Freecom Tough Drive 3.0 1TB review

Features:

• Rubberised, anti-shock body effective against drops and shocks
• Lightweight and pocket-friendly size
• Excellent read/write performance in real-world situations
• Good selection of supplied software
• Built-in cable too short
• No extension cable provided
• Price tag a little high, despite the extra protection offered

Portable hard drives are specifically designed to be carted about, but that opens them up to all kinds of dangers, like accidental drops and bumps. Freecom's USB 3.0 Tough Drive is housed in a rubberized silicone cover with an anti-shock mechanism that provides protection against such scrapes.

It also features an integrated USB cable that, along with providing power as well as the necessary means of data transfer, neatly plugs into the top of the case. The end result is a drive that, while not exactly good-looking, does stow away neatly into a small package for transport.

The first issue with the drive immediately presents itself when you unhook the chunky, resilient cable – its length is around the same as the width of the drive, just 8cm. That's not necessarily an issue if you're plugging it into a laptop, but try hooking it up to a desktop and you'll need to provide some kind of extra surface for it to sit on close to the requisite USB port. It would have been nice to have seen an extension cable provided to give you more flexibility in such circumstances.

This gripe aside, there's a lot to like about this unfussy, sturdy drive, not least of which is its performance. Its synthetic benchmarks aren't as fast as desktop drives, but more than a match for other portable drives, with peak read and write times around 115MB/s.

In real-world tests, it performs more competitively with its desktop cousins, transferring 60,000 files (around 36.5GB in total) in under 24 minutes, and copying seven large files (totalling 54.8GB) in under 17 minutes, which compares well with desktop as well as portable drives.

In terms of added extras, the drive comes with plenty of useful software. PC users gain Nero Backup Express, while the drive is compatible with Time Machine on the Mac. Both platforms also get energy management, file-wiping and password-protection software too.

The box also claims support for USB recording and playback, which is a little disingenuous as all USB drives support this. Besides, the length of the Tough Drive's cable makes USB recording a little impractical.

This is clearly a drive for those who have clumsy fingers. Its rubberized design helps with grip as well as providing protection against shocks, and means it can be stowed away less carefully than other drives. Yet despite this extra protection it remains relatively light and easily stows away in your back pocket. Performance is also impressive considering this is a portable, self-powered model.

While the cable tucks neatly into the back of the drive, it's far too short to make the drive as versatile as it should be considering it's a portable drive. Extension cables are widely available, but it would have been nice to have included one in the box, especially given the premium being charged.

A good choice if your butter fingers are making you think twice about investing in a portable hard drive for travel purposes, but you'll need an extension cable to make the most of it.

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The D3 Station

 

· Solid and robustly built

· Good performance on a par with most USB 3.0 drives

· Great value

· Samsung Drive Manager insists on starting with Windows

· Lack of energy saving features

· No means of replacing the drive

The first thing to note about this desktop external drive is that it's a wolf in sheep's clothing, or more precisely, a Samsung-branded drive manufactured and distributed by Seagate. Available in 2TB or 3TB capacities, it has enough storage to satisfy the most demanding of users.

It's housed in a compact – but quite heavy – case with slight curved edges to avoid unflattering comparisons with a box. The USB and power connections are found at the back of the drive, and there are four bright activity lights at the front. While it feels quite chunky, the black plastic case is durable enough to handle the odd knock as well as repel light scratches.

The drive will work with both PCs and Macs, but is set up for use with PCs out of the box and formatted as a single NTFS drive. It comes with Samsung Drive Manager software that allows you to repartition the drive if you so wish, and offers a simple diagnostics tool, automatic backup software with password protection and a handy SecretZone app that allows you to encrypt part of the drive for storing sensitive files in. It's nice and simple to set up, with enough options to make it flexible, although we'd have liked to have been given some kind of choice over what encryption was applied.

The security setup screen.

The D3 Station is a solid, competent performer, although the early promise in the synthetic benchmarks, with peak read/write times of 216MB/s and 203MB/s respectively, aren't borne out in real-world tests. Here its performance is actually slightly worse than some portable drives we've tested, although the advantages of USB 3.0 over 2.0 are still obvious. The drive takes nearly 26 minutes to write a 36.5GB folder containing 60,000 files in our small files test, and just under 17 minutes to transfer a 54.8GB folder containing seven large files.

This is a solidly built, no-nonsense desktop drive, designed to sit alongside your PC or Mac and deliver all the backup and extra storage you could possibly need. And while the real-world performance isn't stellar, it's still on a par with most USB 3.0 drives out there. The robust casing – which doesn't get particularly hot even after a few hours of use – is also a plus point for those looking for something that won't scratch easily.

