Buffalo HD-HS500U2 500GB Drivestation External USB

List Price: $216.00 Discount Price: $104.99

Features:

• Up to 37% faster TurboUSB transfer rates via USB connector
• Fast 7,200 RPM Serial ATA Hard Drive
• Easy Setup, no drivers required
• Pre-formatted Drive for Immediate Use
• Turns On and Off Automatically With Your Computer

Customer Reviews:

Great external drive [Posted on 2007-10-25]
So far this drive is working out great. I've had it almost a year. It's very quiet and stays nice and cool even without the optional fan. It has two indicator lights, one for power and one for activity.

Setup was reasonably easy. If you're using a PC, you'll probably want to re-format the drive for NTFS. The supplied utility didn't appear to be all that great so I used Partition Magic instead. But no matter how you format the disk, it's a simple procedure. Enabling the "Turbo" feature involved several steps, but went smoothly.

There were two reasons I gave the drive four stars instead of five. One is that it's a 465 GB drive, not a 500 GB drive as advertised. (Yes, I know all drive manufacturers lie about capacity... It's just something you have to allow for when deciding what capacity to purchase. I also know some of you will be upset about this comment and feel obligated to give the standard "Alternate method of computing storage capacity" excuse and/or decide this review is unhelpful. Feel free...) The other reason I only rated the drive as four stars is that the supplied cable is too short. Fortunately I had an extra cable, otherwise I would have had to order one.

Overall, I'm very happy with this drive.

Great price, Great Drive! [Posted on 2007-12-26]
I have owned this drive for over six months now, it is my second external drive (the other is Cavalry and I wouldn't recommend that brand at all) The best feature included, that I think you must have with an external drive is that it powers off and on with the system automatically (Cavalry does not do this) The drive is quiet, access speed is very good (no Turbo feature installed) and the indicator lights are not glaring like so many other exernal drives are, a small green light indicates power and red for activity. I have not bought a new cord for it as the other reviewer did, mine is placed on the desk above the computer and the cord length was fine. I also did not have to reformat the drive, it was pre-formatted NTFS. I would recommend this drive highly, it runs cool and is nice enough looking to be displayed on the desktop. Mine stores all my videos and I play them directly from the drive. Go for it!

1 year and still going strong.  [Posted on 2008-08-06]
I purchased 2 of these drives a year ago from another retailer. I play alot of my HD movies of the drive and everything runs smoothly. The drive looks alot better than some of the other externals out there. Being a Lian Li case owner, I had to have a nice looking external for my htpc. The auto shut off feature comes in handy, because I would always forget to turn off my other external drives. My drives came formatted in FAT, but it was no big deal to reformat. With the price of internal drives dropping i'm debating on buying more or going with an internal hd and case. To be honest though, I'll be buying these when Frys has a sale on them.

Lives up to its reviews! [Posted on 2008-09-13]
I had carefully read reviews before purchasing this external hard drive, since a lot of 500MB hard drives seem to have problems. Well, this one is excellent, quiet, and reliable. I have had no problems with since I got it. My only complaint was that I had to re-format it when I first got it hooked up, and it took a couple of hours to do so. Once that finished, everything has worked perfectly. Excellent product!

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