Data Storing and Moving: Choose the Best Portable Device Now!

by Andrey Kuznetcov
07/30/2003 | 11:00 AM

We live in the time of information. Information is growing more precious and more bulky. Very often the loss of data stored on the computer may lead to considerable money losses and even bring the whole company to a financial ruin. This finale is less probable for ordinary PC users, but still it is no pleasant thing to lose you work or personal information you have gathered over years all because your hard disk fails.

Of course, storage devices manufacturers are constantly improving the reliability of their products – drives and media, but the users can’t influence this process in any way. What you can do is choose the most reliable storage equipment you can find, if you really care about your data. However, this is not the only way-out. There is a second way to improve your data security: data backup. There are a lot of ready backup solutions sharpened for this specific task and providing easy operation, adequate performance and price.

Besides the necessity to choose the most optimal drive and medium to store your data, there is another task you encounter every day: data transfer between two computers. From your office PC to the home one and back again. That’s not as dramatic as the first task we have mentioned, but it is often even more urgent. And once again, if you don’t choose the right and most optimal device for your specific needs, you will have problems using it.

So what are we leading to? We all meet these problems every day, but sometimes it’s not so easy to make the choice in favor of one or another solution you see in the stores. Today we are going to throw all popular portable storage devices into one heap and see how well each of them suits for frequent (read: daily) data copying and data transportation from one PC to another.

Our ideal portable device (medium) must be miniature, very fast, reliable and inexpensive. As our imperfect world leaves no place for ideals, we will try to see which device or medium is closer to perfection.

The good old 3.5” floppy is gone now (by the way, they have never been the top of reliability). Data amounts are growing up and the lower acceptable limit for a storage device today is a few dozens of megabytes. The number 700MB is a reference point for many users as this is the capacity of compact discs used for storing MPEG-4 movies, games and audio. You want to have a portable device with a similar capacity? Then you are reading the right stuff: go on!

We don’t claim this review to be fully comprehensive. We just cannot put into a single article all available devices and examine and benchmark all of them. So, we included media and drives, most characteristic in their categories, to determine their read and write time parameters. Thus, we will be able to compare the devices among themselves. Now, let’s get acquainted with them.

250MB Fujifilm Zip Disc

This Zip-disc of 250MB capacity was used in Iomega drives. It looks like an ordinary 3.5” diskette.

Iomega Zip 250MB ATAPI Drive

Once, Iomega was popular, if not spectacular, launching a few drives that used big 100MB “floppies”. This capacity was really huge at that time and allowed storing software applications and a lot of other information. As time was passing by, the situation changed. Requirements to capacity, mobility and write speed were constantly increasing and now even 250 and 750MB disks don’t save Iomega’s Zip-drives. There are too many competitors. Still, they are present in the market, that’s why we included them into the review.

This internal Zip-drive resembles an elongated 3.5” floppy drive. Well, this is quite logical, as the manufacturer intended such drives to replace their 1.4MB analog in computer cases. Although this has never happened.

You are very unlikely to confuse the Zip-drive from Iomega with anything else – the label “Zip 250” tells what you deal with. The eject button is quite an original thing: it’s rounded and transparent and with a LED inside, which indicates the drive status during work. The back panel of the drive looks similar to HDDs: interface and power supply connectors and the pin set with a jumper for drive’s positioning on the cable are all there.

Iomega Zip 250MB USB-Powered Drive

This is a mobile version of Iomega’s Zip-drive. The drive communicates with the computer across the out-dated USB 1.1 interface (aka Full Speed USB) with all the resulting consequences. In this case, the name “USB-Powered” looks rather pathetic.

The vivid package includes: the drive itself, a base to hold it vertically, a USB cable and a software CD. The drive has a stylish, elegant design with all curvy and smooth lines. The gray plastic of the base is combined with a translucent-blue cover with a transparent insertion – above the label of the disk. The cover is marked with the model name and the manufacturer. Rubber insertions at the sides of the drive help to hold it tight in the hand. The eject button is at the same time the LED indicating the work mode of the drive.

The device supports both 250MB and older 100MB disks. The declared data-transfer rate is 0.9MB/s.

Shenzhen Luwen Electronics Easyharddisk 20GB USB 2.0

The external hard disk drive called Easyharddisk looks very spectacular. A shiny gray case with yellow sides resembles a cognac flask. You can read the name of the drive and see the Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0) label on the upper cover of the device. There are two LEDs there, too. The drive is power-supplied through the PS/2 port – the power cable has a special adapter to use it with the mouse or keyboard simultaneously. The connector for this cable is at the back panel of the drive, next to the mini-USB port.

