Last week I found myself having to store over 30GB of computer files offline. They weren’t anything nefarious, mainly freeware and shareware computer programs, including Linux distributions. Writing the files to DVDs was out of the question, as I needed to be able to add or remove files. I could have used 4 cheap 8GB USB thumb drives, but it would make it difficult to keep the files organized. Then I thought of a portable external hard drive.

Less than 5 months ago I mentioned a portable hard drive in a blog entry about backups. Then I was  more interested in a cheaper, non-portable external hard drive, although the Western Digital Passport Portable Hard Drive intrigued me. Since then numerous other hard drive manufacturers have entered this market, so there are a number of portable external hard drives available.

After doing some research, I settled on a Maxtor OneTouch 4 Mini 250GB portable hard drive. It has a number of good user reviews, as well as a 5 year warranty. While it is nowhere near as small as a portable thumb drive, it is small enough to fit into a pocket. It also cost less than 4 cheap 8GB USB thumb drives!

Posted on September 8th, 2008 by mervyn