The two models on offer are more expensive too. PNY's 32GB Attaché Original - reviewed here - cost £75 when it was tested in October 2009. The 32GB MicroStation retails for around £99 - almost double what the Attaché is now going for.
Smaller than a typical 1.8in external HDD
Corsair's much faster Flash Voyager GT drive - which won Reg Hardware's Editor's Choice award in the group test - can be had for a little as £76 these days. Ditto the then overly expensive but fast 8GB Lexar JumpDrive Lightning, which is now no longer in production though still available online.
Price differentials like these matter less when you're getting something extra for the premium you pay. Buffalo certainly provides more software than these two other products: Memeo AutoSync back-up software and the Secure Lock Mobile encryption utility, both for Windows, plus a Turbo USB driver for Windows and Mac OS X.
COMMENTS
Stupid question?
How is this better than an SD card? Is it just that access is faster? I'm asking because my netbook (Samsung NC10) has a built in SD card slot. SD cards are really tiny and you can get a 32GB one for a similar price to this SSD. So would there be any point in getting the SSD?
Buffalo tech support fail
Given a lot of us are still waiting for a proper fix for a wake-on-LAN issue EIGHT months after the initial issue was raised I'd be wary of purchasing any Buffalo product again.
They takes your money and they leaves you waiting.
Not bad, in reality..
Being a Ubuntu Fanboi, the only thing* I'd be concerned about would be write lifetime.
My home machine's ancient, but I'd use "Spinning Rust" as the swap drive. Not for speed, but reliability. It's only 14Gigs (and only half-full!), but does what I'd do. Yep, this SDD drive's getting a reasonable bit of interest from the McCoatover household. (Face it, diff. in price is no more than a decent Friday lager&curry night out)
* These teeny-weeny connectors also worry me. Misalign once, tata. My other bits of kit at home all have little "sacrificial" USB cables. OK, cuts failure by 50%, but it's a start.
sucker....
man, what a waste of cash.
you say why use this as a backup drive? you wouldnt. nobody in their right mind would use ssd yet for this. apart from you by the looks of it.
most people would just have a 40-60gb SSD drive for their OS and apps then run a HDD for everything else. im mulling it over to see if it makes windows and a game any faster. i will still keep my 1/2 tb drive for backups and media as that will be fine.
RE: Stupid question
SD cards max out at 6 Megabytes a second. Class 4 means 4MB/s. Class 6 means 6MB/s. Compact Flash can be found faster, unfortunately it's unpopular because of the size.
