By Paul McCollum

Portable hard drives have been an indispensable tool for data backup on the go. Seagate has stayed in the forefront of this market for a number of years and the company has recently outfitted their drives with the GoFlex interchangeable interface adapter to make their drives future-proof. The latest 2.5″ GoFlex model has 1.5TB storage, and the choose-your-own connector drive now comes with the USB 3.0 adapter and includes a standard mini-USB 3.0 cable. Other connection kits including eSATA and Firewire 800 which can be purchased separately for maximum performance based on your available connections.

The 1.5TB FreeAgent GoFlex is vast and fast but gives up some of its svelte form to pack on the extra gigabytes. The extra bulk is only noticeable in comparison to other drives of the same ilk but under most circumstances, you will never notice the 0.25″ or so of extra thickness. Performance metrics put this drive well above USB 2.0 drives and significantly above previous USB 3.0 drives. Performance data and other details are all covered in an in depth review at Everything USB.

[ Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1.5TB Portable Drive Review @ Everything USB ]

In certain situations and environments, physical security is going to be paramount in your data backup and recovery plan. Maybe you are a SOHO business, or just have a lot of precious data that you want to be sure will survive no matter what natural disaster hits your home! For situations like this, nothing beats offsite storage. Sadly, this is not an option for everyone, and as strange as it may seem some services offer barely above the “dial-up connection” transfer speed levels. So, an alternative is fire and water proof storage solutions.

One such example, which is not only durable (and yes we tried our best to kill the darn thing!) but is also fast is the ioSafe SoloPRO USB 3.0 hard drive. This bad boy not only boasts fire protection of 1550ºF for 30 minutes (meeting the ASTM E119 specifications) and is waterproof (though only the hard drive as the unit WILL be dead after water immersion), it also boasts a USB 3.0 interface. This combination makes it as fast as an internal hard drive would be while still being much more durable in case of bad things happening to your environment. As a nice little bonus ioSafe even includes free data recovery service if their device does fail (first year only, with extensions of up to 4 more years available). On paper, it sounds awfully tempting as peace of mind is priceless.

How does it fare in real life? The 1TB Hitachi hard drive is not exactly going to win any speed contests but was found to be more than “good enough”. The only real down side is its price of $249 for only 1TB of space, which makes this solution a tad pricey for some people’s budgets. Everything USB has the full review.

[ ioSafe SoloPRO USB 3.0 Hard Drive Review @ Everything USB ]

As with most things in life: BIGGER is BETTER when it comes to portable storage and no company knows that better than Seagate. They were the first to come out with single 3.5″ form factor monster 3TB hard drive and what better way to put all that space to use than in an external storage solution?!

With a very reasonable footprint that is no larger than previous models, the 3TB Seagate GoFlex Desk is a marvel of engineering. The ultra dense platters of the 3TB hard drive contained within gives this drive the potential to be just as fast as it is good looking. Sadly, its stock configuration is less than optimal as Seagate has hobbled it with the down right ancient USB 2.0 interface. Luckily, where it is a GoFlex drive the interface can easily be upgraded. When you combine USB 3.0 bandwidth with this drive, the potential of the GoFlex 3TB is fully leveraged. But you have to be willing to pay the price all that space and speed demand! Is this price worth it? Only you can answer that question for yourself. Everything USB has the full review.

[ Seagate GoFlex Desk 3TB External Drive Review @ Everything USB ]

By Evan Ackerman

Earlier this month, we posted a review of Cloud Engines’ Pogoplug, a piece of hardware that takes USB hard drives and makes them network accessible (among other things). Iomega has come out with another option for centralizing your storage, called the iConnect. Like the Pogoplug, the iConnect lets you plug in standard USB drives, and then puts them on your home network. Plus, it throws a whole bunch of other cool stuff into the mix, like wireless access and printer networking. Read the review, after the jump.