There's a lack of energy-saving features with the drive – it powers off with your computer or when the USB cable is removed, but powers on independently of it when you first flick the electricity switch. There also appears to be no means of putting the drive to sleep when it's not in use. The enclosure itself isn't serviceable, so you can't replace the drive easily should you later want to upgrade or renew it.

The D3 Station is an understated, but reliable and solid drive for anyone who doesn't need standout performance, but wants a convenient and inexpensive way of adding a large amount of additional storage to their setup.

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Freecom Mobile Drive Mg 1TB

 

Outstanding points

· Slimline chassis and elegant design

· Reasonably quick performance, particularly with small files

· Cables included

· 2.5-inch drive fails to make the most of Thunderbolt's capabilities

· Very expensive for little performance gain

On the surface, Freecom's Thunderbolt and USB 3.0-equipped Mobile Drive Mg seems to provide the perfect blend of portability, performance and versatility. There are no design surprises sprung, the drive is essentially an update of a previous dual-port model (Firewire 800 and USB 2.0), and sports the same slim magnesium case and lightweight pocket-friendly chassis. To be fair, there's no real need to update this basic design as it still complements the Mac perfectly, and won't look out of place next to PCs either.

Freecom claims the magnesium design ensures the drive stays cool, and judging by the heat emanating from it after even a relatively short period, it appears it's doing its job as a glorified heatsink.

1TB Thunderbolt in the palm of your hand

As the drive is self-powered, you'll only find the two connectors – one USB 3.0, the other Thunderbolt – on the back of the drive. Surprisingly, though, the drive indicator light is also housed here, which is a strange choice. Thankfully, cables for both ports are provided.

The drive is pre-formatted ready for use on the Mac, which means it'll work out of the box with Time Machine, but there is a hidden partition containing the necessary software to reformat the drive for PC use too. Other included software includes an energy saving tool called Green Button that puts the drive to sleep after a specified period.

The key issue with the Mobile Drive Mg, as it would be with any Thunderbolt-equipped drive that works with the smaller 2.5-inch hard drive, is that you'll never get to utilize the full bandwidth of the Thunderbolt interface. That's most evident when benchmarking the drive in QuickBench, its peak read/write figures of 106/102MB/s in Thunderbolt mode similar to its USB 3.0 figures.

1,000 megabytes - does it get smaller?

You'll be similarly disappointed if you plan to copy large files to the drive, as speeds max out well below their potential. However, we were pleased to see the drive perform much quicker in our small-file test, copying a 36.5GB folder containing over 60,000 files in just 11 minutes and 30 seconds, which is half the time it took to copy the same folder to similar portable drives sporting the USB 3.0 interface.

The drive is undoubtedly well designed and sits neatly alongside modern Macs. It's slim, light and pocket-friendly too, something not usually associated with Thunderbolt drives. Performance – particularly with smaller files – was impressive as well. If you're running an older Mac with Thunderbolt, but not USB 3.0, then this drive will make a big difference.

The relatively slow transfer speeds using Thunderbolt make us question the point of paying a hefty premium for that interface when you can get broadly similar performance for much less from a USB 3.0-only portable drive. We were also unimpressed with the drive's USB 3.0 performance when connected to a PC.

If you're happy to pay a large premium for a tiny performance gain over USB 3.0, then the Freecom Mobile Drive Mg will appeal, but we'd suggest looking at the USB 3.0-only model, which is much cheaper.

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Buffalo DriveStation 2TB

 

Outstanding features:

• Excellent performance, particularly with large folders
• PC Turbo driver speeds up small file transfers even further
• Compact footprint for a desktop drive
• Eco-friendly and stays relatively cool
• Pricey compared to the competition
• Proprietary USB cableTake care when installing PC Turbo driver
• A little too bulky to serve double duty as a portable drive

You can't judge a book by its cover, which is why the unassuming black exterior of Buffalo's desktop belies the fact this is one of the fastest USB 3.0 desktop drives we've yet seen. But first, those looks: its 3.5-inch 2TB drive is hidden away inside a black rectangular case, with just one subtle – but effective – curve at the front as a nod to aesthetics.

The drive itself comes with power cable – thankfully no bricks involved – and chunky USB cable with proprietary connector you won't be hooking up to any competitor's drive on the market. The plastic case feels reasonably substantial in the hand. It can be laid on its side or stood upright, the latter enabling you to slot it into relatively small spaces.

Not a great view, but you'll not be staring at the rear

But while it's not too heavy, the DriveStation is weighty enough to make it less than ideal as a travelling companion, even though its modest footprint means you could slip it easily into a relatively small bag.

