDTune is in line with other modern drives we have in the office (we double-checked as we also thought the speed to be unusually high). As to its performance in the real world, this will vary depending on motherboard, operating system (we used Vista 64-bit), file type and location, so it's a less accurate measure.

@MrGodfrey:

I completely agree, and lament the sad demise of the power button on most popular external drives. They were there for a reason, dammit.

@John McLean & supersizeme:

Unfortunately the power draw of a regular 3.5in disk is still too high for USB 3.0, so the power adapter is required. USB 3.0 can only supply up to 900mA (though compared to a mere 100mA for USB2), while 3.5in drives can require up to 2,000mA.

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More Photos

As an external 3.5in hard drive the Buffalo DriveStation HD-HXU3 is solid if unremarkable, but its use of the new USB 3.0 standard elevates it to a whole new level above previous external desktop drives we have seen. Of course there will soon be no shortage of competition with this Buffalo, but either way it’s clear USB 3.0 is one of the biggest evolutions to happen in computer connectivity in quite a while. Read full review

Overall

8/10

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By Ardjuna Seghers
Reviewed 21 January 2010
Updated 06 February 2011

Price as reviewed

£91.00

Comments on Buffalo DriveStation HD-HXU3 USB 3.0 Hard Drive

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