Buffalo's SHD-NSUM SSD Gives Equal Status to SATA & USB

Buffalo is a launching new series of SATA II SSD hard drive with an added bonus of mini USB interface for data transfer outside of computer in addition to its internal SATA interface. Buffalo's SHD-NSUM series is about the 3rd to hit the retail market with a SATA+USB SSD but they are only the 2nd to actually enable the USB port to actually read the drive. The first, released by OCZ only allows for drive firmware updates. Buffalo currently produces quite a few nice flash memory based devices and this new model is likely to be of the same high quality. Unfortunately, their press release which is only available in Japanese seems to promise some new high speed technology but upon inspection of the fine print the "30% speed increase" promised is only for windows boot up times. Faster boot speeds is fairly standard across the board for SSD drives and 30% may actually fall a bit below par. The true difference that sets the Buffalo SHD-NSUM series apart is the inclusion of software that actually complements the use of this drive for migrating off of a HDD onto their SSD.

The new drive can be prepared and partitioned by Acronis Disk Director. Acronis True Image LE can then create restoration points onto external media for emergency restores to/from a USB drive. Acronis Migrate Easy will help migrate FAT16/32, NTFS, Linux Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux SWAP based installations from one machine to another. Acronis' Drive Cleanser finishes the job by wiping and clearing data off of the original drive to international, government and military standards. The drives will be release in 3 sizes 32GB, 64GB and 128GB and will retail at $124, $217, $392 respectively. Watch for them in March 2009.