The DriveStation comes with a number of handy tools for Windows users, and is fully compatible with Apple's Time Machine out of the box too. PC owners get a number of useful tools: an automatic backup tool, plus Secure Lock Mobile encryption software and even a RAMDISK utility.

The drive itself doesn't feel too warm, even after hours of operation. This is helped by its handy eco-saving features: it automatically powers on and off with your PC or Mac, so doesn't sit there idly wasting energy during the night hours – it's even got built-in sleep mode to save even more power.

Where the DriveStation really excels is with its performance. Judge it purely on its synthetic benchmark performance and it doesn't stand out, with peak read/write times of around 175-180MB/s that, while impressive, aren't the fastest we've seen. It's also par for the course when transferring large files, with a peak of around 75MB/s and taking 17 minutes to copy seven files totalling 54.8GB in size.

The Buffalo Manager software

Where the drive did nose ahead of the opposition was with a 36.5GB folder containing over 60,000 files in total of varying sizes. The DriveStation took a creditable 18m and 30 seconds to copy this folder, by far the quickest we've seen in recent times. Install the supplied PC Turbo driver, however, and this figure falls even further – just over 12 minutes in our test, which is half the time of rival drives. That's down to it utilizing write-caching technology to speed up transfers where large numbers of files are involved.

You'll be tempted with this drive if you're looking for a fast, external hard drive that won't need to travel. The DriveStation's compact footprint means you can stand it up in quite a small area – tucked behind your PC or Mac for example – and forget it's there. Real-world transfer speeds are excellent – particularly when PC Turbo is installed, and we like its energy-saving features and heat dissipation.

We weren't careful when installing the PC Turbo driver, and after Windows threw up a warning about unsaved data during the obligatory system restart we cancelled the process, saved our files and then restarted. Doing so wiped one of our partitions – thankfully the Partition Recovery Wizard in Partition Wizard Home Edition [http://partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html] made short work of getting it back, and we diligently closed all applications as instructed before attempting a successful reinstall – this time without any shocks. There's also a relatively hefty premium to pay for the larger 2TB and 3TB models, so shop around.

The DriveStation offers the perfect external desktop drive: fast transfer speeds, compact footprint and low power consumption. But be prepared to pay for the privilege.

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WD MyCloud

 

The name of WD's new Network Attached Storage (NAS) unit is an attempt to tap into the newfound consumer enthusiasm about cloud computing or, in other words, storing stuff online.

But instead of storing your files on the internet, WD's MyCloud is a local networked repository for all your content so you can access it from your Mac (ideal for those of us that have a low capacity flash drive in our laptops) as well as your iPad, iPhone or Android device using free WD MyCloud apps.

So by buying a device such this, you can legitimately store all your music, photos, videos and files on the device so you can access them from any Mac or PC. The mobile landscape is a little more complex, since the MyCloud iOS, Andoid and Windows Phone apps only support native formats on the device.

So while you won't have a problem playing an .mp3 file, you will have a problem playing that video file you downloaded. MyCloud is a UPnP and DLNA compatible media device, so it can also be accessed from numerous other devices such as an internet-connected TV.

The MyCloud has a single LED on the front that you can turn off. The MyCloud does also have its own iTunes Server, however, so you can easily browse and play back on iTunes for Mac and PC (though, and we've never understood this, not on iOS devices without a third party app).

Gigabit Ethernet is supported, as is USB 3.0 for backing up MyCloud. MyCloud is the next step on from WD's MyBook Live line-up and, as such, backup is also part of the deal – MyCloud is fully Time Machine compatible for Mac, while there is also a backup product called SmartWare available for Windows. Or you could use Windows Backup if you preferred, of course.

MyCloud comes in 2, 3 and 4TB. MyCloud is available in 2TB, 3TB and 4TB capacities, though we're looking at the entry level 2TB version here. WD is certainly offering plenty of space.

On pure price it doesn't compare favourably with a standard external hard drive because of the multitude of extra features on offer. But it's an awful lot cheaper than Apple's £249 AirPort Time Capsule, for example.

MyCloud is based on Western Digital's WD Red hard drives specifically designed for regular NAS use and features a new dual-core processor. It's NTFS formatted and is compatible with Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP (SP3); Mac OS X Mountain Lion, Lion and Snow Leopard.

You can easily access MyCloud remotely

As MyCloud is a single drive NAS solution, there are legitimate concerns over data security. If you're just using the box as a backup for your PC or Mac, then that's one thing. But if you're using it as the main repository for your content then it itself needs to be backed up. WD's answer to this is a Safepoint feature within the browser-based configuration display.

The browser-based configuration interface

This means you can back up the contents of the NAS to an external hard drive connected via the USB 3.0 port. You're essentially creating a restore point for your MyCloud.

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