X-bit labs

Seagate ST650211USB: External Hard Disk Drive to Fit into Your Pocket

Category: Storage

by Andrey Kuznetcov

[ 01/11/2005 | 10:02 AM ]

There are not so many miniature hard disk drives in the market today that can easily fit into your shirt pocket. And if you are looking for a storage device like that, then why don’t you pay some attention to a solution offered by Seagate, which is the today’s leader in terms of storage capacity to size ratio.

Table of contents:

• Software Bundle
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance in FC-Test
  
• Performance in AIDA32
  
• Conclusion
  

Not so long ago we already tested a miniature 2.5-inch hard disk drive designed as a compact flash solution (see our article called Seagate ST1 1-Inch Hard Disk Drive Review), that is why we could hardly miss the opportunity to compare its performance with that of the new external product from the same developer.

But let’s start from the very beginning.

Inside the plastic package there is the actual storage device, which looks mostly like a UFO, a CD with the necessary software and brief user guide. The rounded shape of the drive makes it very conveniently sit in the palm of a hand when you carry it or connect to your PC. The USB cable is not very long, and is “tied” around the black casing inside a special slit. When you are connecting the device to the computer you simply turn it holding the external silver plastic side thus releasing the USB connector and preparing the drive for operation.

Since the device is very lightweight it can work even hanging on the USB cord when connected to the system. Besides the storage device with 5GB capacity, there is smaller model featuring 2.5GB of storage space. The spindle rotation speed of this device is 3,600rpm, and the buffer is equal to 2MB. The drive supports USB 2.0 interface. It doesn’t require any external power supply. The manufacturer claims that the typical read speed of the device is 4MB/sec, and write speed – 7MB/sec.

The drive can work when the environment temperature varies from 0^oC to 40^oC, and be in standby mode or turned off at the temperatures between 0^oC to 70^oC. The typical noise level during the drive’s operation reaches 2.2bel.

The portable pocket drive is designed to work under Macintosh OS X, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME and Windows 98 SE operating systems.