|
SAMSUNG S1 120GB USB 2.0 HDD (HXSU012BA)
Portable HDDs used to
consist of a 3.5" HDD in an enclosure with some kind
of wall-wart power adapter. Although they are
portable, they are not small or lightweight.
Then, flash drives came along. from 128MB up
to 32GB, flash drives are super light, small, and
easy to lose at the same time. File transfer
speeds are not terribly exciting, but they get the
job done. However, their cost per gigabyte can
be much higher than standard magnetic HDD storage.
These days, we have portable 2.5" HDDs, some without
requiring anything other than USB bus power.
Samsung has used that approach and took it a step
further, using an even smaller HDD, but not
sacrificing performance or style. Here we have
the Samsung S1, with 120GB of space, in a gorgeous
"wine red" enclosure:
Smaller than a pack of
cards, the S1 requires no external power, and
includes two USB cables for your convenience.
Here are the manufacturer's specifications:
No ratings were offered
for shock and drop testing, but the warranty is a
comforting news. Usually, 1.8" HDDs with 120GB
of capacity are ruggedized units anyways. Next
we have some benchmarks:
The S1 was tested on an
IBM X61 Thinkpad running XP SP3 at 2.5GHz, 4GB of
installed RAM. Keep in mind that the
theoretical bandwidth of USB 2.0 is 480Mbps, or
about 60MB/s. Although not stellar, the S1
shows decent performance. Comparing this to
the
Edge Tech 32GB Flash unit we tested, the S1
clearly outperforms it easily. Currently, the
S1 is a little over $1/GB, but the 32GB flash drive
is at about $2/GB. With so much data these
days, an S1 would be a wise investment to have in
your laptop bag, backing up those critical PDFs,
PPTs, and well, MP3s too.
|
