Review/Design by Allan "Zardon" Campbell

TEAC were very generous in supplying Driverheaven this new USB2 External hard drive for testing purposes. You may remember my recent review of the USB 2 CD rewriter from the same company with its glorious build quality, well this drive is no exception to this rule. Coming in a fantastic aluminium outershell, this drive will look great in any PC environment and if you are lucky enough to own a high quality aluminium PC case this drive will look right at home, the additional benefits of using aluminium will of course help keep the drive cool and hopefully extend the life of the drive over prolonged use.

At time of going to press the drive is svailable in the UK from www.microwarehouse.co.uk / 0208 906 9111 HD35 - 120GB £165 EX VAT

The drives currently come in 4 flavours. HDU40/Kit: 40GB HDU80/Kit: 80GB HDU120/Kit: 120GB HDU160/Kit: 160GB Interface: USB 2.0/1.1 Formatted Capacity: 40GB, 80GB, 120GB, 160GB Average Access Time: 9.5ms Data Transfer Rate: Up to 480MB/sec Spindle Speed: 5400 to 7200RPM (Dependent on drive model) Dimensions: 1.75"(H) x 5.375"(W) x 8.75"(D) Weight: 2 lbs. Power: 120V (AC adapter included) Warranty: One-year limited Regulatory: UL, CUL, FCC MTBF: 100,000 POH

200gb and 250gb capacities are coming soon. Windows System: IBM PC compatitble Pentium II 300 MHz or higher 64MB RAM or higher USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 port Windows 98SE, Me, XP or Win 2000 CD-ROM drive Mac System: 32MB RAM or higher True G3 processor or higher USB 1.1 or USB 2.0 port Mac OSX or higher CD-ROM drive

The one I will be testing for the purposes of this review is the 120 gigabyte model, which is a 7,200 rpm drive.

What is USB2?

I guess a little background on USB2 is called for, USB Hi-Speed is another name for USB 2.0. The official USB Promoter Group didn’t want the new USB 2.0 specification to be seen as a completely new standard, which may confuse consumers. Therefore, USB 2.0 becomes USB Hi-Speed, and USB 1.1 gets a new title as USB Basic Speed. USB 2.0 has a raw data rate at 480Mbps, and it is rated 40 times faster than its predecessor interface, USB 1.1, which tops at 12Mbps. Originally, USB 2.0 was intended to go only as fast as 240Mbps, but then, USB 2.0 Promoter Group increased the speed to 480Mbps in October 1999. With speed 40 times more than that of USB 1.1, USB 2.0 broaden the range of external peripherals that can be used on a computer. Even with multiple high-speed peripherals connected to a USB 2.0 bus, the system will less likely to hit the bandwidth bottleneck. The new specification also inherits the current USB’s Plug and Play and hot-swapping capability as well as providing backward compatibility for USB 1.1 hardware, allowing existing user base to upgrade seamlessly. Basically, USB 2.0 includes everything that USB 1.1 offers and adds a high-speed mode, which runs at 480Mbps. USB 1.1 supports two speed modes: 1.5 and 12Mbps whereas USB 2.0 has three of them: 1.5, 12 and 480Mbps. USB 2.0 also uses the same USB 1.1 compliant cables to connect high-speed devices. However, classic USB hubs will slow down USB 2.0 devices. In addition, a USB 2.0 host controller is required to enable the high-speed connection with a USB 2.0 device.

USB 2.0 hubs are now given a lot more work to do than USB 1.1 as they need to handle all the traffic from three different speed mode devices. Plugging a USB 1.1 device to a USB 2.0 hub is okay, but connecting a USB 2.0 device to a USB 1.1 hub is prohibited.

Inside the box

What you get: * TEAC external hard drive * Software driver CD rom disc * AC Power Adapter * USB 2.0/1.1 Interface cable * Installation guide * Stand for vertical operation