ioSafe SoloPro
While the other drives here are theoretically portable, you’d have to be mad to consider lugging around the SoloPro for any reason, even if the building is on fire. IoSafe reckons its enclosures can keep your data safe in flames up to 840°C for half an hour or, if your data centre is perched on the end of a crumbling pier, you can safely keep your zeros and ones safe for 72 hours at depths up to 10 feet.
Although these drives may seem expensive, there’s more to the deal than just almost invincible data storage. In the event that you are unable to access the data on the drive, IoSafe will recover your data and replace the drive, no questions asked. If they are unable to recover your data, IoSafe will pay out up to £1250 to have a third party recover it for you.
Reg Rating 85%
Price £279 (1TB), £449 (2TB), £564 (3TB)
More info ioSafe
LaCie Minimus
Appearing to be similar in construction to the Iomega Prestige, with its anodised aluminium case, the Minimus also feels well built. Unfortunately, this is the slowest of all the drives on test, with performance levels more akin to its 2.5in counterparts.
I suppose being the smallest drive is some consolation, but I had really hoped for more than 108MB/s from such an otherwise excellent drive. If you insist on buying this drive for its size and looks alone then at least you get a two-year warranty and a 1-year 10GB subscription to the Wuala on-line backup service.
Reg Rating 70%
Price £100 (1TB), £130 (2TB)
More info LaCie
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COMMENTS
False Ads by 3TB Hard Drives & Microsoft or a test left undone
I need disc image backups and since I use Win 7 Pro 64 bit, I look for the Microsoft Win 7 logo on the HD package. Since my disc image size is about 600GB, I want something that is big and faster than USB 2.0. Yep, there is a WIn 7 logo on the 3TB WD My Book Essential External Hard Drive USB 3.0. box. Since I could get 2 of them for US$250, I bought two. Shock & ****, I could not use either drive to make a WIn 7 system image. Google the error message - formatting issue. But, on the box was "Formatted NTFS for Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7."
Search on Microsoft and find a posting from 2007 that admits to this "rare error." It seems that Microsoft software does not like the 3TB size. Yep, I have the May 2011 KB update that was to fix this issue installed on my system . I should mention that WD is in big denial of any such problem. Tried using USB 2 instead of USB 3, no go. Formatted HD as exFAT, no go in USB 2 or USB 3. Reformatted back to plain NTFS and wonders, able to make system image in USB 3. Then, several days later, I needed a file back that had been securely erased.
Oh, unhappy days. System will display the system image, but try to restore the system image and the computer tells you - unable to find the system image in either USB 3 or USB 2. I had to copy the system image from the WD to a Verbatim 2 TB External HD USB 3 over 8 hours, then use the Verbatim 2TB HD in USB 2 mode to restore the system image. It seems 3TB is a TB too far for Windows 7. You should tested the use of WIn 7 system image on the various 3TB hard drives because that a major reason to buy 3TB external hard drives
OS centric drives...
OS centric drives simply are not future proof. Anything that forgoes the obvious standard USB driver for something more bothersome is not only locking out current alternatives. It's also going to create extra support headaches in the here and now as well as a whole bunch in the future as tech moves on.
If you have to load a driver to use the disk then it's a big fat FAIL.
Erm
You'd be hard pressed finding a 3.5" caddy that doesn't require a separate power supply.
I don't know of many decent 3.5" drives that will happily spin up on 10V 1A of supply, which is all you can draw from two USB sockets.
2.5" drives on the other hand are more or less designed around lower power draw, so happily power themselves off a USB cable. 7200rpm drives often need two ports though to spin up.
How many of them *require* windows or macos?
One trend I have noticed recently with many of the boxed HDD solutions is that they are no longer simply hard disks in a box, so if you want to use them at BIOS level, they aren't accessible.
Western Digital & Seagates are particularly bad for this now, the older passports were pretty dumb, but the new ones have custom circuitry that requires drivers to be installed before they can be accessed. I guess it makes one-touch backups easier, but plays merry hell if you want to use them with a bootable CD or alternative OS.
@All of them need their own seperate power-supply?
Then why did you bother looking at an article that clearly stated they were desktop drives that 'might' be considered portable?
Strange comment....
