External hard disks are a great way to add storage. We test 13, from sub-$130 portable drives to mighty terabyte desktop units.

With so many factors to consider, choosing a motherboard can be a bewildering exercise. We put 11 models through their pace to find the ultimate in performance, flexibility and value

A clever, convenient little drive that you can carry around with you in your pocket.

Still not sure whether it's worth upgrading to Vista? We put XP and Vista through the ultimate face-off.

A solid, assured drive with plenty of interfaces and enough style to justify the price.

More power, a little noisy and less watts.

A simple board that struggles to justify its price

All the options you could want, although it’s pricey

Plenty of connectors, but not much pizzazz

Small and cheap, but it’s costly to run and quality isn’t the best

We were unconvinced by the orange and brown livery of Seagate’s towering desktop drive, but for the miniature version the company has toned things down. It’s still brown, but the orange glow is restricted to the front of the unit and its simple low-profile shape is far easier to like.

An uninspiring board with no strong selling point

A slightly bare but affordable media-centre board

A great combination of features at an excellent price makes this our new A-List board - suitable for just about everyone.