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Seagate Pocket Hard Drive (5 GB) Review |
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The way I see it, there are two types of external storage devices - easily portable and somewhat portable. While Seagate already has both categories covered with their portable 40 & 100 GB drives and their standard external 100 - 400 GB drives, the company has decided to take the concept of portability even further. The 2.5 and 5 GB pocket drives weigh a mere 2.2 ounces and are only a fraction of the size of any of Seagate's other drives, with a sleek circular design that is only three inches in diameter.
With these dimensions, the Seagate 5 GB pocket drive will easily fit in the palm of your hand or the smallest compartment of a laptop case. The unit's 6" USB cable lies along a small groove that circles the perimeter of the drive, which is mostly hidden beneath the gray outer casing. You can only access the cable by turning the outer casing, therefore keeping the cable from sticking out or being in the way during transport. While the cable length does limit the placement of the drive (unless you use a USB extension cable), the ability to retract it within the drive's casing is a welcomed feature.
Aside from the obvious cost-per-gigabyte advantage over standard flash drives, the Seagate pocket drive is packaged with a nifty piece of software that allows you to make the most use of it. In addition to your standard diagnostic information, the toolkit software also gives you the ability to make the pocket hard drive bootable, password and write protect your files, and modify the drive's partitions. To make your files secure, you can use the toolkit software to create a private partition and then require a password to access this particular partition. You must use the software to gain entrance to the private partition at a later date, though, so you have to make sure the main toolkit file is left on a public partition.
We only tested the drive on Windows 2000 and Windows XP, but, according to Seagate, you shouldn't have any problems when using Windows ME or Mac OS X either. Linux may not be "officially" supported, but since the drive functions exactly like other USB drives, I don't see any reason why Linux users would have trouble using it. When plugged into our primary Windows XP PC, the drive was immediately detected and assigned a drive letter. One very nice difference between the pocket drive and our other external storage drives, though, is that the pocket drive emits absolutely no sound. No fans, no power-up noise, nothing. The only way you even know it's reading/writing is by watching the small blue LED light that flashes at the center of the drive. In a hardware world of cooling fans and hard drive access clatter, it's amazing that such a versatile device doesn't produce any unwanted noise.
I know what you're thinking... how can this little drive be applied to gaming? Well, we've installed several newer games on this little guy, and through a USB 2.0 port you'd be surprised at how well they run. With a throughput at 4 to 7 MB/sec, the access speed obviously isn't as good as a standard size drive, so loading the most advanced graphics-intensive games onto the pocket drive might not be the best idea. However, there is no reason why you can't install an assortment of earlier games with lesser hardware requirements. For example's sake, we installed a few of the Infinity Engine games and they all ran flawlessly. In fact, with 5 GB of storage, we even copied over hundreds of older DOS games just so we have all of our favorite classics with us wherever we go.
Overall, we were quite impressed with Seagate's 5 GB pocket hard drive. Although the price of a Seagate pocket drive might not warrant its purchase for desktop use, it is an excellent addition to any mobile user's hardware collection. It's small, it's sleek, and it possesses a sizeable amount of drive space for today's portable storage needs.
| GameBanshee Rating |
Overall
8.7
How We Score |
Installation & Setup (15%) |
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| Design (15%) |
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| Performance (45%) |
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| Value (25%) |
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| Article Details |
| Reviewed Seagate 5 GB Pocket Hard Drive
Reviewer Jon "Buck" Birnbaum
Published 05.06.2005
Pros Very small, ultra quiet, powerful toolkit software, ideal for laptop usage
Cons Short USB cable, not very practical or economical for desktop usage |
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