Photo: Digittrade

The Digittrade HS256 represents storage peace of mind. As a high security external USB hard drive unveiled at CeBIT, the HS256 portable drive represents the pinnacle in data storage security.

Just how secure is it?

All data stored on the strong 256-bit AES hardware encryption-equipped high security external USB hard drive is accessed through a two-step process of inserting a smart card to unlock the drive, allowing the user to enter an eight digit PIN. The smart card is encrypted and linked to the hard drive, making each smart unique to its Digittrade hard drive. This all sounds pretty James Bond, but the Digittrade HS256 is just an accessible way of protecting your data, without the tuxedo and suave one-liners. The portable drive looks good and is well designed, but won’t be winning any awards for being the best looking portable hard drive. On first sight, it looks tough and secure and delivers on the user’s expectations.

Why now?

Digittrade’s main reason for releasing such a high tech and high security external USB hard drive is that more and more people are in possession of highly sensitive data these days. It’s also so easy to misplace or lose baggage when travelling, and the HS256 ensures that if this unfortunate event happens, the information being carried on the external drive cannot be accessed and used by anyone else. The secure hard drive stole the show at CeBIT, and is the most secure storage device of all the Digittrade devices launched such as the less encrypted HS128, RS128 and RS64 and the security USB USS256.

The HS256 portable drive will retail at $419.90 (approximately £279.56) and $608.90 (approximately £405.39), for the 160 GB and 320 GB. The biggest 500GB drive will retail at around £450.

The secure Digittrade portable drive is targeted more towards the business user, though home users may find the device useful if carrying a lot of data they don’t want other people to see.

Photo: Buffalo

Looking to take full advantage of SuperSpeed 3.0 (USB 3.0), the new bus standard implemented by the USB Implementers Forum at CES 2010, Buffalo recently launched the MiniStation Lite USB 3.0 HD-PEU3. It’s the first external portable hard drive supporting the new lightning fast bus standard.

The pros and cons

Photo: Buffalo

Although the hard drive is backward compatible with USB 2.0, meaning it will work with all USB 2.0 compatible laptops and computers, it still may not be able to be connected to other devices running on earlier bus standards. The 2.5-inch MiniStation Lite USB 3.0 can deliver super speedy transfers of data with the hard drive being capable of transferring data at rates of up to 5GB per second.

The external portable hard drive also comes packaged with Buffalo Tools, performance-enhancing software designed to keep the HD-PEU3 running fast, and ECO manager, which is energy-saving software controlling how much power the device uses.

The device is similar in design to its predecessor, the MiniStation Lite USB 2.0, but the USB 3.0 edition is finished in a high gloss finish and will be available in a range of colours like gold, black, red, white, blue and pink.

How the competition matches up

The recent unveiling of the USB 3.0 bus standard has left the field open to storage solution providers to take the lead in spearheading the development of USB 3.0 storage devices. The already reputable Seagate BlackArmor PS110 USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive and the new Transcend StoreJet 25D3 USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive also being some of the first 3.0 storage devices. It may be too soon to really put any USB 3.0 external portable hard drives through their paces, with a number of SuperSpeed 3.0 devices still forthcoming.

With an April 2010 release date being officially announced, the BK-EU MiniStation Lite USB 3.0 500GB will retail at £109.99, and the larger BK-EU – MiniStation Lite USB 3.0 640GB will retail at £139.99. The hard drive will be available across the EMEA region.

Established in the 1980s, the Iomega company is a producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Till date it has sold more than 400 million digital storage drives and disks. This article will give you an idea about the features of some of the portable external hard drives that are manufactured by Iomega.

The Iomega UltraMax Plus Hard Drive has an external FireWire hard disk, an external USB hard disk and an external eSATA hard disk. Over all it has a capacity of 1000 GB, thus providing a high capacity storage facility to your computer. The HFS+ formatted external hard drive includes RAID 0 that is meant to provide higher data throughput and RAID 1 to provide data security. In addition, an expanded storage facility is provided by the three port USB hub and the FireWire ports. It can be connected to any computer that is equipped with FireWire800 or Hi-Speed USB 2.0. The dimensions of UltraMax Plus are 200 x 128 x 79 mm and the overall weight is 2700g.

Another product of this category is the Iomega Prestige that has a sturdy aluminium construction. It has a stylish dark silver finish and is ideal for home and office usage. It is a high-capacity travel companion owing to the 500 GB memory and the simple USB 2.0 interface. The eGo portable hard drive from Iomega is provided with a stylish design and is also perfect for travel environments. It can withstand a fall from up to 130 cm due to the Drop Guard feature included in its design. There is an extra FireWire port provided in this portable hard drive that gives you the expansion facility.

Tags for this article: external hard drive, portable hard drive, firewire

A major drawback of mobile computers, such as laptops, PDAs or tablet PCs, is often that the computers must sacrifice some level of performance in exchange for their portable size. Often this entails slower CPUs, smaller hard drives, and naturally smaller displays. While there is usually nothing that can be done to increase the processor speed, or the size of a display screen, increasing hard disk space is incredibly easy. In fact, with the latest USB portable hard drive from LaCie, you can even increase your computer’s storage capacity by an entire terabyte, more than enough for even the largest media collections.

The LaCie 1TB Desktop Hard Disk comes in black and measures only 1.6 x 4.4 x 7.6 inches with a weight of nearly one kilogram; making it easily portable. In fact, given the amount of storage space offered by the hard disk, its size is quite small and compact, if not unprecedented. Moreover, due to more advanced technology, the price of this latest model is significantly lower than LaCie’s other 1 TB hard drives, such as the Lacie Big Disk 1 TB. The device simply connects to your laptop via USB 2.0 with no installation necessary and automatic configuration for Windows and Mac computers. Backing up your computer’s files won’t take ages either, as the hard disk comes with a burst transfer rate of up to 35 MB/s. And with a pricetag of only £99.95 at expansys, there has scarcely been an easier way to outfit your storage deficient Eee PC. Not to mention, the hard disk from LaCie manages to look quite sleek as well and will blend in perfectly to any surroundings.