Freecom Hard Drive Hard drive 250 GB

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Easy way to add storage
Disadvantages:	More expensive than internal drives

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Having realised that on both of my internal drives had only a couple of gigs of storage free each, I realised that it was time to get an additional drive.

My first thought of course was another internal drive, however unfortunately however I didn't actually have the space inside the case to fit a new hard disk. (Only 2 hard disk bays in my computer), and so turned to external drives.

I eventually settled on a 250GB Freecom drive, which at the time seemed the best balance between cost and storage capacity, at just under £100 at the time of purchase, though I notice you can now get them for about £70.

Appearance: The external drive consists of a silver coloured plastic box, slightly larger than a conventional internal hard drive. As well as the drive a USB cable and power cable where also provided. To set it up is incredibly simple , connect the usb cable up to the drive and the computer and connect the power cable up to the mains, and the other end to the drive, stating the obvious here really, but just shows how easy it is to set up.

Upon connecting the drive to my computer and turning it on, the drive was recognised by window, and within about 30 seconds was ready to use. To access the drive simply go to my computer and access the drive from their.

The drive arrived formatted in FAT 32, and as a single partition, and as always the actual formatted capacity was less than the one stated on the box, and came in at 232 GB.

Transfer to and from the disk is quick enough for my needs, video and music playback for the most part. One word of warning while it is very unlikely that this is the case, check that you have USB 2.0, while the drive will work on a USB 1.1 port, the transfer speed is unsurprisingly slow, at about 5GB an hour, if as was the case for me you don't have USB 2.0 I would seriously recommend that you get a cheap USB 2.0 card, they can be got for about £5, and it is a worthwhile investment.

I have had the drive now for about a year, and so far have had no problems with it, although of course like any drive, it is always a good idea to have it backed up, just in case.

Is it worth buying: If you can I would recommend an internal drive over an external drive, however if like me this wasn't an option and you have need of an external drive, this one is certainly worthy of consideration.