The setup is really, really easy: plug a USB drive into one of the 4 ports on the iConnect, plug the iConnect into your router (even if you’re going to run it wirelessly, you still have to start this way), and power it on. Next, insert the install CD.

Oh. My optical driveless netbook does not approve of that. A quick trip to the iConnect support site got me what I needed, though. The automatic installer does its thing quickly and quietly, which usually means that it’s not doing anything super invasive. Starting the Storage Manager software starts a program running in the background which finds the iConnect on your network and maps the drive(s) you’ve attached to it to a network drive which you can access right away. Simple.

It turns out that once you’ve got it up and running, any computer attached to your network can access the iConnect’s HDs as a standard network drive also, no install necessary (at least on my Windows XP computers). This is as easy as it could possibly be, which is the way things are supposed to work.

The iConnect manager is browser based, which is nice, since it minimizes the weight of the program you have to have running. There are a lot of configuration options that you can set, including handy things like setting up multiple user accounts with vary levels of permissions, email notifications, and changing the intensity of the LED on the front of the iConnect.

The wireless setup was not difficult, but I wouldn’t call it simple, just because the interface is a little bit clunky and the wireless setup is buried a few screens down. At least, the process seemed not difficult, since the software told me that it had connected to my network with a strong signal, but unplugging the iConnect and restarting both it and the software didn’t get the device to show up wirelessly. After some lazy troubleshooting that mostly involved turning stuff off and on again, I realized that I was attempting to connect through my isolated guest network, which of course was not going to work. My bad; connecting the iConnect to my primary network worked like a charm.

I bring up this admission of my own technical idiocy as a warning, of sorts… Messing with wireless networks is tricky, especially when you’re trying to do anything but the most basic of tasks. We obviously shouldn’t expect all pieces of hardware to be plug ‘n play, but at the same time, when a company knows that some particular piece of the setup process is likely to be (or has the potential to be) especially complicated I feel like the least they can do is have a help page somewhere that says “Wireless connection not working? Here are some obvious things to keep in mind!”

I have to say, though, despite the potential hassles the wireless connectivity is a pretty sweet feature. For some of you, it may not matter at all, if you’d be sticking the iConnect and your drives next to your router anyway. But beyond convenience, it gives you the option of (say) hiding the whole setup in your closet (or garage) if you’re worried about security.

‘Course, you might not want to do that, since you can also hook a printer up to the iConnect to easily network it. There are a bunch of other things you can do too, like setting up one-touch drive backups (it works as a Time Machine server, too) or automatic picture transfers, and the iConnect even talks to your Xbox and PS3 (and iTunes), allowing you to stream media. There are a lot of options and a lot of features, software-side. Maybe more than you’ll use, but there’s certainly nothing lacking when it comes to functionality.

So, with the wireless network storage working, the next step is remote access. This requires enabling security on the iConnect, which by default, is not enabled, allowing anyone access to the iConnect’s networked drives. After you set up an admin username and password and go back to the remote access setup, you get this message:

Before enabling Remote Access, it is highly recommended that you change your Iomega iConnect network settings to manually configure the IP address.

Now, I’m a reasonably experienced computer user. I know what an IP address is and stuff. But this kind of thing scares me. I was hoping that the iConnect would somehow take care of all the dirty work, but instead it has me log in again, takes me to the network settings page, and leaves me there, helpless. Trying again, I tell the iConnect to forget about manual IP address config, and… Uh oh. I have to select a “remote access subscription service level.” Huh. Turns out that you’ll be paying $10 per year (after the first free year) for remote access, or $25 per year if you want to use your own domain name.

If you use their domain name, you have to pick a prefix that’s not already in use. “iConnect” is already taken, and I just picked up “ZipDrive,” so good luck with that. After confirming numerous Firefox security exceptions and restarting the software, I tried going to “http://zipdrive.iomegalink.com/” and arrived at my router login screen. Um, oops. After some messing around, I was able to figure out what the internal network IP address of the iConnect was and just went there manually, so to speak. This is what the file browser looks like:

You can upload, download, delete stuff, and view a few different types of files like pictures. Nothing fancy, but it works. Browsing around a bit more, though, I ran across this message on the remote access config screen:

IP Changed. However, your router could not be automatically configured. To connect to your device remotely you will need to configure your router manually.

