USB 250GB Hard Drive Reviews - Maxtor One Touch, Seagate FreeAgent Go and Toshiba

So here are the biggest reasons a usb style external hard disk / drive is the best choice.

Power

USB drives even though usually more expensive than some other harddrives are better due to the fact they do not require any additional power like some of the old hard disks. It will simply run off the power from the USB slot.

USB compatibility

USB has been around for ages now , so this means almost every computer you will find will have a USB slot of it somewhere. Either it be USB version 1.0 or 2.0 they are all backwards compatible so there's never anything to worry about there.

Most operating systems also come with USB drivers installed as default so thats great news especially with speeds of up to 480Mbps with USB 2.0. You also have the option to vary your speeds of your USB controller through bios, if it seems to be running slowly than it should be.

Prices will continue to DROP

Due to the research into motionless harddrives these usb harddrives will remain very affordable as the new range of huge memory card style hard drives start appearing. No huge changes with the motionless , it just means no moving parts which relates to better running temperatures no overheating and very fast transfer speeds.

So the first Hard-drive I will review is the

Toshiba 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive

Model Number : HDDR250E03X

This is my newest drive and mostly use it transfer files to friends computers, I decided to go Toshiba after having a really good experience with a Toshiba USB key which I have had for 5 years now.

First impressions is that the drive is very sleek and has a nice strong case , and it was instantly recognized when I plugged it into my usb drive. Toshiba seem to have very good internal software to help operating systems discovery the device without trouble.

Pro's

- No need for external power source

- Shock proof features , handy for the clumsy user

- very light, and sleek design

- Has a bit of Cool Factor

- Worked on both Mac and Windows

Con's

- Made funny noises a couple times

- Some people report problems with total failure, things like disk become stuck or not spinning correct for me this is working strong , will update if anything happens

My second oldest drive at the moment is the Maxtor One Touch from the Mini Series

Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive

So I ended up buying this due to all this hype about maxtor and how great they were:P I had never heard of them and mainly stuck to reliable seagate but decided to give them go.

Pro's

- No external power needed

- Solid construction , survived a lot of drops and rough treatment

Con's

- Took a bit of playing around to get it recognized by my windows XP machine

- Had a problem few times it kept disconnecting itself and reconnecting

- Speed is not what I expected from a USB 2.0 Drive

- Noise and Heat issues

- Not the best intro to the Maxtor brand

So now for the Seagate

Seagate FreeAgent Go 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive

Model Number ST902503FGA2E1-RK

I went for the silver color and first all its an awesome looking drive, I have also been a dedicated buyer of Seagate products for more than 10 years now remember the days a 80gb hdd was around 300 US Dollars. But since then they have always been reliable and I loved the fish names barracuda and all that.

Pro's

- no external power source needed

- great design

- very fast speeds and easy recognized

- Stays cool and silent

Con's

- No 64 bit operating system support

( this one is my definite favourite , maybe a bit biased but have always had great luck with seagate brand even though you pay more than brands like western digital and samsung I believe its worth it.)