Verbatim’s External Hard Disk is the only desktop drive this month that performs at the slower rotational speed of 5400rpm – every other 3.5in disk on test runs at the slightly quicker speed of 7200rpm. The Verbatim also has a mere 8MB of cache – other drives have double this amount.

In our USB benchmarks, though, the slower hard disk didn’t adversely affect the drive’s overall performance figures. While it was mid-table when writing our group of 1000 files, that’s only by a margin of 0.7 seconds, and the Verbatim barely lagged behind in our other tests, often performing faster than rival products with supposedly faster disks inside.

It may be reasonably quick, then, but the Verbatim doesn’t offer anything distinctive by way of features. USB is the only available interface, for instance.

At least it’s versatile in terms of shape. The conventional design means that the drive can fit into spaces where odder products – such as the Maxtor OneTouch with its awkward angles – couldn’t. And it’s one of only two desktop drives this month that weigh less than a kilo, which means if you have to carry it around, it’ll be less of a pain in the shoulder than most.

The Verbatim offers excellent value for money, too. At $220, it’s one of the cheaper desktop drives we’ve seen this month – and still offers a huge 750GB capacity. If you’re buying on a budget, note the Verbatim works out at a mere 29c per gigabyte.

However, be warned that the slower drive may be caught out with extremely large files and more complex tasks, and the Verbatim doesn’t have some of the features – including eSATA – that other products offer.