Advantages: Quick, Easy, Reliable, Small, Fits into any pocket or bag
Disadvantages: Faded out use lately

...needed for Win ME/XP and MAC Specification: ***************** Capacity: 1.44MB Media Type: Floppy Disk 3.5 Interface: USB Conclusion ************** If you're looking for an external floppy drive then I would definitely recommend this one. Simple, easy, small and quick which all anyone could ask for. What else could you want from a product like this? I have found it very useful since I bought it however I have found there is not such a need for them lately since CD's and DVD's are used much more and floppy disks have faded out of the picture more and more. Thanks for reading :)... Read review

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Advantages: ummmmm
Disadvantages: Doesn't work very well, slow, intermitently recognises disks, poor back up service, need I go on?

...I ordered my Freecom DVD Recorder LS USB 2.0 after my CD/DVD drive packed up on my 15 month old HP Desktop. I wanted it mainly to load CD ROM and burn DVD's from movies already converted to DVD format on my hard drive. Being that my PC had no disk drive I relied upon this external drive to load the bundled DVD burning software (Roxio 9). This took several days and many attempts. Then I tried burning my first DVD. After taking 3 hours to do a task that previously took about 30 minutes, this recorder produced a disc that no dvd player in my home recognised (and I have 4). I found the user interface very unfriendly and it simply didn't work. Needles to say, I'll be getting a refund!... Read review

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Advantages: Great invention, reasonable price, large capacity
Disadvantages: Bulky, noisy

...I store a lot of photos, music and documents on my laptop and was finding I was needing to delete documents or put things on cds to enable me to save more data on my laptop. This was getting to be a pain, so I took a trip to PC World to see what options there were. I spoke to an advisor and on special offer was this Seagate External Hard drive, instead of the RRP of £120 I got this hard drive for £70. I thought it would be really useful and this has proved true. The hard drive also came with a 1 year guarenteed warranty. The hard drive is grey and black and looks quite bulky, especially when plugged into a laptop. It has a USB cable which connects into the USB port in your computer or laptop and a cable which is plugged into the mains. When the hard drive is on, a small green light is displayed on the top. The hard drive... Read review

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Advantages: Hard wearing, faster than floppy disks
Disadvantages: Small storage, Price, compatability

...'s and static memory, Zip technology is dead. The main negatives to the zip drive are its competition: External CD-writes are cheaper, faster and you can then take a written CD to any other PC. Blank CD's and re-writeable CD's on average hold 750MB and cost as little as 50p USB memory can be bought for £25 for 512MB which is super fast and re-writeable, also very compact (never bigger than a keying) and can also be used on any PC with a UB port. Unfortunately this is a negative review, but I wouldn't want anyone to buy the ZIP drive without realising what you can buy which will be faster, cheaper more compatible with other PC's and more compact and practical. Certain people may find a specific use for the Zip drive and use it day to day, but at the price they charge for disks and the speed I see CD's keeping the monopoly here. Even DVD writing... Read review

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Advantages: Small, looks very cool
Disadvantages: Noe really, does what it says it does

...Toshiba External USB 2.0 Combo Drive INTRO Along with my recent office purchase of the R200 laptop and seeing as it was minus a CDROM I bought an external CD unit. I originally made the mistake of buying the DVD ROM version and at £85 that was next to useless. So I returned that and got the Toshiba External USB2 Combo Drive. There are a few different ones out there, this one wrote CD's and read DVD's. IMPRESSIONS When you open the box up your greeted with what first looks like an MP3 player. Size wise its not much bigger than a CD. The finish of this one was brushed aluminium to match the R200 laptop. Quality is easily very high, just like Toshiba's other offerings. If nothing else the Combo drive looks cool. CONNECTION The combo drive is connected up with a standard USB 2 cable. Not external power supplies are needed. This makes... Read review

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Advantages: Light, slim
Disadvantages: Needs external power :(

...that comes out of the drive itself, it just uses a slot that you push the DVD or CD into and it then ejects out. Even though the SLW-831SX is slim it is also quite though and durable so if you're sitting at your table and you knock it off it won't break :) The SLW-831SX uses a USB2 connection that all laptops come with these days so you don't have to worry about not being able to connect it to your computer (the USB2 cable comes with the drive so you don't have to go and buy it too) Now because it uses this USB2 connection is not as fast as say and IDE DVD RW that you would have in your PC but that not much of a problem because your paying for this drive to be external so it can be used anywhere (as long as there's a plug there lol) The drive writes at speeds of 8x (DVD-/+), 2.4x (DVD+R Dual Layer), 4x (DVD-/+ RW) and 24x (CD-R and CD... Read review

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Advantages: Easy to Install on XP literally plug and play
Disadvantages: Marginally slower than an internal

...I always expect problems when fitting a new device to my computer and as such expected at least to be struggling with the fitting of new drivers. But with this drive it was simplicity itself. I plugged the drive in and it was up and running in seconds. In fact in spite of the fact that I already have an internal burner on my computer I now use the external burner about 90% of the time. So far I have burned several DVD, CDs and MP3 compilations through Nero with no issues. In fact even using the cheapest discs on the market I have had not one single ruined disc. Something that I can't say for Ricoh internal drive. There are several drawbacks though but it depends what you want the drive for. If you are looking for a drive that is easy to fit, load and transport to other computers this may be the drive for you. Its USB interface... Read review

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Advantages: small storage - and portable
Disadvantages: best only for text data files

...- A standard port for computer components to be connected using a single standardised interface socket. Every computer (of younger than 5 years old) connect these ports to access plug-and-play capabilities by allowing devices to be connected and disconnected without restarting the computer, so the computer 'boots up' automatically the USB content; therefore without losing any information through the rebooting process. USB ports are used by external devices such as digital camera's, printers, hubs, extra storage/CD/DVD drives etc. # The USB Flash Drive 128MB # The removable drive is known as a key or a stick. The length is 2.5 inches long with a socket at the end which goes into the USB port/hub on your PC. The PC immediately this device as an external device and loads up without a prompt. Very simple and easy to use. The 128MB is the amount... Read review

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Advantages: Simple, quick way to back up important data, plug and play
Disadvantages: Slightly large footprint

...The Maxtor 3100 is a super, efficient and simple way to back up all your important data. It comes supplied with USB lead and an external power supply. Simply plug into the mains, plug the USB lead into a spare USB port on your PC or laptop and the drive is automatically detected and appears in 'My Computer'. There is no manual or CD supplied, but it is so simple you do not need one. The drive can be formatted to FAT32 or NTFS. The 200GB storage is enough to store all your MP3 music collection or several DVD films. This unit is totally portable and is an ideal way to transport files between office and home. It also has a good robust case. The drive runs at an excellent speed of 7200rpm. The only thing I find is, that the unit is not designed to stand on its side, unlike most other external drives. Therefore, the footprint of the unit... Read review

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Advantages: Does what you want it to, reliability
Disadvantages: looks, speed, size

...I have found that this hard drive is pretty good, however, it is not the best! I will first describe what I like about the external hard drive: Storage: There is plenty of storage for most home users to back up their data onto it. There is also the option to connect this to a network hard drive by western digital (not sure if all of W D's network hard drives will allow this to be used as an extension). There is also the same item but with larger capacities. Tough: This item appears, and feels quite tough. USB 2.0 - good feature I don't like the fact that there is no firewire - faster than USB 2.0. USB speed changes, whereas firewire (either 400 or 800) stays at the same speed (400 mbps or 800 mbps) It looks quite ugly in my opinion - there are more appealing external HDDs Overall: If you want a hard drive that will do... Read review

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