HP SimpleSave is among the easiest backup drives on the market to use

The HP SimpleSave tries to avoid as much hassle as possible by making a truly plug and play backup solution.

It's the closest thing we've seen to Apple's elegant Time Machine solution: the HP's software gives you just enough time to halt the process if you desperately need to before committing itself to a backup of all your ‘important' files, and regular hourly updates.

Important, in this case, means photos, document files, anything in My Documents, Video, email and more. You can customise it, but this is a device that's clearly aimed at those who have no desire nor knowledge of how to do that.

As a drive, the HP is a barely disguised WD Passport, and it performs similarly, if slightly faster, than the 500GB WD Passport Elite we had on test this Labs.

The most surprising thing about the SimpleSave, however, is neither it's simplistic backup nor it's Western Digital hard disk: it's the price.

HP Pocket drives have long been a nice but sadly expensive solution to removable storage, but with the SimpleSave, HP has taken the bull by the horns and created a truly affordable solution.

The HP is far from the fastest drive on test, but its performance is good enough to land it in the top half of the portable performers.

With the 32c/GB cost, it looks like a good candidate for anyone who wants to give mum and dad an easy backup solution for Christmas. It can't challenge the front runners in this test, though.

• - Labs Winner -
  Iomega's eGo Ruby Red PS puts in a bold performance with superior external hard disk
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  Verbatim's Portable Hard Drive can't compete on price, speed or design skills
• 
  Maxtor's BlackArmor is fit for a spy, but performance is compromised
• 
  WD's Passport Essential gets design just right, but price and performance underwhelm
• 
  Buffalo MiniStation Lite gets decent performance
• 
  Freecom's ToughDrive lacks the necessary tough performance
• 
  Seagate's FreeAgent Go has the looks, but lacks performance
• 
  LaCie's Little disk is big on designer looks, average on performance