Buffalo DriveStation Velocity 1TB review

Buffalo’s DriveStation Velocity range is all about speed, and the 1TB model seen here is no exception. It has a 7,200RPM hard disk spindle and USB3 interface for blazingly fast transfer speeds.

In fact, it outpaced almost every single external hard drive we’ve seen in our large file transfer test, achieving 114.5MB/s writes and 153.4MB/s reads. Our smaller file test is one of the most intensive tasks you’re likely to put a hard disk through in everyday use, yet it still managed 34.8MB/s write and 48.2MB/s read speeds.

Formatted to NTFS, you get around 930GB of usable space, with only a few megabytes taken up by Buffalo’s comprehensive software suite. As well as the powerful Buffalo Backup utility, you also get Turbo PC EX, a file copy algorithm that replaces the standard Windows copy dialog for extra performance when transferring files. Our results varied depending on file types and where we copied from or to, but we sometimes noticed speed increases of up to 15 per cent in certain situations. It’s worth giving it a try, as Windows’ built-in file copy is very slow. Less useful is the RAMdisk utility, which few people will need to use.

At a very reasonable 9p per gigabyte, the DriveStation Velocity is well priced for its often blistering performance. If you have deep pockets and a Thunderbolt interface on your PC or Mac, you could get even faster transfer speeds with an external SSD, but for most people this represents the best combination of price and performance. However, if you’re looking for the maximum amount of storage for your money, the Seagate Backup Plus desktop 3TB is the model to buy.