X-bit labs

Seagate USB 2.0 Portable Hard Disk Drive Review (page 7)

Category: Storage

by Andrey Kuznetcov

[ 03/09/2005 | 04:44 PM ]

Conclusion

I have to admit that the overall impression left by Seagate Portable Hard Drive was highly positive. The stylish and original case design distinguishes this drive from similar solutions designed by Seagate’s competitors. So, if you are a happy owner of Seagate Portable Hard Drive you will always feel special with a drive that no one else has. USB 2.0 interface allows you to connect the drive to any contemporary PC, and compact size of the solution makes it very easy to carry around with you every time you need some 100GB of storage space.

The performance measurements show that this drive is slower than Seagate ST910023A HDD. Of course, I have to confess that it was not a totally unexpected result. If the drive we tested is based on exactly the same model as the internal St910023A, then it appears absolutely clear that it could not be faster anyway. Additional bridge-chips which ensure proper data transfer between the HDD and the computer via the USB 2.0 interface are none other but an extra stage, which the traditional internal HDDs don’t have. No doubt that this additional stage slows down the overall device performance a little bit, so that it gets beaten by a standard ATA drive.

Our today’s comparison shows that the portable drive is slower than its internal analogue. Nevertheless, the performance of our today’s hero is quite high for a device of this type, so if you are planning to get one, you will not be disappointed.

Of course, the success of this product in the market will depend a lot on its retail price, because the competition here is going to become ever worse.