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.

Although it appears to be aimed squarely at consumers, it has the potential to be adopted by more fields, from semi professional amateur digital camera users looking for a portable card reader and removable storage for high resolution images, to an SMB or SOHO looking for a backup drive for daily information archiving.

Supplied with a USB cable, FireWire cable and two pieces of software, Western Digital (WD) has included Photoshow 2.1, a slideshow photo viewer, as well as Dantz Retrospect 6.5 backup software. Retrospect works in conjunction with two quick launch buttons on the front of the WD Media Centre, one for immediate backup at the press of a single button, the other for a scheduled backup at the user's discretion Unfortunately the unit needs to use USB in order to operate the 8-in-1 card reader, although USB 2.0 transfer speeds far outdo that of FireWire. A little expensive for home users, this is still a great product we're surprised isn't already on the market.