Conclusion

So, we have taken a close look at several types of media and devices that can be used for everyday data backup and transportation between computers.

What is our opinion? Well, flash-drives seem to be an optimal choice for storing relatively small data amounts. They are gaining more popularity as they offer fast performance, compactness and adequate price. The most optimal storage capacity of these products ranges from 32 to 256MB.

CD-RW and DVD-RW media and drives are quite handy, too. They provide faster speeds, moderate price and high storage capacities (DVD+RW).

If you need a device to store huge amounts of data, but smaller in dimensions than ordinary HDDs, consider a combination of a 2.5” HDD and a mobile rack with USB 2.0. This combination will cost less than ready-made solutions, but won’t be any worse than them in performance. If this capacity is not enough, use an ordinary 3.5” HDD with an ATAPI mobile rack or special external models (for example, those produced by Western Digital support USB 2.0 or IEEE 1394 FireWire).

Magneto-optical solutions from Fujitsu don’t seem to be the right choice for everyday work. They have average performance, high price (media plus the drive) and low popularity. Their only application is backup of very important data as they do have higher reliability compared to ordinary magnetic or optical media.

Once again, we can confirm that 250MB Zip disks and Iomega drives don’t have any future. They just cannot compete with other solutions in any important parameters.

As for the price per megabyte of storage, the comparison won’t be quite correct: you can buy a single device (HDD or USB flash-dive) or a medium (but the drive will be also required). Anyway, those awfully handy flash-drives are the most expensive. One megabyte of HDD storage is much cheaper. Zip disks that seem to be quite inexpensive turn to be made of gold compared to the price of storage on CD, DVD or MO media.

Of course, our resume is too general and is mainly based on the benchmarking results and price comparison. In real life you would probably want to determine one or two criteria your portable storage device should comply with and choose the optimal solution exactly for your own needs and tasks.

This roundup doesn’t cover all the available solutions, but we are going to post a few more articles with reviews of other portable storage devices available in the market. Of course, if we find anything worthy. :)