Ratings
Pros
- Simplifies data encryption to stupid-easy!
- Great value in price
- Encrypts entire drive including OS
- Easy to use USB dongle to unlock
Cons
- Noisy fan
- Must be powered up and unlocked prior to PC boot
- Lose your key, lose your data
The Bottom Line
Data needs to be protected and protection should be easy. Thankfully the DataPort SecureDock is quite frankly, stupid easy! If you can turn on a key, insert and remove a USB dongle, then you can protect yourself from identity theft, unauthorized access, as well as having a secure off-site backup. Told ya, stupid easy.
Recommended
Yes (Strong)
Full Review
Security is an important thing and many in todays world really do not realize just how easy data can be stolen from a hard drive undetected by the owner. It’s not just a matter of grabbing a hard drive physically but rather just starting one up and copying the information off the computer to a USB flash drive. Accountants, lawyers, and doctors, to name a few, need to protect their data but lack of simplicity is usually the number one reason for this not happening. May I introduce to you the DataPort SecureDock?
Ratings
Pros
- Plethora of supported interfaces
- Supports any modern hard drive
- Sleek looking
- Drop-in hard drive mount
Cons
- No tactical indicator of successful drive mount
- Price is a bit high
The Bottom Line
If you’re like many in todays modern techno-family, then you have extra hard drives lying around your home. Additionally, with the low cost of hard drives today, there really is no reason not to have extras for archive purposes. Either way, NewerTech’s Voyager Q allows you immediate access to your data without any work other than dropping the drive into the Qs bay and double clicking an icon on your Desktop. Instant access with more ways to connect to your hard drive than James Bond ever associated with his Q.
Recommended
Yes
Full Review
Hard drives liter my draws, cabinets, and desk. They’re every where. Some are archived drives and others retired ones. Needless to say, accessing anything on them has required some work in the past with either mounting them internally in a PC or in an enclosure. Yes, there’s also many variants of the SATA/IDE to USB set-ups that can be used, too, but man, what a mess of cables that is. Thankfully, the folks at NewerTech live like me and desire a nice easy, clean, way of data retrieval. The Voyager Q has landed on my desk and what a relief it has provided. Can it offer your scrap pile of metal, platters, and silicon reprieve as well?
Pros
- Fast
- Great looking unit
- Small footprint
Cons
- Quality issues
- RAID1 failure in tests
The Bottom Line
LaCie has made one sleek looking external hard drive that begs for a spot on your desk to show off its good looks. However, if our data failure is any indication of troubles in mass, this is nothing more than a cheerleader on the football team that just looks hot but has no brains.
Ratings
Recommended
Maybe
Full Review
LaCie has been a well known accessory company for Apple for many years long before other companies pushing PC ware started dabbling into the Mac world. That experience has given a lead over those late comers that LaCie has enjoyed and used to push its products into a new realm of sleek looks. The HD Max is definitely one nice looking unit without a doubt with its shinny black case that reminded me of Darth Vader’s helmet when I first took it out of the box. The Dark Side had nothing to do with this cool looking external hard drive as LaCie tapped award-winning industrial designer Neil Poulton to come up with all this black goodness. When you hook up the power and cable the USB into your computer, Mac or PC, a blue light flickers from the bottom on the front of the unit bouncing memorizing light from the surface of your mount location. The light flashes as data is accessed adding to the pretty show on your desk. When you turn the unit around, you’ll find a switch that enables RAID0 or RAID1, two USB ports, a spot for your power, and switch for that power. You’ll also note two other LEDs one for each drive that show blue or the dreaded red for, oops, something’s very wrong, red. Except for the air vents in the back of the unit, the LaCie HD Max is just one nice piece of plastic covering the rectangle RAID hard drive that is small enough to easily hold in your hand.
Pros
- Super speedy
- Well engineered
- Quality build
Cons
- A bit pricey
- Front panel tricky to attach and close
The Bottom Line
With a slew of choices in the external hard drive market, it’s become difficult to pick the gems among the cubic zirconias. Thankfully companies such as OWC exist and continue to bring us diamonds like the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 which glimmers with excellence. In our month of testing, we found ourselves in love with this unit and nearly crying when we had to return it. It’s that good.
Ratings
Recommended
Yes (Strongly)
Full ReviewOther World Computing is known for its Mac accessories and stellar support since 1988. OWC has brought that experience and ventured into the hard drive space with its external storage solutions for some years now. Its latest venture is the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 which offers 2.0 TB to 8.0 TBs of space for your 1 and 0s to be placed on in an alpha bet soup of configuration choices. You can attach the Mercury drive to your Mac or PC by either FireWire 400, FireWire 800, USB 2.0, or through the speedy eSATA connection. I chose to use the FW800 port in the back of my Mac Pro Dual-Core Intel Xeon box and – wow – did I notice the speed immediately. For fun, I copied over a few ripped DVDs from my Mac’s internal drive to the Mercury Elite and watched it go. When copying 7.86 GBs of data, one becomes use to waiting but I have to say, I was quite impressed with the little amount time it took the OWC box to suck it all up. It only took it a total of three minutes. Impressive. Compare that to the LaCie HD Max which took it over ten minutes. Granted, the LaCie is on a USB 2.0 port but when one accounts the speed transfer ratios, the OWC Mercrury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 is still a clear winner. Ripping a 4.31 DVD only took an amazing two minutes! For a more in-depth speed test look, view the results below.