Conclusion

So, we’ve made our acquaintance with the new external USB-interfaced drive from Sony, and I am personally much pleased with it. Undoubtedly, this pleasant feeling is largely due to the cute and handy exterior design of the product. I should also mention the plastic case for carrying the drive: it is stiff to protect the device from damage and has a lock to securely hold the device inside. That’s a trifle, of course, but such trifles combine to make up the good impression from a product. The elegant exterior will please the potential buyer. Lockable in two positions, the USB connector makes it easier to attach the device to the computer.

I took the Seagate ST650211USB drive as an opponent to the Sony USD5G in my tests. The reason for this choice was simple: both drives are based on the same 1” HDD from Seagate. They say a copy is always worse than the original, and this is true in this case. The Sony USD5G was slower than its opponent in every test I passed them through, both in reading and writing. Yet, it doesn’t mean a catastrophic failure. The difference between the results of the two devices isn’t crucial at all. The declared data-transfer rate of 12MB/s was not achieved in the tests, and I have no doubt I wouldn’t see it even if I used a 5GB file.

So, I have compared two products which are very similar in functionality and characteristics. What’s the better buy of the two? I think you should consider two points here. First, the design factor. The pocket drive from Seagate is round-shaped and looks like a small flying saucer. It also connects to the USB port via a flexible cable which is longer than the stiff connector of the Micro Vault Pro. The device from Sony is designed in the more traditional way as a rectangular compact-size box. It’s up to you to decide which variant suits you better. The second point is the retail price of the products, which can be varying. If you don’t care much about the design, the price factor may become the guiding one since the performance of these two drives is roughly the same.