Shootouts

500GB Portable (2.5-inch) HDD Shootout

By Vijay Anand - 6 May 2010

Who's the Best Portable Drive?

Who's the Best Portable Drive?

Well, we've laid out the pros and cons of each drive, ran the drives through some benchmarks and it is now time to piece all the information together to single out the overall best. This is of course based on our findings and placing equal importance to all aspects of a drive from physique, performance, features and overall value. In reality however, each individual has their own preferences and needs, thus the reason why there are several vendors offering you a variety of options and unique selling points.

So do take our assessment as a guide if you're not quite sure what you need. However if you're the sort who knows his/her requirements such as the speediest drive or the lightest drive for example, we've got all the information and it's just a matter of homing in to the right option that fits your needs. Here then is our breakdown of how the seven 500GB portable hard drives fared in our assessment:-
 

Scoring Breakdown
  Physique Performance Features Value Final Score Street Price (S$)
Hitachi SimpleTough  8.0 7.5 9.0 8.0 8.5
 $189
Iomega eGo Portable  7.5 7.0 8.0 8.5 8.0
 $159
Samsung S2 Portable 8.5 8.0 7.0 7.5 7.5  $149
Seagate FreeAgent Go 8.5 7.0 8.0 9.0 8.0  $139
Toshiba Portable HDD 8.0 8.0 7.0 7.5 7.5  $149
Verbatim Executive Portable 7.0 9.0 8.5 8.0 8.0  $165

WD My Passport Essential

9.0 8.0 8.0 8.0 8.5  $145


The Hitachi SimpleTough lived up to its 'tough' billing with its sturdy build that's shockproof and water resistant. For rugged usage on the go, this is the best drive. Alas, its upsides are also the reason why it's so bulky and thus not a suitable candidate for everyone. However, if you're going to be lugging a drive in your bag without care of concern, the Hitachi SimpleTough can surely take a lot of rough handling and won't look like it's been mishandled either thanks to its build and finishing. Be prepared to have a USB extension cable if you need to stretch behind a desktop to get it connected.

Want a slimmer drive than Hitachi but yet hope it's reasonably tough? Iomega's eGo Portable series advertises its 1.3-meter drop friendly feature and has 3 years warranty. It's not water resistant nor is it a great performer, but it does come with a good software set and presents itself as a reasonably good value buy for someone who needs durability, good looks and a palatable price point.

Samsung's S2 Portable might have been the game changer a couple of years back with cheeky colors and a squarish shape that appeals to women, but it isn't the only good looker in town these days. While it's almost a pocket friendly drive, it's not quite as slim as the WD contender. Aside from a good design, its features and offerings are bit lean and leaves you wanting a little more. How about a good location for the drive status activity indicator for starters? Don't get us wrong, it's a decent drive, but there's nothing very compelling about it either. This is one of those drives where you make an impulse purchase based on appearances - you won't go wrong, but you won't get a lot of worth either.

Still the only drive with a 5-year warranty, this is one of Seagate's biggest trump cards for all its products. Though the Seagate FreeAgent Go recorded middling performance and sometimes holding up the rear of the performance graphs, it redeems itself with the best warranty coverage, good build and a very visible drive activity indicator. It's a safe buy if you need the added warranty assurance and sleek design. Did we also mention it's the most affordable of the pack? All things considered, it's great value for money and we're going to give it our Best Value award.

Toshiba's Portable hard drive is a compact and glossy drive that's relatively decent all around. Unfortunately it doesn't quite stand out in any particular way and has a short USB cable provided. Furthermore, those who hate the glossy finish for fear of smudgy fingerprint maintenance would steer probably stay clear away from this model even though it comes with a cleaning cloth.

If speed is all you crave, the fastest drive in this shootout is undoubtedly the Verbatim Executive Portable drive. It comes with a special turbo driver that maximizes the USB protocol for speedier transfer rates as opposed to the competition. The net result is more than 10% speed gain in most cases. As impressive as it may seem, it's also one of the bulkier drives and has a poorly positioned drive activity indicator.

Finally, the most pocket friendly drive of the lot is the Western Digital My Passport Essential, which is also our overall winning choice of this shootout. While its compact nature alone warrants enough reason to grab this drive, it's a good thing that the overall features and performance is in good standing. Furthermore, it has hardware based drive encryption and password protection which should come in handy for those of us who are pretty concerned with data safety these days. Now if only it had a more obvious drive activity indicator and a longer USB cable supplied, it would have been perfect.

 

Final Ratings

Western Digital My Passport Essential 500GB

Hitachi SimpleTough 500GB

Seagate FreeAgent Go 500GB

Iomega eGo Portable 500GB

Verbatim Executive Portable 500GB

Samsung S2-500 Portable

Toshiba Portable hard drive 500GB

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