The Maxtor Blackarmor has one thing that other USB hard drives don’t - military grade data security in a very stylish package

A useful little NAS box with plenty of features and a compelling price.

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.

Great performance, near-silent running and the FTP server make the Buffalo a great alternative to the Maxtor.

Seagate's Freeagent series of external drives look stunning and perform admirably.

Superb performance, quiet running and excellent value for home use, especially if you want to stream media.

The miracle of pocket portable data continues, with more storage in a smaller physical space.

Iomega insist on doing things its own way, but usually hits the mark.

Offering 40GB of storage, the Iomega drive is very small for its capacity, measuring a mere 8.89 x 7.37 x 1.27cm. It weighs just over 99 grams, which means it's unnoticeable in your pocket. The internal drive is a 40GB Hitachi TravelStar C4K40 -- a new form-factor hard drive, measuring a mere 1.8 inches across (a normal notebook hard drive is 2.5in, a desktop drive 3.5) -- and only about 7mm thick.

One of the practical devices for large back up jobs are external hard drive drives, which not only offer competitive capacities, but are easily portable and perfect for offsite storage. Maxtor's OneTouch II is pitched squarely at this type of application and, as the name suggests, makes it easier with a single button for back up.

Combing a 250GB 7,200RPM hard disk drive, 8-in-1 card reader and USB hub, there's not much this unit can't do. It can be operated in either an upright or lying down position, while the USB hub function allows you to plug in a removable USB device such as a memory key or digital camera directly without fiddling with USB extension cables or reaching behind your desktop or notebook.