Review Last year, getting 500GB out of a big desktop external hard drive was impressive. Now, you have have half-a-terabyte of storage in the palm of your hand. Literally, if you happen to have LG's new XD2 about your person.

LG's XD2: certainly not a PDA

Taking design cues from Samsung, its South Koran rival, LG has fashioned the XD2 in a black shell that's flat on the matte top and gloss bottom until it angles gently to edge about a centimetre in from the rim. The sides, broken only by the join where the two halves of the casing come together, are very gently convex.

All this has the odd effect that, if you hold it upright in your hand as you might a mobile phone, it resembles a old-style PDA. The lack of a screen and a place to stash the stylus shatter the illusion; the presence of a mini USB port and a big blue disk activity light show the XDA XD2's real function.

There's a thing: the light and USB port are on the same edge, so if you're one of those folk who like to keep cables out of the way, you won't easily see the LED.

The activity light's at the back, to the right of the mini USB port

Be careful when you unhook it, then, because the XD2's on-board 2.5in drive is entirely bus powered. Yank the cable while the light's flashing to show the drive is in use, and you could damage your data.

If your machine's USB ports don't individually push out enough juice, LG has included a double-headed USB cable. The two standard USB connectors are spaced widely enough apart so that you're not forced to use two adjacent ports on your PC.

Not a bad looker

The XD2 isn't as sexy as Samsung's S1 Mini and S2, but it's still a big step up from so many no-name drives. In addition to the black model, it's also available in white. Both measure 126 x 80 x 15mm, but the way the edges angle inward makes them seem thinner than they are.

That said, there's a little give in the plastic shell, so the XD2 doesn't feel quite as solid as we'd like. Small hard drives can be fragile and they're not for chucking around, though being portable they tend to be often thrown in and out of bags.

Expect scratches at the very least, and it's a shame LG didn't follow Samsung's example and include a slipcase to keep the XD2 in while it's travelling.

The bundled back-up app works, but there's plenty of room for improvement

Samsung's bundled software is better too. It provides auto-backup and data encryption tools - LG provides the NTFS-formatted XD2 with a rudimentary file backup app, PC Clone EX Lite, that does the job provided you don't expect to much of it. For instance, we set it to only back-up changed files, but it copied over the whole lot afresh every time nonetheless. It's Windows only, too.

Inside the XD2 sits a 2.5in, 5400rpm drive from Hitachi. As you can see from the results of our tests - copying across both a 2GB file and a folder containing 100 10MB files from a MacBook Air - the drive produced speeds well above similar portable, bus-powered drives like Iomega's eGo and Samsung's 1.8in HDD-based S1 Mini.

File Transfer Results - Copy to External Drive

Data Transfer Rate in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better

In fact, it proved not so very much slower than some external drives that use mains-powered 3.5in HDDs, such as LG's own XD4 and Samsung's Story Station.

File Transfer Results - Duplicate on External Drive

Data Transfer Rate in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better

LG won't say how much it expects punters to pay for the 500GB XD2, but it's available online for between £75 and £95, with the RRP typically listed at £100. That's what you'd expect to pay for a drive of its kind, so the LG unit, which comes with a two-year warranty, is certainly a good deal, especially if you get it at the lower end of the price range.

Verdict

Byte-for-byte, 3.5in desktop drives are cheaper than the XD2 and others like it, but if you don't mind paying for portability and the convenience of bus power, the LG drive represents great value. It doesn't have the looks of a WD MyPassport or a Samsung S2, but it's no less a good portable external hard drive for that. ®

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