By now, most of us have made the transition from a bulky desktop computer to a sleek laptop. But Buffalo makes a strong case for making room for a non-descript tower on your desk again with its Thunderbolt 2 DriveStation Ultra that’s filled to the brim with hard drives and storage.


Inside the DAS—or direct attached storage—that looks like an old-school tower PC are 10 helium-filled enterprise-caliber 8TB hard drives that are designed for continuous and reliable use. When used in a RAID 0 configuration with no redundancy, that equates to a hefty 80TB of storage. But the DAS also supports RAID 5 and RAID 6 options as well if you’re paranoid about your data and don’t mind sacrificing a little storage space for peace of mind.

The DriveStation Ultra’s write speeds max out a speedy 1243 MB/s, and the tower includes multiple connectivity options like USB 3.0, eSATA, and a pair of Thunderbolt 2 ports. But if 80TB isn’t enough, those two Thunderbolt 2 ports allow up to six DriveStation Ultra’s to be daisy-chained together for a combined storage capacity of 2.88 Petabytes.


As for pricing, the DriveStation Ultra obviously doesn’t come cheap. The 80TB version comes with a $10,000 price tag, but there’s also a cheaper 40TB model for just $4,800 if your storage needs aren’t as demanding. But if you’re even considering a tower DAS like this, why not just go all out to ensure you won’t run out of space for at least another year—or decade, more likely.

[BusinessWire]