The capacity of our drive was 20GB, but there are other sizes available in the market (from 5GB to 40GB). The maximum write speed as declared by the manufacturer is 17MB/s. Read speed is 21MB/s.

Besides the drive itself, the package includes a soft cover, a very brief user’s manual, USB and power cables, a CD with the full edition of the user manual and drivers for Windows 98/SE.

Fujitsu 1.3GB MO-Disk

The magneto-optical disk from Fujitsu with 1.3GB capacity resembles an ordinary 3.5” diskette, but is slightly thicker and transparent. We used it with two Fujitsu drives.

MOD 3.5” Fujitsu “MCM3130AP”

Before describing this particular model, let’s say a few words about this type of devices in general.

Magneto-optical drives seem to have already lived through their happy times. They don’t have the popularity they had a few years ago and will hardly regain it in the future. Their work principle is the following: data write is performed with the help of an external magnetic field and a laser ray. First, the medium is erased, and then the data is written by changing the polarity of the magnetic field. Reading is performed with the laser that changes its polarity depending on the magnetic polarity of the surface of the medium.

Magneto-optical devices have rather limited application, which is mostly information backup. Their advantage over classical hard disk drives in archiving lies in higher reliability. You can change the magnetic polarity of the surface only by heating it up with the laser ray. So, accidental exposal to external magnetic fields won’t have any consequences for the data stored on a MO-disk.

The internal MO-disk drive from Fujitsu looks like a floppy drive rotated by 180 degrees (if you look at it as if you were inserting the disk). The front panel carries an eject button, which also serves as a status LED. The drive is attached to the computer like any other device; its back panel has power supply and interface connectors, and a block of pins with a jumper for drive’s positioning on the cable. Overall, everything is the same as by any regular hard disk drive.

This model supports the ATAPI (UDMA/2) interface. Its spindle rotation speed is 3637rpm. Data-transfer rate can reach 6.7MB/s, while read and write operations are performed at the maximum speeds of 1.7MB/s and 5.09MB/s. The buffer is 1844KB big. The drive works with 1.3GB media.

Fujitsu DynaMO 1300U2

The MO drive series from Fujitsu includes both internal and external devices. DynaMO 1300U2 belongs to external ones. It is a bit larger than the internal solution. The exterior of the model is modern, but not garish, with two basic colors – white and light-violet. The eject button also serves as the LED to indicate the work mode of the device. The back panel of the case carries power and USB connectors and a power on/off button.

The drive works on the Hi-Speed USB interface. Its spindle rotation speed is 3214rpm. The buffer size is 2MB. The maximum capacity of supported media is 1.3GB.

The drive comes with a power adapter, USB cable, plastic base to place it vertically, blank 1.3GB MO-disk and two software CDs (one with digital user manual and the driver, the other with Disaster Recovery, an utility for data backup).

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST340014A 40GB

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 40GB will represent the team of 3.5” hard disk drives. The cache-buffer of this drive is 2MB; its spindle rotation speed equals 7200rpm. We guess this type of devices is quite familiar to all users. So, I  don’t think any comments are really necessary.

A-ATA133-3F Mobile Rack

To test the HDD in “mobile” conditions, we used an A-ATA133-3F Mobile Rack from a no-name Chinese manufacturer. As you can guess from the marking, the rack supports the ATA/133 interface and three fans. Two fans are already here, and the third can be installed if necessary. The peculiarity of this rack is its case material: both plastic and aluminum. Thus, it better protects the HDD during transportation. Otherwise, this rack looks just like any other. It has two LEDs for telling the work status and comes with a pair of keys and a few mounting screws.

Apacer Handy Steno 2.0 USB Flash Drive

The USB flash-drives will be represented by a model from Apacer. The drive we got for our tests featured 128MB capacity. However, the range of available Apacers is wide: there are modifications with 16, 32, 64, 256, 512 or 1024MB storage capacity in the market. The drive complies with the Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0) standard.

The case of the drive is smooth and rounded and carries a LED and a write protection switch. The Apacer comes with a USB cable for easy connection to the PC. The end of the cable where the drive is actually plugged is designed as a miniature holder, like those that come with PDAs. There is also a neck-band to carry the flash-drive on.

