Back in the day, I was in Military Intelligence (no need try, I have heard all the jokes…..). We used some very expensive computer drive technologies to securely store classified materials digitally. This was when storage was measured in kilobytes (maybe megabytes), Photoshop 3 was just released, and a powerpoint presentation fit on a floppy disc. Our computer system (COMPUSEC) regulations required the hard drives be stored in a safe each evening (physical security vs encryption or both). We used hardened removable drives that were clunky, unreliable, and very expensive. So, when I was asked if I would like to try out the DataPort SecureDock from CRU-DataPort the Intel-geek in me got all excited to try this removable hard drive with military-grade encryption. … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: Hard Drive

CRU-DataPort’s SecureDock Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 9, 2009 at 7:25 am.

Earlier this year, we reviewed the Clickfree Portable Backup drive. Now they have an even smaller solution with more features. The new Clickfree C2 is a Windows and Mac … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear, News, Spotlight Gadgets

Tagged: Backup, Hard Drive, USB

Lose your Sidekick data? Don’t let the same thing happen to your PC – Clickfree C2 originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 13, 2009 at 10:29 am.

OWC has announced today its newest OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro model – the first FireWire 800/400 and USB 2.0 bus powered 2.5″ portable drive offering 1TB of storage capacity in a pocket-sized portable storage solution for Mac or PC users.  It … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear, Spotlight Gadgets

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

Is that 1TB in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 1, 2009 at 9:56 pm.

The package from UPS weighed over 15 pounds! I don’t get to review a lot of things that go THUD when I put the box down, so I was excited from the start to review this drive that claims to keep your data safe in fires and floods. Plans for barbecuing the hard drive flitted through my mind as I plotted how to best destroy a nearly indestructible hard drive! I was sent the IoSafe Solo 500Gb USB Hard Drive with Disaster Protection to review. … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear

Tagged: Backup, disaster, Hard Drive, protection, recovery

IoSafe Solo USB Hard Drive with Disaster Protection Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 1, 2009 at 7:29 am.

Verbatim has just announced their upcoming line of InSight external USB hard drives, which … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear, Spotlight Gadgets

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

Verbatim announces InSight external HDD originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on August 17, 2009 at 12:45 pm.

Have you ever experienced a hard drive failure, losing critical data such as pictures and music?  As I begin this review, my main desktop computer is currently on life support and my data is in (little) jeopardy.  Fortunately, I have an external hard drive that I utilized for routine backup. So it is only fitting that I have the opportunity to review the Rebit 1 TB multi-PC backup USB hard drive.  Let’s see what it has to offer. … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear

Tagged: Backup Drive, Hard Drive, PC, USB

Rebit 1 TB Multi-PC Backup USB Hard Drive Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 6, 2009 at 8:27 am.

We all know that to be healthy we should exercise every day and drink plenty of water. But how many of us actually take this advice instead of making excuses or saying something like “I’ll start at the first of the month…”? It’s the same thing with backing up the files on your computer. We all know we should do it, but how many of you shrug your shoulders and say “I’ll set something up next week…” or “I’ve never had a hard drive failure, so I’ll be fine…”?  … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: Backup, Hard Drive, USB

Seagate Replica PC Backup Appliance Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on April 30, 2009 at 1:00 am.

Bloated, but in a good way Western Digital’s My Book Studio Edition, My Book Mac Edition, My Book Home Edition and My Book Essential Edition models are all now available in 2 TB capacities. They aren’t using two 1 TB drives, they are using one 2 TB drive. Wowza. That’s a … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Spotlight Gadgets

Tagged: Firewire, Hard Drive, USB

WD’s My Book External Drive Family Is Feeling Bloated originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 26, 2009 at 4:35 pm.

Lately you have probably been exposed to at least a few media covering portable hard drives.

The Gadgeteer has reviewed 3 portable external hard drives since the end of October. You might have purchased or received one as a gift for the holidays. They are a great investment as a backup tool or as a way to transport the valuable information stored in our computers. … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: external, Hard Drive, portable, USB

Western Digital My Passport Essential 320GB Portable USB Hard Drive Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 28, 2009 at 10:45 am.

Mac users looking for additional disk storage for their laptops and desktops can now check out Seagate’s FreeAgent Desk and Go drives specifically for the Mac. These external hard drives have been preformatted using Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format, include Firewire ports and match the brushed aluminum style of Macbooks and iMacs. Let’s check them out a little closer…

… [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: Firewire, Hard Drive, USB

Seagate FreeAgent Desk and Go Hard Drives for Mac Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on December 15, 2008 at 8:00 pm.

