250 GB Freecom ToughDrive Pro
Written on 12:01 PM by Switch
The biggest capacity yet from a hard drive powered by USB
External storage is a necessity rather than a luxury for designers. Moving work between the office and home is part of daily life for many of us, while being able to carry a portfolio around at all times is as important as ever. There are plenty of storage options out there, including USB flash drives and external hard disks. But even the biggest flash drives don’t offer enough space, while standard external drives are not particularly portable.
The problem is that 3.5-inch external drives require a separate power unit. But the Freecom’s 250GB ToughDrive Pro draws all its power from a USB port.
250GB is ample space for a lot of data, and this capacity milestone is a marked improvement over what has been squeezed from USB-powered drives so far. There are some tradeoffs though. Transfer speed from the 2.5-inch disk falls well below what is possible from a standard SATA drive. For this reason, we wouldn’t recommend using this as your scratch disk. At £130, you’re also paying a lot more per gigabyte of storage than usual.
It comes encased in rubber to prevent damage should you drop it, which is a welcome feature. However, the dimensions of the drive are larger than we would like, making it slightly too big to fit comfortably in a pocket.
The benefits of a USB-powered hard disk outweigh most of the shortcomings, but if you don’t need the full 250GB, there are even more portable drives that do a similar job.
Tags: Hardware, 250GB, Freecom, Tough, Drive, Pro
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