This is just the sort of message that I dread, because Iomega is basically cutting me adrift in a sea of network configuration. I mean, what am I supposed to do now? I’m sure it involves something about port forwarding through my router or cable modem or both, but beyond that involvement, I have no clue.

Unfortunately, the support site that Iomega currently offers doesn’t seem quite ready to handle the potential pitfalls offered by the iConnect’s diverse networking options. Like, a bunch of the answers in the FAQ refer to a different product, and searching for “remote” (as in “remote access”) doesn’t provide much in the way of help.

Still, despite the potential remote access issues, the iConnect is a solid performer when it comes to local networking. Setup is easy, and you’ll be sharing USB drives across your network in just a few minutes. The wireless connectivity is a great feature, as is the ability to add a printer. The iConnect isn’t just a smart replacement for a very expensive and generally more trouble than it’s worth NAS system, but a feature-packed peripheral that gives you an impressive variety of data access options.

You can find the iConnect for $99 on Amazon (pre-order), and slightly cheaper elsewhere.

[ Iomega iConnect ]

By Chris Scott Barr

In my grandpa’s attic you will find, among other things, 40 years worth of National Geographic Magazine. Let me tell you, that takes up a lot of room. If you’re looking for something very specific in one of the issues, you can bet that it’s going to take a little while to find (mostly because they’re all stored in boxes). Of course if you want the information from every single issue right at your fingertips, there is a much better way to do it.

National Geographic has decided to release the content from every single issue (starting way back in 1888) in a convenient digital format. Every map, photo and article is contained on a special 160GB hard drive. Surprisingly, it only takes up 60GB, so they’ve setup the drive to have an extra 100GB partition to store your own personal files. There’s also a bonus DVD which contains tips on taking better photographs and a behind-the-scenes look at how National Geographic is put together. At $200, this is no doubt worth every penny.

[ National Geographic ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Evan Ackerman

Cloud Engines has unveiled a new version of their Pogoplug hard drive mobile access networker sharing thingy. Um, let me take another stab at that: Pogoplug (which we first saw last year at CES) is a little tiny computer that talks to USB hard drives and makes their content accessible from anywhere, and easily sharable with anyone. It doesn’t do anything that you couldn’t do with all kinds of major networking headaches, but that’s exactly why it’s so useful: you just plug it in, it works, and you’re done.

Version 2 of the Pogoplug features a redesign that incorporates a few more USB ports, making it easier to add multiple drives, although you can also use a USB hub to do the same thing. It comes on a weird pink sled, which personally I’m not a big fan of… I kinda liked the unapologetic functionality and smaller form factor of the original. There are also a host of new features on the software side, the most notable of which are automatic media syncing and global search, but you’ll also find new tools for creating and sharing media slide shows and other social features like a sharing address book.

The Pogoplug 2 is currently on pre-order for $129 (looks like the original version is still an even $100), which includes a lifetime of web sharing service.

[ Pogoplug ]

By Evan Ackerman

While sheer paranoia isn’t the best thing to have dictating your gadget purchases, there are some instances where paying a small premium for that extra level of comfort and security might make sense. Freecom’s Hard Drive Secure is a run of the mill external HD, except that you can’t access the data on it without swiping an encrypted RFID card the size of a credit card past the drive. Swipe the card again and the drive locks itself. It’s not too terribly expensive at $120 for a 500 gig drive, although $410 for a 2TB drive it just a little crazy.

