Buffalo DriveStation Duo review

Thanks to its extra level of data safety, RAID is usually reserved for PCs that act as file servers on a network.

The term stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks and essentially, it uses two or more hard disks (an 'array') to store data, when one would usually do. The 'redundant' bit refers to the fact that in addition to being spread across all of the disks, the data is duplicated across them, too. That means that if one disk should fail for some reason, your files are still intact and accessible.

The reason for this lengthy preamble is that the Buffalo DriveStation Duo has RAID as one of its selling points. Inside its chunky metal case lurk two 250GB hard disks, with one storing an exact copy of the other's data - an arrangement known as RAID 1. You only see one drive in Windows, but anything you change on one disk is automatically reflected on the other. The downside of this is that while the DriveStation Duo actually contains 500GB of storage, you only have access to half of it. The upside is that if one disk goes up in smoke, your data is still safe. Of course this will do nothing to protect your data should the DriveStation Duo be stolen or suffer some other misfortune, but then you can't have everything.

The DriveStation Duo has both USB2 and FireWire connections, and the internal power supply means that it plugs directly into the mains. Out of the box, it's configured as two separate 250GB drives and you need to use the supplied RAID utility to reconfigure it as either a single 500GB or the aforementioned 250GB RAID 1 drive. The single drive option spreads data across both drives, but if one fails you lose everything, so it's best used with good backup regime.

Performance is as you'd expect for an external USB2 or FireWire drive, which is to say that its good but far from great when compared to an internal drive. When you consider that the cheapest 500GB internal hard drives cost around £120 though, the Drive Station Duo is well priced and it's a good choice if you're looking for a flexible external storage solution - a standard 500GB drive is neater and safer if you don't need RAID, though.