Conclusion:

Who would need this drive? Well perhaps its not for everyone and you can see clearly from the previous page that its not going to compete with a modern IDE drive but this drive isnt all about performance. The build quality is as always with TEAC of the highest possible standard. The drive design being aesthetic and also practical due to the aluminium casing protecting the internal drive while keeping it cool with the very minimum of noise. This drive will find a good home with those people working from the office and needing a large, fast portable solution or for those moving between pcs and needing to transfer large files quickly.

The drive afrer many hours solid use, never gets above "luke-warm" temperatures, and the noise levels as I said are very low. I like the vertical stand that is supplied which lets you have the option of using the drive both horizontally and vertically depending on your deskspace.

Yes, they are expensive, but I dont think they are poor value for money, as they are external totally independent drives, pricing was to be expected, and with future models coming out at 250gb they are sure to be used as very proficient backing up/mirroring devices. This drive is available from www.microwarehouse.co.uk / 0208 906 9111 HD35 - 120GB £165 EX VAT.

I can see many a use for the drive, including off line backups and for moving or storing vast amounts of documents/Mp3s and digital pictures to move between machines. Looking at the second page of this review gives an indication that the drive is in fact quite a poor performer, but I will honestly say against all the technical figures that for general everyday use I have really not noticed much of a difference compared with the IDE drive used in this comparision, even though the benchmarks show a massive differential. And no im not just saying that to give a positive review, and im not keeping the drive either, so lets make that clear before some of you jump to the wrong conclusion ;). Real life use and benchmarking in many cases are two entirely different things as many of you know, and I think my next hardware purchase will be one of these drives, to keep all my Mp3s and digital photographs on, while keeping a few drive image backup files of my partitions.

A very useful piece of hardware indeed and I give it my wholehearted recommendation. Not only is this drive a decent performer but it is exceptionally well designed and constructed, looks very stylish and runs very cool for a 7,200 drive while remaining almost silent. The icing on the cake is portability and cross platform compatibility, and this makes it a sure winner.