Ten... Portable USB 3.0 HDDs

Iomega Prestige Portable

Iomega takes things a little more upmarket with its Prestige Portable drive. Using a black aluminium case with glossy plastic end caps it certainly looks endeavours to live up to its prestigious airs. Iomega is also kind enough to throw in a Y-cable for use with low-power USB 2.0 ports. Unfortunately, it’s the only cable included and is rather bulky.

This 500GB drive benchmarked at 91MB/s read/write and includes licences for Iomega QuikProtect, v.Clone, Mozyhome and Trend Micro Internet Security. This software can be downloaded from Iomega’s website using the device serial number to activate these utilities. This drive costs the same as Buffalo’s offering but is considerably faster and the asking price is not unreasonable either.

IoSafe Rugged Portable

In order to include this drive here I’ve had to redefine portable as bus-powered. This is by far the largest drive on the list, measuring 99mm x 145mm x 25mm and weighing in at 454g, due mainly to its billet aluminium enclosure. With this protection, Iosafe claims it can resist crushing loads in excess of 1100kg and with its internal six-axis drive suspension system, the drive can be dropped from heights up to 3m.

It will also hold off salt water for 3 days at 3m depths, aircraft fuel for 1 hour at 30cm and survive for 24 hours in blowing sand, rain, salt fog or freezing rain. For the more mundane days, there’s also a Kensington Lock slot. That’s not all; this 250GB model is among the fastest portable HDDs tested with read and write speeds in the 105MB/s region. If you trouble follows you around, then the IoSafe Rugged Portable may well be worth the investment, but this level of protection doesn't come cheap.