Buffalo's LinkStation Mini external hard drive goes SSD

Buffalo has already shown its willingness to cram a pricey SSD into an external enclosure for those who prefer quiet, quick operations over the pure vastness of traditional HDDs, and now it's doing so once more with the SSD-equipped LinkStation Mini. Easily titled LS-WSS240GL/R1, the 240GB device houses a pair of 120GB solid state drives and features DLNA / iTunes server capabilities, an Ethernet port, RAID 0 / 1 compatibility, a USB 2.0 socket and a nifty function to turn it off and on with the PC it's connected to (should you want it to). It's expected to hit Japanese peripheral shops late this month with a ¥111,300 ($1,200) sticker in tow, so you'd better be exceptionally wealthy or really, really through with HDDs before okaying the transaction on this one.

[Kris120890 @ Dec 10th 2008 9:33AM]

It could be cheaper. It does have some good specs though.

[zioncat @ Dec 10th 2008 9:34AM]

Don't get me wrong I love the possibility of SSD but that crap is just to expensive right now. There are always articles about new and exciting inovations with SSD but the price is always sky high.

[tomaskn @ Dec 10th 2008 9:42AM]

that thing is huuuge?? btw wd passport ftw

[oinquer @ Dec 10th 2008 9:47AM]

write/read speeds??
after i get those i might be interested...

[Charles @ Dec 10th 2008 10:57AM]

Out of interest, why would you be interested in this? I don't understand why anyone would want this when you can buy a 1TB disk based external drive for under a tenth of the price. When the alternative is four times the capacity and a tenth of the cost I know what I'd go for.

So what are the benefits of this that would make you want to pay a 4000% premium on the cost per gigabyte?

[dhughes @ Dec 10th 2008 11:19AM]

The benefits of this: no moving parts; no spinning, no read/write heads and of course it's quiet.

[Patriks7 @ Dec 10th 2008 9:54AM]

I think I'll stick with my 200$ 500GB 2.5" hdd.. And this thing looks as if it was the size of a 3.5" if not bigger O_O

[Zunavio @ Dec 10th 2008 10:14AM]

So... It shouldn't be call an External "Hard drive"..

[Chip @ Dec 10th 2008 10:30AM]

The whole point of SSD drives are that they are faster than traditional platter drives, while the tradeoffs are price and capacity.

This external drive has all the tradeoffs of a regular SSD, yet the speed benefit is totally lost over USB or Ethernet.

Am I missing something, or is this really just a product for stupid people with lots of money?

[THJ @ Dec 10th 2008 10:45AM]

It would look pretty nice on a sequoia wood desk behind your biometric carbon fiber door.

[Jerome Domingo @ Dec 10th 2008 11:33AM]

SSDs get the benefit of non-moving parts, unlike a hard drive. In the event a moronic sibling happens to knock it off the desk, the external solid state drive stands a better chance than the usual spinning hard disk drive. That known security may be well worth some people's money.

[JerkfacedFed @ Dec 10th 2008 2:12PM]

ok jerome, you go buy this and i'll just not leave my hard drive hanging off the side of the desk. fool.

[loosely_coupled @ Dec 11th 2008 3:19AM]

Exactly... Two SSDs in RAID 0 in an external enclosure.. AND ONLY HAS A USB PORT??

[JerkfacedFed @ Dec 10th 2008 2:11PM]

useless

1TB HDD = $90

[GingerFox @ Dec 10th 2008 4:23PM]

is it just me that thinks hard drives are pretty quiet to start with? lol

[matt @ Dec 11th 2008 1:59PM]

hmmm I would sure like a ultra portable version for backing up photos on the road.

Can you put an SSD into a standard drive bay?