Thunderbolt is getting closer to becoming a practical standard. Plenty of expensive, stationary desktop units were announced before Buffalo debuted the MiniStation Thunderbolt Portable HDD ($200-$250), the first bus-powered portable Thunderbolt hard drive we’ve come across.
Now instead of having to invest a few hundred bucks into several terabytes worth of storage, the average Mac user can get 500GB or 1TB in a portable package at a reasonable price. It also includes a USB 3.0 connection, just in case you need to fall back to the slower standard.
MiniStation Thunderbolt is a little fatter than some of the portable drives on the market today, but the Mac-matching white and silver design is nice. Even nicer is the fact that both the USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt cables are included—the $50 Thunderbolt cord isn’t even packed in with units costing $1,000 and more, so it’s a definite bonus here.