Hitachi Microdrive Travel Kit 1GB

IBM was the inventor of this traveling set, but now it belongs to Hitachi. The Microdrive media are compatible with the more popular and common standard, CompactFlash Type II (CF + Type II) and have 1GB storage capacity. The travel kit consists of the Microdrive disk itself placed in a small plastic box and the PC card adapter (formerly known as PCMCIA). The latter is inside a protective casing, too. This adapter allows using the miniature hard drive with notebooks and other CompactFlash II compatibles. Besides the disk and adapter, the package includes a multi-language installation manual and a diskette with the drivers for Windows 95/98.

For our tests we used only the Microdrive disk itself.

Transcend TS128MFLRD7 7-in-1 Card Reader/Writer USB 2.0

The card reader from Transcend was used twice thanks to its ability to be both a reader and a data storage device. Its silver-colored case displays the logos of the manufacturer and the USB 2.0 standard, but also has a red plastic insertion that reads “128MB”. This is the amount of its own internal flash memory. So, this drive can be used as a USB flash-drive as well as a reader of the following media: CompactFlash Card Type I/II, IBM Microdrive, SmartMedia Card, Secure Digital Card, MultiMediaCard and Memory Stick. A leather case accompanying the drive allows carrying it in the pocket – the drive weighs only 55g. Other accessories are: an installation manual, USB cable, a CD-disk with the drivers and a full digital version of the user’s manual.

After you attach the reader to the computer with the USB cable, you will find four new disks in the system (by the way, you can use the short integrated USB cable coiled inside the case). Two pairs of LEDs help to control what the drive is doing. For the purposes of this article we used this drive for testing the IBM Microdrive disk and the Apacer Handy Steno 2.0 USB drive, and also tested the Transcend device individually.

2.5” Hitachi Travelstar IC025N020ATCS04 20GB Hard Disk Drive

Among hard disk drives of the 2.5” form-factor the series from Hitachi is the most popular (taken over by the company from IBM). We took a model from the Travelstar 40GN family (20GB) for our tests. Although the one-inch difference seems to be unimportant, this drive boasts very different dimensions and weight as compared to the above-described 3.5” HDD. Its thickness (9.5mm) emphasizes its main purpose – mobile data storage. Of course its speed characteristics cannot match those of the regular HDDs, but it is partially because of its slower spindle rotation speed (4200rpm), which also makes it very quiet. The buffer size (2MB) is the same as most modern 3.5” HDDs have. Average access time is 12ms. This “star” supports the ATA-5 interface with UltraDMA 100 data-transfer mode.

Tekram TR-621 2.5 USB 2.0 Mobile Rack Kit

Ordinary 2.5” hard disk drives, usually found in notebooks, can be made mobile, too. Just put them into a special rack supporting USB 2.0. We took the one from Tekram.

The rack is a ribbed metal case with plastic parts at the front and rear. When the back panel is removed, you can extract the PCB with chips and the interface connector for 2.5” HDDs. You place the drive onto this board, insert it into the case and cover it with the panel. The upper part of the case has two work-mode indicators. The rear plastic panel carries a USB port and a power connector. The device is powered through the PS/2 connector of the mainboard by means of a cable with an appropriate adapter.

The model comes with USB and power supply cables, a user’s booklet, a CD-disc with drivers and an electronic user’s guide, a cloth sheath for transportation and mounting screws.

Plextor W4824TU USB 2.0

The team of CD-RW drives nominated an external drive from Plextor, W4824TU, for the tests. The drive works with the USB 2.0 interface. The stylish case is made of dull-luster metal, except the false panels. The front panel carries the eject button, headphones socket and volume control wheel, and a status LED.

The rear panel of the device is equipped with a power-on and self-diagnostics buttons, 12V power connector, USB port, and two composite audio outputs (for the left and right channels).

The drive can read and write CD-R disks at an up to 48x speed and rewrite CD-RW at 24x speed. Its buffer size is 4MB. By default, the read speed of the model is 40x, but you can increase it to 48x by enabling the SpeedRead option.

The drive comes with a power adapter, user’s manual, USB cable, special wire for removing the stuck discs and two CDs with software. Besides, we found a few blank media in the package: five CD-R and one CD-RW disc.

As a medium for this drive we used a 650MB Verbatim CD-RW 24x costing $1.

Ricoh MP5125A-DP

The fast-progressing class of DVD-burners is represented by Ricoh MP1525A-DP. The front panel is all covered with various symbols and logos and is equipped with the eject button, status LED, headphones socket and volume control wheel. The back panel accommodates power supply and interface connectors, digital and analog audio outputs, and a pin set with a jumper.

