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While modern PCs come fitted with enormous hard disk drives, most users will at some point find themselves short of storage space.
The solution is either to replace their drive, add another internally, or go for the easy life and add an external unit. Freecom's latest falls into the last category and is designed using Apple's lightning-fast FireWire (III 1394) technology.
External drives have always been severely limited by the interface they use to communicate with the PC. Parallel connections are painfully slow. USB improved the situation but even so can only manage a maximum transfer rate of 12Mbps. With a top rate of 400Mbps it is clear why FireWire lends itself to devices that demand fast data transfer.
Despite this, the Freecom drive should not be considered equal to an internal hard disk. In our dedicated Labs test it notched up a performance figure of 14,515 - some way behind the 19,412 of an otherwise identical internal 20Gb drive. Neither does the Freecom drive win on cost, as a 20Gb internal hard drive can be purchased for some £100 less.
Nevertheless, an external drive is certainly more convenient than taking a PC apart. In a manner identical to USB, installation with FireWire is a simple matter of plugging in and installing it as a separate hard drive - it doesn't take much effort at all.
However, this raises the issue of FireWire itself. It now appears on all Apple Mac computers, but it's a long way from becoming standard on most notebook and desktop PCs. It is possible to fit a FireWire card to a desktop PC, but this will cost around £50-£70 and reduces the convenience appeal of an external drive.
FireWire will no doubt become more common, but it's not yet widespread and the drive loses the magnet of convenience as a result.
Contact
Freecom 01423 704700, www.freecom.com
See also:
All Hard Drive
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