Buffalo Technology MicroStation SSD 32 GB

We've tested Buffalo's MicroStation SSD external hard drive.  Because of its 1.8'' form factor, it's certainly easier to transport than 2.5'' or 3.5'' drives, but it also has the advantage of using SSD for storage, rather than a traditional hard disc, a technology that should allow it to work very quickly.
 

However, we're confused by two points:

The choice of a USB 2.0 connection--there's a micro USB port on the outside of the drive--is automatically going to limit the data transfer rates at around 35 MB/s, as that's the top speed supported by the standard.  That means that this SSD won't actually be able to go any faster than 'traditional' hard drives.

Secondly, using SSD limits the amount of space that's available.  This is the 32 GB version of this drive, but there's also a 64 GB version.  That's not much at all compared to regular hard drives that usually offer in excess of 120 GB, even when they're only 1.8''.

Our initial doubts were confirmed by our test results:

Read speeds in MB/s for three different types of file (small, medium and large)

Write speeds in MB/s for three different types of file (small, medium and large)

As we suspected, the hardware limitations of USB 2.0 hold this SSD back, and keep its top read speed down to 33-35 MB/s.  It's still an excellent hard drive, and the speeds only fall off when you're randomly accessing lots of small files under 200 KB.  The final result is drive that's fast for a 1.8'' external hard drive, but more or less equivalent to what you'd get from a 2.5''--but the latter have the advantage of offering 10 to 20 times more storage.  When writing data, it doesn't reach the maximum speeds supported by USB 2.0, but we can draw the same conclusions as for reading.