Buffalo Tech's Shinobi: An extremely thin external hard drive

Portable external hard drives are my laptop's best friends. Although my personal notebook has a (once-more-than-adequate) 160-GB drive, often times I've found myself running out of digital storage space—especially for the huge high-definition video files I need to transfer from my HD camcorder to my computer for editing.

I already have several "pocket-sized" external hard drives to help manage critical back-ups as well as off-load some of the larger, completely-edited video files from my notebook. And it's a hassle to remember to tote those drives on long, weekend video shoots. But at a recent press event, I saw perhaps one of the smallest USB-powered drives that would be simple to carry—and doesn't skimp on digital storage space.

Buffalo Tech's "Shinobi" (a Japanese term closely tied to "ninjas" and "one skilled in the art of stealth," according to Wikipedia) is a scant 5-mm (0.2-inches) thick and weighs a mere two ounces.

The official press release pictures (Click on them for closer looks.) don't convey how truly "stealthy" the Shinobi is—especially when compared to more conventional USB external drives. But it's about the size and heft of a small stack of business cards, which is a form factor usually associated with external memory devices that use flash memory.

The Shinobi uses a 1.8-inch disk drive, similar to the hard drive found in the super-slim MacBook Air, said a Buffalo spokesperson at the press event. And drive makers (such as Toshiba) are ramping up capacities of both tiny 1.8-inch hard drives as well as solid-state flash memory devices to 250-GB or more, rivaling the storage space found in traditional PCs.

I took a picture of the Shinobi in my hand, which may give a better sense of how compact this drive truly is. You can click on the image at left for a closer look—and note how my cell phone camera lacks auto-focusing capabilities.

According to Buffalo's Shinobi press release, the drives will be available in October and will come in two capacities. A 30-GB drive is expected to retail for $120 and a 60-GB drive for $170.

Those are high-premiums for external USB hard drives. (A search on Amazon.com shows you could spend about $100—or less—for 500-GB external drives.) But the Shinobi does seem to prove the geeky computer adage: You can never be too rich, too thin, or have enough hard-drive space.

—Paul Eng

—Paul Eng