What Freecom doesn’t make clear is just how the encryption on the drive works… It sort of sounds like while the encrypted keycard locks and unlocks the drive, the data on the drive itself is not actually encrypted. This sort of system might keep your porn stash safe from your kid brother, but anyone with a mediocre amount of computer experience (which your kid brother probably has) will just remove the drive from the case and access it directly. Even having the locking system on the drive itself won’t thwart someone who is casually determined. And irrespective of the encryption on the drive, having to swipe your card a second time to lock the thing is just stupid. It should be set up so that if the RFID card leaves, the drive locks itself. And of course, I won’t even get started on the security flaws in RFID.

So yeah, there are some instances where paying a small premium for an extra level of comfort and security might make sense, but this is probably not one of them.

[ Bit-Tech ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

By Evan Ackerman

A NAS (network attached storage) drive is quite a handy thing to have on your home network. You can stuff it back behind your router (assuming it’s not a part of your router, that is) and forget about it, except that it’ll always be available to any computer on your network… It’s an easy way to add flexible storage for things like media that multiple people want to share. Or, it should be an easy way, but it often turns out to be expensive and troublesome.

This little box from Hitachi is called SimpleNet, and it’s able to turn any external USB drive into a NAS drive. From the look of things, you plug your router into one and a USB drive into the other, and that’s it. $80 might be a tad steep for this convenience, but there’s a lot of possibilities with this little device, and it gives you the flexibility to hot swap as many USB drives as you like. I haven’t run the numbers on this, but my guess is that you’ll probably save money (and headaches) if you get SimpleNet and some regular dirt cheap external USB drives, as opposed to a couple external drives designed with integrated ethernet ports. Yes, you’re going to take a speed hit with the 10/100 ethernet port (plus the USB) on the SimpleNet, but I bet it’ll work great for backups and light media access.

The Hitachi SimpleNet USB NAS adapter should be available now(ish) in retail stores.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

By Evan Ackerman

Well, okay, maybe it’s not literally zero steps. You do have to plug something in and go to a website. But in practically zero steps, you can turn any USB hard drive into a networked hard drive that’s accessible from absolutely anywhere, without going through all of the complicated and nausea inducing networking drama that’s usually required to do something like that.

Pogoplug is a piece of hardware that looks like one of those A/C adapters we all hate because they’re huge and they take up a bunch of outlets. On the bottom, it’s got a USB port, and an ethernet port. You attach your USB HD to the Pogoplug, and the Pogoplug to your router. Then you go to the Pogoplug website, set up an account, and you’re done. You now have access to your drive just like it was physically plugged into your computer, except it works like that from anywhere you have internet (it just might be a little slower). You can even get at your files via an iPhone app.

I got a demo of the Pogoplug at CES yesterday, and it seems to work exactly as advertised. There was a drive showing up on the demo computer as local network storage, except that the physical location of the drive was in Arkansas or something. It’s completely, impressively transparent. The file browsers online and on the iPhone are simple to use, and I’m told the security is excellent. Oh, and you can even hook up multiple USB drives to one Pogoplug using a USB hub.

Pogoplug is on pre-order at the moment for $79, and even though Pogoplug is also a service, there’s no subscription fee. Look for it in March of this year.

[ Pogoplug ]

By Luke Anderson

Very rarely do I ever carry around highly-sensitive information on my laptop. However, it seems like a month doesn’t go by that we don’t hear about some government or bank notebook getting stolen, which has private information from thousands of people stored within. Honestly, if you’re going to carry around sensitive data, why not put it on an encrypted external hard drive such as this one from Lenovo?

This drive features 128-bit advanced encryption, which should keep out all but the most determined of hackers. What sets it apart from some other encrypted drives is the physical keypad on top. This means it can be easily used on any number of computers, so long as you remember the code. There doesn’t seem to be a specific length that the code needs to be, so it would take a very long time to guess the correct one. It will come in 160GB and 320GB flavors when it launches this month for $179 and $219 respectively.

[ Lenovo ] VIA [ GearLog ]