Verbatim Store ‘n’ Go
If you’re the kind of person prone to losing things among your desktop clutter, Verbatim has the drive for you. The Store ‘n’ Go unit I have sat in front of me is a bright metallic pink unit that could be spotted on even the most mangled workspace from several cubicles away. For the more conservative purchaser, it is also available in either black or blue and 500GB or 1TB capacities irrelevant of your colour choice. It’s not just looks making this drive stand out either, it’s also very fast and excellent value. Crystal DiskMark had this drive reading and writing at 106MB/s.
Like the Freecom drive, Verbatim also throws in Nero BackitUp & Burn along with Green Button. Unlike the Freecom drive, Green Button actually recognises the Store ‘n’ Go, allowing you to spin down the drive after a period of inactivity.
Reg Rating 85%
Price £45 (500GB), £65 (750GB), £95 (1TB)
More info Seagate
Western Digital My Passport Essential SE
The Western Digital My Passport Essential SE is the smallest of the drives I have tested, even in 1TB form. I really like this drive, it’s very compact and it is priced competitively. It’s not such a speed demon as some of the other drives, but at 84MB/s read and write, it's still miles beyond its USB 2.0 predecessors.
The My Passport Essential comes with a two-year warranty and Western Digital’s SmartWare backup and drive management software. SmartWare gives you a visual representation of your backups by file type and allows you to restore data in a similar fashion to Apple’s TimeMachine. Additionally, SmartWare provides 256-bit encryption to protect your data. If portable pocketability is what you're after then this Passport may well earn your stamp of approval. ®
Reg Rating 70%
Price £95 (750GB), £130 (1TB)
More info Western Digital
Benchmark Tests
CrystalDiskMark 3 Results
Data transfer speeds in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better
Ten... Portable USB 3.0 HDDs
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.
