MaximumPC 2006 10

T

his month we’ve got three high-

capacity USB drives in the Lab.

Ranging in size from 100GB to

160GB, they’re big enough to augment

your laptop’s base storage and perform

backup duties for your notebook. We use

them in the Lab for benchmarks, patches,

and drive images that are just too big for a

USB key. Indeed, no hardcore geek should

be without one!

—Josh Norem

seagate 160gB

PortaBle exterNal

Seagate’s portable external drive sports

the highest capacity in its class, by 40GB,

thanks to its perpendicular recording tech-

nology, which packs more data on every

platter of the hard drive. It comes in a

rough-and-ready aluminum enclosure that

keeps the drive both safe and cool.

Inside the shell sits a 5,400rpm Seagate

Momentus drive with an 8MB cache. The

drive includes

Bounceback

Express backup

software, which is

adequate. Our only

gripe is that it’s not

the full-featured ver-

sion of the software,

and thus quite limit-

ed, especially when

compared with

Maxtor’s One Touch

software offering.

During speed

tests, the Seagate

was right in the thick of things. In our 5GB

read and write tests it took second place,

lagging slightly behind the Maxtor drive

(reviewed next), but the two drives’ perfor-

mance was virtually tied.

So, the Seagate drive’s

only serious failing is its soft-

ware package. If you don’t

need the backup software,

however, this is a great drive,

especially considering its

gimungous capacity.

maxtor oNe touch

III mINI 100 gB

Maxtor has downsized its awe-

some One Touch Turbo desk-

top backup drive into this

100GB Mini model. It looks

exactly the same as the Turbo, and comes

with the same excellent software.

The Mini uses a 5,400rpm drive with an

8MB buffer. Even though it has a lower areal

density (the number of bits packed onto

the drive’s platters—higher is better) than

the Seagate drive, the Maxtor drive outper-

formed Seagate by a small margin in both

our 5GB read and 5GB write tests.

The star of the show is the software,

which is easily the most fully featured pack-

age we’ve ever seen for a drive this size.

It lets you password-protect the drive, set

folders to automatically sync, restore delet-

ed files, and lots more.

Sure, the Mini delivers the least capac-

ity in this roundup, but 100GB is enough

for us. If you’re shopping solely for storage

space, by all means get the Seagate, but if

you want a drive for backup and syncing, it

doesn’t’ get any better than this.

WesterN D IgItal

PassPort 120gB

WD’s Passport is an all-around decent

product, with a lot of storage and handy

software, but fails to distinguish itself from

the Maxtor or Seagate products in any

meaningful way.

We have

no beef with

the Passport’s

capacity, as

120GB is more

than enough

storage for us.

We don’t even

mind the form-

factor that much.

The chassis is

the same size as

Maxtor’s, and a

smidge longer than Seagate’s, making it

too big for a pocket, but just fine for refuge

inside a laptop bag. The rounded edges

look a bit odd to us, and we don’t like

that we have to pull down a rubber cover

to access the USB port. As far as perfor-

mance goes, it’s close enough to the other

drives to call a draw.

Where the drive fails to keep up with

the Joneses is in the software department.

Although the included WD Sync software

seems quite capable in isolation, it pales in

comparison to the software shipped with the

other drives here. It’s more difficult to use,

more limited in its scope, and not as user

friendly as we’d like.

though it packs only 100gB, the maxtor mini offers a

full-featured software package that makes up for its

slight capacity deficiency.

WD’s Passport drive is

a plain-vanilla product

that works well but

failed to blow us away.

seagate’s 160gB drive
shatters the 2.5-inch
capacity record, thanks
to its use of perpendicu-
lar recording technology.

$200, http://www.wdc.com

western digital passport 120gB

PassPort Please

Great capacity; rubberized

shell.

PaPers Please^8

Annoying USB-port cover;

so-so software.

$290, http://www.seagate.com

seagate 160gB external

Porto DrIve

Huge capacity, rugged

shell, and decent software.

Port-o-Potty^9

Software bundle is lacking

compared with Maxtor’s package.

Drive Buy?

Three oh-so-small drives with huge capacities

$180, http://www.maxtor.com

maxtor one touch iii mini 100gB

Platter

Decent capacity, kick-

ass software, and a sleek

design.

fatter^9

Only 100GB.

MAXIMUMP

C

KICKASS

reviews Tes Ted. Reviewed. veRdic Tized

 MAXIMUMPC october 2006

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