Amazon.com: Customer reviews: BUFFALO MiniStation Extreme NFC USB 3.0 1 TB Rugged Portable Hard Drive (HD-PZN1.0U3B),Black

Fast, big, portable - for a decent price - with update!

Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2016

I love this little guy. 7200 rpm that doesn't require an additional power supply is perfect for my Macbook Pro. I'm running multiple Windows virtual machines from it and have had no issues with the data, speed, etc. The extension cable is also a nice addition since on a desktop with an elevated machine the attached cable is a little short. I was using a 2TB Samsung SSD, but it had problems with the data corrupting on one of the vms, and this has turned into an excellent replacement.

The encryption was easy to set up and a breeze to unlock with the card (make sure you set up a password for it, too). The drive appears to have nothing on it until it's unlocked with the open app.

Update 2016-12-29: I love this little guy even more - can I give it more stars. VM Ware was playing nasty all day yesterday, I thought there may be a problem with the drive being powered by USB because the VM was going to sleep whenever the Mac OS went to screensaver and then a long resume phase. Finally gave up, shut down VM Ware and ejected the drive. Plugged it in this morning and it would authenticate with the encryption card but was taking forever to open. Thought it was toast, but I finally just let it go for a few minutes and it opened up, all data intact and now the VM is restoring itself.

TDIL: Give it time to fix all the nasty that Windows 10 and VM Ware Fusion cook up and it will survive.

9 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Great Product

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2016

Capacity: 1TBVerified Purchase

I honestly love this device, I've only had it for 4ish months but it's done everything I need it to.

I have a blog and back up a lot of content to it, and for a spinning drive it still transfers large files, of all types really well; it far exceeded my expectations on transfer speed.

It stores what I need and the durability, built in USB, and sleek look add to the product. The durability is a great aspect, it doesn't feel flimsy like my old external hard drive, which was a seagate; and I feel completely comfortable taking it to and from work and on trips when needed. The internal USB is perfect, that was a downfall of my last drive, and the fact there's two cables (one short and one long) really helps with work and travel usage.
I will update the review if it crashes within two years like my previous seagate drives have.

The security aspects are awesome and are a main reason why I got it. My significant other and I store personal information on this so we feel a lot more confident leaving it at home while on trips without worrying what someone can access if it gets stolen. I can see where some people complain about it erasing everything if you reset it, but knowing from the start I would use the card and password protection I feel fine and comfortable with it. I highly recommend everyone do both the card and password protection so there is a backup in case you forget your card or can't remember your password.

Overall, great product and I can't wait to keep using it.

5 people found this helpful

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Parker's Place

Just what I needed!

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2023

Capacity: 2 TBVerified Purchase

Purchased this BUFFALO portable hard drive for my new iMac as my older iMac has a BUFFALO external hard drive connected to it and has worked perfectly for many years. This BUFFALO's storage capacity is right up my alley, and it's unbelievably small compared to my older BUFFALO drive taking up very little space on my desk. I had no Tech Support issues because I didn't need Tech Support (thus 0 stars).

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Mark A. Ogilvie

Buy direct from Buffalo

Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2023

Capacity: 2 TBVerified Purchase

After issues with third party vendors selling out-of-warranty defective drives, I went straight to the manufacturer for a quality product. It is quiet, relies exclusively on USB for power and capacity is more than adequate. The only drawback is the short USB cable. Three inches longer and it would not have needed to be stacked on my PC chassis or hanging off the edge of the shelf.

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M. Tervo

Why was I previously wasting time with a USB 2 backup device

Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2018

Capacity: 2 TBVerified Purchase

The Buffalo MiniStation Extreme is engineered and functions exactly as described. (However, there is only one USB 3.0 connector wire. The illustration could lead one to believe there are multiple connectors.) The unit includes a short (2 Foot?) USB 3.0 connector permitting you to place the drive on a solid surface; not on top of your CPU.

I've used it for three weeks to do weekly backups. Works perfectly, using (Win 7) Windows Backup. No additional setup or device tweaking is required if you don't require encryption. Further, as it is USB 3, it does the backups quickly (and silently.) I haven't precisely timed it with a stop watch, but time-wise I estimate it takes about 10% what a USB 2.0 backup unit would require.

One person found this helpful

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mlsv

Faulty item and disappointing customer service

Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2021

Capacity: 1TBVerified Purchase

I have been a long-time customer of Buffalo and have three other similar external hard drives which I have been happy with. This particular hard drive had a technical issue when it arrived. It kept freezing every few seconds making any back-up a very lengthy and frustrating process. I notified the Buffalo customer support who suggested that they help me trouble shoot the process. Unfortunately after spending almost a week in a back-and-forth email communications with them nothing helped. After a week, their only solution was either to return this drive for a replacement or to continue to trouble shoot. However, I had already spent many days backing-up the computer to this hard drive, and did not think it would be efficient to return it, only to start the process all over again. With no other solutions presented by Buffalo customer support, I decided to keep this faulty disk drive, but very disappointed every time I use it, as it continues to freeze.

2 people found this helpful

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Timothy Neill

Great Hard Drive!!! Takes a beating!!

Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2016

Capacity: 1TBVerified Purchase

Great Hard Drive. I work in a very rough environment in the Offshore Dredging industry and my equipment is subject to vibration, dust, mud, rain, you name it. The built in cable is a plus because you know you dont have any chance of getting mud or dust introduced into the internal components. Some say its bulky, but its very stout. If you need a hard drive that will take a beating and come back for more, this is WELL worth the minimal investment. Don't buy junk because its $30 or $40 bucks cheaper. You will be glad you bought this.

I've owned mine for over a year.

16 people found this helpful

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4591Michael

Recently Bought and Used

Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2019

Capacity: 1TBVerified Purchase

Plugged it into my windows laptop, opened up file explorer and started using! Seems like a nice unit, compact. I didn't have to use Tech Support so cannot rate that.

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Lladnar

Beware: 10 minute time out security feature.

Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2017

Capacity: 1TBVerified Purchase

Wow. It took a bit to understand and get this drive working. There is a fair bit of setup (downloading, installing, configuring). The documentation has much to be desired. However, tech support spent almost 20 minutes helping me so they stand behind their product.

The drive comes un-encrypted. You run software to encrypt the drive. You can choose to use a password or the included key card or either. Once encrypted it acts like two independent drives (Unlocked and Locked). When you first plug in the drive it is in the Unlocked state and it's name is UTILITIES (see pic). This is the un-encrypted side with a set of folders and files with the unlock software installed. You run the unlock software (OPEN_HS.exe) to unlock the drive. Once unlocked, the drive's default name is HD-PZNU3 with your folders and files now available (see pic). You can rename the drive (I changed mine to Buffalo). Now you use the drive just like any other. BEWARE that any screen saver or sleep settings may re-lock the drive messing up large, and long, backups. There are settings to prevent re-locking (see pic).

Switching between un-encrypted and encrypted re-formats the drive.

The key card works well. You place the key card on the top of the drive when you run the unlock software. Tech support said I could leave the card on the drive so the unlock happens immediately. Although leaving the key card on the drive removes the security feature.

I copied almost 800GBs from one external drive to this external drive and monitored the speed with Task Manager (see pic). This drive appeared to be slower but it was Writing while the other drive was Reading.

The built-in cord is short but they include an 18" USB extension cable. Without the extension, there is actually about 3" of usable cable so placement must be very near the USB port. Another issue with the cable is it comes out of the side (when drive is lying flat) and must twist up and around to be plugged into a USB hub with the ports on the top (see pic). Also, the cable is flat so there is some forced directionality built in. My other external drive USB cable is round and much easier to plug in.

2017.04.22 Update.

After 10 emails back an forth about the external drive unit timing out every so often and requiring me to re-authinicate it was announced that the Buffalo drive will time out every 10 minutes. And this is a security feature. Luckily one can leave the key card on the unit but one still need to initiate/run the Log in exe.

Note that under Windows 10 when the unit goes into locked mode File Explorer also CLOSES. So one must reopen every 10 minutes.

The unlocked state is 175MB of whick 20 MB are used. It appears to be Read Only as I can not store any files in the remaining 155MB.

For these reasons I am downgrading to 3 stars. Either way I am returning the unit.

2017.04.23

For Windows Only: There are two additional options that I have not yet tried.
1) Displaying the Authentication Window Automatically and
2) Authenticating the Password Automatically.

Option 1: This worked after the quick install. With the key card left on the top, the authentication is automatic. However leaving the key card on the drive eliminates some of the security if drive and key card are stolen together.

Option 2: I did not want to leave the key card on the drive so I proceeded to the next option. After selecting this option I entered the password and now the drive will automatically authenticate without the key card. But if the computer and drive are stolen together AND they can crack the Windows 10 login password then they have access to the drive's contents.

I think I will look for another option as there are just too many issues.

50 people found this helpful

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Tom in TX

Nice product, but poorly designed software and documentation

Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2018

Capacity: 1TBVerified Purchase

Overall, the device itself is nice and works as expected once you get it setup. I have purchased three versions of Buffalo encrypted drives over the last several years. On all of them - including this one - the documentation is bad and the software user interface is not very good. This one is especially bad in regards to the software for encrypting, setting up passwords or third party nfc devices - it's just not intuitive especially if you are trying to change things after initial setup. As an example, I tried out the auto password feature - it automatically logs you in to the drive on the selected PC. Unfortunately, once this is setup there's no way to get back to ANY menu to disable this feature on the pc - so now I cannot get to the configuration menu at all to make changes. I'm guessing that I will need to change the password on a separate PC before I can get to a menu. Additionally, even though NFC is the technology used to unlock the device, many (if not most) NFC capable mobile phones won't work with this to unlock it, which is unfortunate since using a phone sure beats carrying a separate card around. It'd be nice if they actually provided a list of compatible phones, but of course that'd require documentation which is not a strength of Buffalo. Having said that, I've bought 3 similar devices from Buffalo, so the good obviously outweighs the bad, but just don't buy this expecting polished UI's or meaningful documentation.

15 people found this helpful

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