Buffalo Technology's DriveStation DDR external hard disk enclosure uses a 1GB DRAM cache to achieve what the company says is the world's fastest transfer speed.

Available at the end of this month, the company's latest model (HD-GDU3) in its DriveStation lineup reaches speeds of over 408MB per second over its USB 3.0 connection. In addition, the drive can store data in its 1GB DRAM cache before writing it more slowly to the hard disk. The drive is fast enough to copy a thousand 800KB images in 3.5 seconds from a high-end Windows 8 computer, the company claims.

The record speed is also achieved by using a a backup software, which Buffalo says more than doubles USB 3.0 transfer speeds on Windows machines. A Mac version increases speeds by 60 percent and can copy a thousand images in about 4.1 seconds.

The new drive enclosure is to go on sale in Japan at the end of February in 3TB, 2TB and 1TB versions.

The drive also includes encryption software and a power-saving mode.