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

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Extremely durable, vast capacity, simple to use, reasonable price
Disadvantages: Not always plug & pay ; needs software installation on a few PC's

...One thing about joining Ciao it encourages you to look objectively at the products you own or use regularly particularly if someone else may benefit. A product I like very much, use regularly and have had no problems with whatsoever is the Freecom ToughDrive Pro Hard drive 120 GB. This was given to me as a present by the man in my life (who in truth could be described as an IT geek) I have had several memory sticks in the past as I frequently carry projects to and from home, work, meetings and conferences and they have become a real part of my life and one that I couldn’t manage without ( sad but true) I’ve had problems in the past from loosing memory sticks ( not too bad if I can find them again !) because they are small or because the fiddly little clips break away (I used to keep them clipped to my car keys for safety (ha), and I... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

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

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

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

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

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

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

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

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

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

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

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

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

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

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Lightweight, Slim, Auto-sync
Disadvantages: Shame there isn't a higher capacity

...This Freecom External Hard Drive is a 2.5" Hard Drive that has a USB interface and uses your computer's bus power to power itself. This means that an AC adapter is not required. With so few of these truly bus powered drives around, this is one of the best, followed closely by the Lacie bus powered drive. Thsi drive is ideal for laptop users who travel with a lot of data, or for those going on holiday with laptops who want to take their mp3's, movies and software with them. It is also great for transferring files to your laptop from another desktop computer. The drive is small enough to fit in a side pocket or to be held in yur hand without difficulty. The box comes with a good instruction manual, although really one is not needed. The drive is a plug and play device, and windows picks it up as any ordeinary drive. I recommend you... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful