Buffalo Ships High Capacity DriveStation DDR USB Hard Drive

[btarunr]

Buffalo Technology, a global leader in the design, development and manufacturing of wired and wireless networking and network and direct attached storage solutions, today announced that its DriveStation DDR, a high performance external USB 3.0 hard drive with 1 GB DDR3 RAM cache for accelerated transfer speeds, is available for purchase today at select retail partners. Ideal for a variety of users including tech enthusiasts, digital photographers and videographers and media buffs, DriveStation DDR offers extremely fast file transfers, comparable to SSD, with the high capacity and value of a traditional external HDD device.

The DriveStation DDR utilizes Buffalo's MegaCache Accelerator, a 1 GB DDR3 RAM cache system, to greatly accelerate file transfer rates, notably outperforming other USB 3.0 hard drives. Compared to a standard USB 3.0 hard drive, the 1 GB DRAM cache of the MegaCache system efficiently caches data as it's transferred to automatically boost performance for transfer speeds up to 408 MB/s, 2.3x faster than USB 3.0 hard drives and more than 10x faster than USB 2.0.



"Buffalo has developed the perfect solution for consumers that demand fast storage performance, but don't want to sacrifice drive capacity," said Hajime Nakai , chief executive officer at Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc. "We designed and built the DriveStation DDR to deliver the performance of an SSD coupled with up to three terabytes of storage, giving consumers the best of both technologies at an affordable price."

First unveiled at the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show, Buffalo's DriveStation DDR features a sleek, black high-gloss chassis that can be positioned vertically or horizontally to fit anywhere in an office or as part of a media center. The simple USB 3.0 interface offers plug-and-play setup and universal connectivity. The new DriveStation DDR is packed with Buffalo Tools, a feature-rich suite of optional software available on Windows PCs. Tools include Buffalo's Backup Utility to back up one or multiple computers with a single Buffalo external HDD; eco Manager for energy conservation; SecureLock for complete data encryption; and RAMDISK creates a RAM disk on Windows PCs.

The benefits of DriveStation DDR are automatic. Simple plug-and-play installation requires no advanced setup and no special software or drivers are required to operate at near SSD speeds. It is compatible with Windows and Mac devices and it can be used at top speeds with other popular consumer electronic devices that support USB 3.0, such as media players and gaming devices.

Pricing and Availability
The DriveStation DDR is backed by a limited three-year warranty and is available now at select retail partners, including Amazon.com, for an estimated street price of $139.99 for 2 TB (HD-GD2.0U3) and $179.99 for 3 TB (HD-GD3.0U3). All Buffalo solutions include toll-free U.S.-based technical support available 24/7.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[TheLostSwede]

Benchmarks?

 

[Mussels]

swede: really fast for the first 1GB, regular speeds after that.

 

[1freedude]

So, if data is around 1GB, the "transfer time" is a few seconds, but not on the disk yet, so it needs to stay plugged in, negating initial speed?

 

[Mussels]

So, if data is around 1GB, the "transfer time" is a few seconds, but not on the disk yet, so it needs to stay plugged in, negating initial speed?

yeah.


if you're using this for digital files and such, as they mention in the release you could theoretically move that 1GB in about a second, epic speed.

but then the drive needs to be powered up to continue writing them at normal speeds.

 

[1freedude]

Huh, gimmick, then?

 

[Mussels]

Huh, gimmick, then?

it will certainly speed things up, but not for huge file transfers. biggest gains would be for lots of small files - if you're moving under 1GB of files, its gunna fly.

 

[McSteel]

They should've used that GB of RAM alongside a controller (ARM-based or otherwise) to manage (de)fragmentation seamlessly. Would've brought more actual performance and longevity boost than this burst of apparent speed (which it actually isn't).

 

[xvi]

swede: really fast for the first 1GB, regular speeds after that.

EXACTLY this.

There has to be a "DO NOT TURN OFF" light on the drive while it writes out the cache.

It's basically this..

..over USB 3.0.

I don't see how this is good. Plug in external drive, copy file over VERY quickly, wait the same amount of time you would if it didn't have the DDR3 cache to flush said cache, power off drive and take with you.

..unless it has a battery and can clear cache on the move.

 

[McSteel]

It would have to be quite a battery to be able to keep the drive motor spinning and head moving and still manage to write out up to a Gigabyte of data with no write-speed guarantee of any kind...

 

[cheesy999]

It would have to be quite a battery to be able to keep the drive motor spinning and head moving and still manage to write out up to a Gigabyte of data with no write-speed guarantee of any kind...

They only use a few watts surely a phone battery would do the trick

 

[1freedude]

And, this will only work one way. Reading from the disk won't benefit from the cache.

I was assuming this was a portable solution. Seems it should NOT be its primary use, but system expansion instead.

 

[Mussels]

They only use a few watts surely a phone battery would do the trick

you need to look up how much power batteries actually give out, and how little phones and such use.


this is designed for quick bursts of speed on a laptop or desktop - i mean really, if it takes 10 seconds to empty that cache, who the hell plugs a hard drive in for under 30 seconds anyway?

 

[cheesy999]

you need to look up how much power batteries actually give out, and how little phones and such use.


this is designed for quick bursts of speed on a laptop or desktop - i mean really, if it takes 10 seconds to empty that cache, who the hell plugs a hard drive in for under 30 seconds anyway?

If the Vita can run for 4-5 hours on a 1.9W CPU + more, I'm sure we can run a 5w-6w hard drive for long enough to put down 1gb of information.

 

[Covert_Death]

your all thinking from the point of view where you are going to copy over and unplug immediately...

i see this being very useful for desktop use. copy your files over, its takes the load off the CPU quicker and therefore you can get back to doing PC things faster, like if your doing photoshop or CAD, now you don't have to wait forever for that file to save to get back to work.