Recently, I have been concerned with the scenario of a potential hard drive failure on my family’s main computer. The memories captured in thousands of digital photos, the hours spent ripping music and the miscellaneous critical files lost due to any numbers of reasons that cause a computer’s hard drive to crash.

… [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 25, 2008 at 7:00 am.

Hard drive capacity gets larger each year and many of us keep filling what space we have with critical, precious, or useless data. That is what happened to me. My 250gb LaCie external drive was down to less than 5gb of remaining space. I had been erasing data I probably shouldn’t and it was definitely time to invest in more space. I thought about 500gb or 750gb drive but decided to bite-the-bullet and get a 1TB drive.

… [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

Buffalo Technologies DriveStation HD-CEU2 External Hard Drive Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 28, 2008 at 6:30 pm.

I have been considering upgrading my backup external hard drive for quite some time now. The difficult decision was choosing between a larger (in both physical size and capacity) 3.5 inch drive and a smaller 2.5 inch drive (that would take up less space, not need a separate power cable, and is nearly silent). After a good amount of research and tech-soul-searching, I decided on the 320gb MiniStation TurboUSB Portable hard drive by Buffalo.

… [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

Buffalo MiniStation TurboUSB Portable Hard Drive Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 7, 2008 at 7:00 am.

Today I want to tell you about the morespace external USB hard drive from Hammer Storage. This is probably a company that you’ve never heard of before. I know that I was not familiar with them until I received an email asking if I might like to check out one of their drives. As I’m always in need of more file space, I didn’t have to think about my response very long. I said sure, they shipped me the drive and now you can learn more about it…

… [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

Hammer Storage morespace External USB Hard Drive Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on June 23, 2008 at 9:54 am.

Here’s my quick look video review of the Signature Mini USB drive from SimpleTech.

… [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear, Video Reviews

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

Video Quick Look at the SimpleTech Signature Mini USB Drive originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 2, 2008 at 6:30 am.

I’m still using the last external hard drive that I had the opportunity to review back in July of 2005. That was the Seagate Portable USB 2.0 drive. It’s been my 100gb backup drive for my desktop computer (iMac) all this time. Today I’m going to tell you about Seagate’s latest portable USB drive called the FreeAgent Go.

… [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

Seagate FreeAgent Go originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on May 25, 2007 at 5:16 pm.

One of my regularly watched television shows is the Discovery Channel’s It Takes a Thief. The point of the show is to demonstrate how easy it is for a thief to break into someone’s house and steal everything with any value; the show aims to educate people on better ways to protect themselves from being a victim. On one of last season’s episodes, they featured a grandmother who had transferred all of her family photos and documents to her computer’s hard drive. During the course of that particular show’s staged robbery, the thief emptied the grandmother’s silver drawer, jewelry box and medicine cabinet, and then he picked up her computer tower and casually carried it out the door. Had the robbery been real, all of her carefully collected family photos and documents would have been gone forever. Even though the “victim” knew she would be getting all of her possessions back at the end of the show, I still couldn’t help but feel sorry for her as she agonized over the idea of losing her digital treasures. … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

EDGE Tech diskGO 2.5″ Backup Ultra Portable Hard Drive originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on September 14, 2006 at 7:27 pm.

Adding extra file storage capacity to a desktop or laptop computer used to be a task that involved a screw driver and a blood sacrifice to the computer gods. That is definitely not the case these days, as the external hard drive market is booming. Instead of digging into the inner bowels of your computer to replace the actual hard drive with a newer / larger one, you can just plug in a stand alone hard drive for added file space. You can’t get much simpler than that … [visit site to read more]

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptop Gear

Tagged: Hard Drive, USB

Seagate Technology Portable USB 2.0 External Hard Drive originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 18, 2005 at 11:01 pm.

Product Requirements:

Hardware Requirements: PC Users: Available USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 port or
available Windows-certified IEEE 1394a (FireWire) port, Microsoft Windows XP,
Me, 2000 or 98SE. Mac Users: Available USB 2.0 or USB 1.1 port or available
Windows-certified IEEE 1394a (FireWire) port, Mac OS X, Mac OS 9.x, Mac OS 8
(backup software does not support Mac OS 9.x or Mac OS 8.6)
The BounceBack Express software … [visit site to read more]