Buffalo - MiniStation Plus 1TB External USB 3.0/2.0 Portable Hard Drive - Black

When the data on my PC would no longer fit on a 32 GB memory stick for backup purposes, I started to read online reviews for external hard drives. This Buffalo unit was always near the top in the reviews I read, so I opted for it. Some of the features that make it attractive are its shock resistance, compatibility with USB 3 (and earlier) interfaces, storage capacity, and its size/weight/appearance. I find its different colored LED that identifies whether it is connected to a USB 3 or 2 interface useful. When I performed my first backup (including various OS files it selected such as the ProgramData folder I never included in any of my previous backups), I was very surprised to find that it copied about 48 GB of data in only a little over 40 minutes. I'm not sure how it achieved that transfer rate, but suspect that the software applications that came with the drive helped immensely. I also forgot to mention that I used its hardware-provided encryption mechanism which makes me feel a whole lot better knowing my data is secure sitting on the external unit as opposed to when I was using memory sticks for my backup storage. Since the Buffalo Ministation provides 1 TB of storage, I will now be able to store multiple copies of my backups on the drive allowing me to go back to multiple snapshot versions of my data if I ever need to.