EXTERNAL HDD: Seagate 160 GB External Drive

This model (expected to be launched in India this month) has 160 GB capacity, USB 2.0 and FireWire interfaces, 7200 RPM spindle speed and 8 MB cache memory. The drive gets automatically recognized the moment you plug it into a Win XP/2000/Me or Mac OS 9/X machine. It comes with an external power supply, and has a separate On/Off switch for safely unplugging it from the PC. It has a rugged casing and a rubber ring base, which prevents it from slipping off and helps to stack multiple such drives as well. The drive comes with an easy-to-use backup software, BounceBack Express. 

It automatically scans all the drives for the data to be backed up. You can even schedule backups. We tested the drive with its USB 2.0 interface, and used HDTach for various measurements. It gave burst transfer speed of 31.3 MB per sec, max/min read and write speeds of 21/14.5 MB per sec and 19.8\11.4 MB per sec, respectively. It gave a random access time of 15.1 ms. These results are comparable with the Maxtor and Iomega external drives we've reviewed (page 111, Jan 2004 and page 134, Dec 2003, respectively).Being a portable product, some form of data security features, such as passwords and protected areas, are missed. 

The bottom line: Given the features, the drive is a good buy for those looking to back up or carry huge data. The final selling price will also play a key role in the purchase decision. 

CyberMedia Labs