This model works with the ATAPI interface (UDMA/2 mode). Its speed characteristics are claimed to be as follows: 2.4x DVD+R/RW burn, 8x DVD-ROM read, 12x CD-R and 10x CD-RW burn, 32x CD-ROM read. Average access time is 140ms for DVDs and 120ms for CDs. The cache-buffer of the device is 2MB big.

The drive comes with a lot of accessories: a quickstart user guide in multiple languages, two CDs with software, four blank media (DVD+R 4x, DVD+RW 2.4x, CD-R 24x and CD-RW 10x), IDE and audio cables and a set of screws.

We used a 4.5GB DVD+RW disc from Verbatim (2.4x) selling for $4.5.

Testbed and Methods

As we have said above, our goal is not to examine the entire parameters range of the reviewed devices. We are interested in one function only: the efficiency of their use as portable storage solutions. The drives and media included into the roundup vary in physical as well as technical characteristics. That’s why we decided to take a really close look at two parameters only: read and write speeds (to be more exact, the time required for reading and writing). A set of files (their total amount differed depending on the capacity of the devices and media) was copied from the system hard disk to the tested device and back again. The time was measured with the help of the progress bar in the window of Total Commander ver. 5.50.

All the tested devices and media in the corresponding drives were connected to the mainboard via their main interface. The devices settings were adjusted for maximum performance.

Our testbed was configured as follows:

• Elitegroup K7S5A;
• AMD Athlon XP 2000+ CPU;
• 512MB PC3200DDR SDRAM;
• ATI RADEON 8500 64MB graphics card;
• IBM DTLA 307015 15GB UDMA/5 HDD;
• USB 2.0/IEEE 1394 combo-controller (NEC 720100 and Agere FW322 chips);
• Windows XP with Service Pack 1 and DirectX 9.0 installed.

Optical drives were processed with Nero Burning Rom version 5.5.10.28. The DVD+RW disk was formatted into UDF by Nero InCD version 3.5.2.40.

Performance

In order to compare the results, we divided the total size of the copied files by the time spent for read and write operations. Besides, we list the price of 1MB of storage for each medium or device (when no media are used).

Of course, Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 was a potential winner from the very beginning. And it proved up to our expectations. The final results might have been even higher if the testbed had had some other system HDD instead of the slightly out-dated IBM: the Barracuda just couldn’t show its highest performance. Anyway, there is no doubt that the standard 3.5” HDD on the ATAPI interface is the most preferable solution for data transportation as far as maximum performance and the storage space available are concerned.

Easyharddisk from Shenzhen Luwen Electronics is a ready-made solution – the drive is already packed up into an elegant plastic case. The capacity of this drive – 20GB – allows storing data amounts suitable for most situations. However, this drive was slower than the other compact HDD, Hitachi Travelstar, used with an external rack that works on USB 2.0, too. So, the race of these two quite comparable devices ended with a win of the Hitachi. Moreover, the price of the “Travelstar plus rack” set is about $50 lower. The only drawback of the sweet pair is the thickness. The Tekram rack is 1.5 times thicker than Easyharddisk. On the other hand, its aluminum case protects the HDD much better.

Among the lightweight devices where we can include IBM Microdrive and Apacer Handy Steno 2.0 (and also, Transcend Card Reader) there is no evident leader. The Hitachi medium showed faster read speed, while the flash drives were quicker at writing.

The 250MB Zip-disk from Iomega is quite a different story. Its read and write speeds with the internal (ATAPI) drive are higher than those of the miniature devices, but lower when the external USB drive is used. The cost of the medium itself (250MB Zip-disk) may be not very high, but you have to buy the drive to use it. So, the price factor as well as low performance with the external drive make it an outsider compared to USB 2.0 flash drives of the same capacity.

The magneto-optical media from Fujitsu don’t show extraordinary performance. The 1.3GB medium was a bit faster than the flash drives and IBM Microdrive at writing on both drives, but appeared the slowest of all reviewed devices at reading.

As for purely optical devices, they show similar results. Both Plextor W4824TU CD-RW and Ricoh MP5125-DP DVD-burner were a bit slower than Easyharddisk from Shenzhen Luwen Electronics. However, the drives of this category can speed up in the nearest future. There are already CD-RW drives that write CD-RWs at 32x speed and DVD-burners that burn disks at 4x speed.

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. :)