Advantages: 1 Terrabyte
Disadvantages: not portable - but who cares

...This is a bargain that i couldn't pass up without buying. 1TB should keep me going for several years and more. I bought this hard drive for £101 and it has been a pleasure to use. It's a doddle to set up and install and the fast rate of transfer makes file sharing very efficient and easy. Design The portable hard drive comes in an attractive silver case that has USB2 and FireWire 400 ports. It is a desktop drive and cant really be moved around due to its size. Installation The instructions were easy to follow and it installed by windows wizard as soon as i plugged it in, so within 20 minutes i was backing up my files. Performance Performance is good for a portable hard disk, and there was no real difference in speed between the two interfaces. T Features It doesn't ship with backup software, just file-synchronisation software... Read review

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Advantages: ,
Disadvantages: Failed and no guarantee from Lacie

...My drive failed only half way through its two year guarantee period. Lacie do not offer any data recovery only repair. I then found out that they will not honor their guarantee even after a specialist data recovery firm using all the required clean rooms recover the data. This means that all my data is either gone or I have to pay nearly £1000 for the data recovery and then pay again for the drive to be repaired. With these drives they house 2x 500gb drives and this means twice the price for data recovery. On speaking to the data recovery experts they have seen a huge increase in Lacie drives being sent in due to failure and have advised that these do not handle the data well they should do. Very Poor... 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: Capacity, looks, decent manual, cheap
Disadvantages: A bit slow, a lot to lose in one go

...With people starting to amass more and more data on their PCs, the old methods of backup such as tape or CD & DVD are becoming woefully inadequate. As a result, by far the most cost efficient method for either storing data or backing it up is the external hard drive. That said, 1TB or 1 Terrabyte is a crazy amount of space and the sort of storage that would have kept a multinational company ticking over nicely ten years ago. The LaCie (pronounced Lassie, like the dog) 1TB unit is a reasonably basic device that only has a USB2 (although USB1 is supported) interface and comes with a suitable lead, external power supply and software CD. It can work with both PCs and Macs although by default it's formatted for PC use so Mac users will need to reformat it first but that's no hardship really. On first opening the box, it looks really good... Read review

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Advantages: seemed sturdy and well-liked
Disadvantages: actually stopped working within a month of purchase date

...I purchased this "Toughdrive" to store my ever-growing digital music collection. It would work sporadically, often turning itself off. I emailed Freecom, who informed me it was a power related issue (they send you a free power adapter if you live in the UK). One marketed feature of the Freecom Toughdrive is that it derives its power from the USB port, and hence doesn't require any extra plugs. As a consequence, they are not sold with the necessary component to operate properly with low-powered notebooks. By this point, my Mac iBook wouldn't even detect that it was plugged in to the USB port. I got my power adapter, (which I had to buy from another company because I live outside the UK), and it STILL doesn't work. I want to return it, but can't because it has all my files on. AVOID THIS PRODUCT AT ALL COSTS!... Read review

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Advantages: Small footprint, USB connectivity, good capacity, quiet
Disadvantages: All the above completely let down by the units reliability

...Please take a few seconds to rate this at the end - it helps me know if its meaningful or not and I can improve accordingly Ok... Its big...its black...it hums quietly in the corner. Oh..and its made by Freecom - a manufacturer I previously thought was pretty reliable (I have their dual layer portable DVD re-writer as well). This drive is billed as being rugged and portable - after all that is the whole point of external portable drives, isnt it? When I got the unit, it was twice as big in capacity as the HDD in my tower PC, so I immediately throught - backup. It didnt come with any back-up soft ware though, which I think is a glaring omission. No matter, I thought, I will back up my photos (10,000+), music (14,000 tracks), etc into folders I create myself. Connection simply means attaching the power cable to a free socket... Read review

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Advantages: GOOD VALUE FOR MONEY AND PORTABLE.
Disadvantages: NOT THAT KNOWN.

...that a computer system has. Some old systems has USB1 while most modern computers has USB2 which is faster in response. You are also advised to check the USB speed with the freecom drive. There is some way in which you can know on whether the system has USB 2 and the way is through the windows control panel. So this is the only part that you might get a bit troubled as a new user but should not be a dilemma to you. In terms of selling places, I bought mine at Amazon .uk at a good value for money. In terms of price, I bought mine at the price of £49.86, and that is of good value for money. I hope you found my review quite helpful. So won't expect any problem from using it. And on the over all view about the freecom classic storage device, it is very easy to install and use. Bye.... Read review

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Advantages: portable and free spaces
Disadvantages: LOW IN PROFILE.

...Well my system has been in use for the purpose of storage and I normally store lots of information in my computer mostly pictures and it has occupied most of the memory space in my system. I got this specifically for the purpose of extending the memory capacity in my system that has only 4GB hard drive to compare to what I do on my computer. The Freecom storage device has enough memory storage space that will be able to store your information almost to infinity. It also comes in a shinny black rectangular structure. I think that I have gotten up the point of buying some thing that has larger space for my system because my 4 GB hard drive cant carry on any longer and I have to get this in support of the existing 4GB drive. Well I have to be frank by saying that this is my first time of using a freecom memory storage device. EASE... Read review

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Advantages: Portable Drive, take your music and files anywhere !
Disadvantages: Easy to knock

...Freecom Classic SL 250GB USB2 External Computer Hard Drive. The Freecom 250GB Classic SL drive was a bargain when i bought it, even PC World were selling it cheap ! I paid £89.99 when the offer was on at PC World. The drive has a massive 250 GB capacity sat inside a USB case which simply plugs into the USB slot on your computer, because of this, you can take your music and files practically anywhere and can back up your system and keep it unplugged for times when you think you might have a virus ! this is much easier to do than to open up the box and unplug a second "internal" hard drive. The drive has an average seek time of <9ms, a track to seek time of 0.8ms and an average latency of 4.2ms. These figures basically mean that this drive is no slouch ! The USB 2.0 connection means that it has a transfer rate of UP TO 480 Mbit per... Read review

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Advantages: Small, easy to use, upgradable, decently priced
Disadvantages: Check - You may need 2 USB ports

...thing to be aware of is the different types of USB that exist. Older computers may have USB 1, whereas newer computers may have USB 2. USB 2 is forty times faster than USB 1. You will notice the speed difference between the two when using something such as the Freecom drive! So you will know then what type of USB your computer has. You can check this yourself however, in Windows through Control Panel / System icon / Hardware tab / Device Manager button / then scroll down to 'universal serial bus controllers' and expand the list by clicking the adjacent plus symbol. If there is an ENHANCED USB host controller in the list you have USB 2. ----- Inside the Freecom (for advanced users) ----- The Freecom device is little more than an enclosure for a laptop hard drive. The black case has 4 regular screws which when undone reveal how simple... Read review

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