Buffalo's external hard drive serves the way of the ninja
The MiniStation Shinobi is merely .2 inches thick and weighs only 2 ounces.
With a name that recalls the famed Japanese ninja movie, the MiniStation Shinobi is arguably the thinnest and lightest external hard drive to date--merely .2 inches thick and weighing only 2 ounces.
Buffalo announced the drive on Monday. Unlike other pocket-size external hard drives that use the 2.5-inch drives found in most laptops, this one uses the 1.8-inch laptop hard drive that's more often associated with smaller devices such as portable media players. For this reason, the external hard drive is significantly more compact and lighter, but it also features limited capacity: up to only 60GB. This is because while regular 2.5-inch internal hard drives hit the 500GB mark a long time ago, the 1.8-inch version just very recently reached 240GB.
The USB 2.0-only MiniStation Shinobi comes with Buffalo's SecureLockMobile software that prevents unauthorized access in the event the drive is lost or stolen. Like the DriveStation FlexNet, the Shinobi also comes with Turbo USB technology to boost the throughput performance, plus Memeo's AutoBackup and Auto Sync software.
The MiniStation Shinobi will be available in October in 30GB and 60GB versions for an estimated street price of $120 and $170, respectively.
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong. 
