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.
Reg Rating 80%
Price £55 (500GB), £80 (1TB)
More info Iomega
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.
Reg Rating 80%
Price £149 (250GB), £249 (500GB), £399 (1TB)
More info IoSafe
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COMMENTS
Samsung M2 1Tb
Well it is now past the 'later this month', it now being the next month - so where is the Samsung M2 1Tb for £80?
Later this month?
It was already the 20th when you posted! Rather than use some marketeer's future-possibly-not-true price, why not simply quote the actual price that of the thing at the time of writing? Or, at the very least, make it clear that the quoted price is in some way proposed/fictional.
It almost smacks of false-advertising and makes me wonder what else in the review was based on PR-puffery rather than actuality.
GoFlex USB 3.0
Take a look at the connector to the drive.
Take a look again :)
I use mine on naked SATA drives, works a treat.
I vote the GoFlex USB 3.0 *ADAPTER* as best product.
The proprietary Seagate drives themselves appear reasonably well packaged. When connected up, the whole get up feels reasonably solid and reassuring. Sure, they are not as rugged looking as some of the offerings here, but the ability to just about grab any current SATA drive and connect it to one's USB 3.0 port cannot be underestimated, ie data recovery etc... Especially if your lappie doesn't have an eSATA.
or if you couldn't be arsed to buy a Seagate drive and just use naked drives....
re: That has been part of the problem.
Not just hi-end stuff - my £200 netbook (an Asus 1015PEM) has two USB3 ports, and very nice they are too...
Samsung price
Where do I buy the 1TB Samsung for £80? A quick look around shows the 640GB model at £100.
