Yeah, SSDs are cool, but have you seen this new see-through hard drive?

SSDs might be super-fast, small, and convenient, but, let’s face it, a little PCB with some NAND on it is nowhere near as cool as watching a spinning hard drive in action – it’s like comparing a USB thumb drive to a record. As such, I’m a bit in love with this new windowed hard drive from Buffalo, which gives you a rare peek into the workings of a mechanical hard drive – a sight that hasn’t been seen in an official product since the WD Raptor X nearly 20 years ago.

It’s not going to rival any of the best gaming SSD designs for speed, or even capacity in some cases, but the new Buffalo HD-SKL “Skeleton” hard disk beats them all when it comes to wow factor. Rather than being an internal 3.5-inch drive like the WD Raptor X, it’s instead an external USB drive, and it’s mounted in a classy machined-aluminium chassis that tilts the platters so you can see them in action as well.

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