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.

...My getting of this product was for one major reason, and that was for expansion of my memory storage capacity in my system. Normally my 20gb hard drive is now packed with stored information and before I bought this, I was forced to compress information if it would be possible but since it was not possible, I went for this and from what I am seeing, this will be able to store as much information as possible. The freecom storage device comes in a black shinny portable rectangle shape. This has served me well for quite some time so I am happy with it. Well my previous 20gb hard drive device has tried for me but for the fact that I am the type that fill my storage device with pictures being capable of consuming more space than ordinary documents I needed a more storage hard drive device capacity. Well I had a lot of good impressions... Read review

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

...I bought one of these devices a couple of years ago and it worked excellently. I was very satisfied with the ease of use - you simply plug in the wires and away you go. No need for driver installation etc (on modern operating systems). I used it for over a year for photography and general backup with no problems at all. Essentially, the Freecom device is simply a laptop drive in a little black box. This is good because laptop hard drives are built with portability in mind. So when I wanted to upgrade the hard drive in my laptop the Freecom was easily unscrewed and upgraded too (bear in mind mine was out of warranty at this stage). ----- First Impressions ----- First impressions were good. To have all that storage space in something small and portable was great. The unit is made of metal so has a decent feel to it although I'd never... Read review

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Advantages: Fast, Reliable, big capacity & amazing value for money!
Disadvantages: Doesn't look like it would take too many heavey knocks

...This is a pretty standard USB HD but with a whopping 500GB for under £100 it is amazing value for money. So far I've had no problems with it. I run mostly audio/graphics from it (which is very demanding). This HD has no problems dealing with the big files I Use, providing an excellent transfer rate. It is pretty quiet, the only noise it ever makes is a slight hum! I carry this every where I go with my laptop, it's taken a few knocks and survived OK, but I wouldn't want to test it too much, as the case doesn't look like it would protect the drive too well! The design is pretty funky and its size isn't too big either! I've had big portable drives before which were a pain to transport! this fits into my laptop bag perfectly! This drive is well worth the buy.... Read review

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Advantages: Hard Working and reliable. Can be moved from PC to PC
Disadvantages: Desk space needed because it's external.

...and watch any DVD movie of my choice. {Please note:it works a little slower on USB1} The Freecom can also burn dual layer DVDs which means that, you can get almost double the amount of movies (i.e. up to 8.5GB) on one Dual Layer disk, but they do tend to cost a little more than the standard DVD disks. Another thing that is useful regarding this drive, is that using Nero (that was packaged with the drive), I can back up any computer file I wish to DVD and this gives me 4.7GB (that is 4,812.8 megabytes) of storage on a DVD disk in comparison to 700 MB (megabytes) that can be stored on CD-R or RWs. So as you can imagine, I now have fewer worries of losing my files should my hard drive decide to die on me. I have been amazed at the way the price of the DVD burners have come down in price over the years. When I first became interested in burning... Read review

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Advantages: plug and play, fast and quiet
Disadvantages: External power supply

...the Freecom 160gb external hard drive is a so easy to set up, just plug into your usb drive and your ready to use. The main advantage of having an external hard drive is portability, you can store any files or programs and take them with you and plug into any computor with usb 2 ports. I originally bought mine to store my main hard drive disc image in case i needed to do a complete disc rescue, because it is external it will work even if your main hard drive decides to go belly up. it is fairly compact at 11.5cm wide 20cm deep and 4cm high It does sit nicely on my tower unit and because the colour is a nice matt silver with a black face it does blend in with the other peripherals I have. (all standard grey). You may think external usb hard drives run slower but this is fast with an average seek time of only 9ms and a track to track... Read review

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Advantages: Size, looks, no sound
Disadvantages: Could have a carrying pouch

...After filling up my 160GB laptop hard drive and hearing stories of how people have lost all of their data because of a computer crash i thought it was time to by a removable hard drive to not only back-up my files but also transfer some of the older ones. After much research i chose this Freecom model as opposed to a western digital one which was not only more expensive but apparently also broke down very easily. Only costing £49.99 from Amazon this seemed like a good deal and a brilliant aquisition for university. Portability; Being only 132x83x18mm and weighing 300 grams this hard drive is small and light enough to transport anywhere with you in a bag or even in your pocket. this size is expected for its capacity but you can also get ones with a greater capacity but is the same size. The only poor lack of detail... Read review

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Advantages: reliable, portable, no mistakes in recording
Disadvantages: noisy

...we bought this portable CD rewriter couple of years ago in Currys. Paid something around £50. We were desperate to get something to sort out our increasing photo library. Both computers were boosting of files (especially photos - thanks to our new digital camera and broadband). Also both had no re-writing facilities. So we decided to spend £50 on portable CD-RW than to buy a new computer. Honestly I was concern about our purchase. Never heard about this make. £50 was not a fiver. You know sometimes it's better to spend more on better make them buy unknown cheaply. In fact, my worries were not necessary. POSITIVE VIEW: 1) RELIABILITY: This rewriter is very solid, very reliable. Worked for 2 year with no fault. By the way it is made in Germany. 2) INSTALLATION: Good CD manual with a step-by-step installation guide In 12 languages. Very... Read review

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Advantages: good size, cheap, great customer service
Disadvantages: gets very hot

...I am a web developer and have several very large software packages installed on my laptop which take up a lot of memory when being used simultaneously. My machine was running very slowly. I bought a I portable external drive as it was small and light so I could carry it with me (very important as my laptop goes everywhere with me). I thought it would take ages to fill. I was wrong! I download lots of films and music etc which took up most of my memory but lets face it I don't need them with me 24/7. so I had a look on the web and found the freecom website. I saw this 400GB drive for £74 and thought it would be perfect. I would describe it as cheap and chearful. It's big, it's not that pretty and it's heavy. The fact that it has to be plugged in annoyed me at first as i was used to my portable one. However as it just sits on my desk... Read review

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Advantages: Loads, price, loads of songs on one CD, portable, one of a kind
Disadvantages: None

...on planes. Batteries are included. There is an AC adapter, a manual which is in English, but it is not hard to work out how the player works, stick in the CD and press play. Included also is one blank 8cm mini CD-R. The CD-Rs: As I have mentioned their price is around £1, they come in their own Jewel case. It is not necessary to but the freecom CDs as the player supports 8cm audio CDs, 8cm CD-Roms, 8com CD-Rs and 8cm CD-RW. You can store 185mb of music on one CD which works out at around 210 minutes of top quality music of 128bitrate. I got the CDs from dabs.com aswell. The Look: Well it looks pretty cool, quite a simple design but it is a see through blue colour on the top and has a black bottom. Well thats about it all I can say is go out and but as the sound quality of these CDs is amazing and the price is good... Read review

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