Seagate Pocket 5 GB USB 2.0 Hard Drive
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- Capacity: 5 GB
- Interface: USB
- Spindle Speed: 3600 RPM
- Enclosure: External
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Cheaper and bigger than flash
Pros
cheap, high capacity, no special drivers needed
Cons
sort of big, sort of slow, intensely bright blue LED
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
It's high capacity and cheap, everyone should buy one.
I found out about the Seagate Pocket Drive when I started shopping for a replacement for my 512MB Flash memory stick, which had become full. I needed much high capacity, but didn't want to spend a couple of hundred dollars on it.
The pocket drive is almost perfect for my purposes. I'm about to finish my Ph.D. and have been traveling extensively interviewing for jobs. My problem was that I ended up spending many hours sitting on planes, unable to work because I didn't have a linux development environment on my laptop and had no network connectivity on the plane. I also needed to carry around the powerpoint slides for my presentation and various other job search materials. The laptop I use is shared with a number of other grad students so I don't want to keep any of my personal data on it.
The pocket drive solved my problem. At 5GB, it's large enough to hold all of my job search materials and a complete Linux virtual machine which I can run using VMWare Player (which also fits on the pocket drive). So now I can work on my research and dissertation on the plane, giving me 6 to 12 additional work hours every time I go on a trip.
Their are four minor things I don't like about the pocket drive. The first is it's speed. It contains a 3600 RPM microdrive. For most things, like editing Powerpoint files and such, that's fast enough. But running a VMware virtual machine on the pocket drive is painfully slow. The solution is to copy the VM onto the laptop to run it, then copy it back when I'm done. Easy enough but somewhat inconvenient. The form factor is quite a bit bigger than flash memory sticks. It's a little smaller than a hockey puck and has a USB cable that retracts into the body of the device. In most cases, I can plug it in and set the drive down next to the laptop, but I can't just pick the laptop up and walk around with it like I can with a USB stick. I also worry if the cord will one day break due to stress. Also I wonder why an iPod has a 40GB microdrive in it and the Seagate pocket drive has only a 5GB drive in it. Though I suspect that if these drives become popular, larger capacities will become available. My last, and perhaps least important complaint is the incredibly bright blue LED that indicates when the drive is in use. If I'm using it in a well-lit space it's not so bad, but on a plane, at night where it's dark, I'm afraid it might be bothering the person in the seat next to me. Though my previous USB stick had a blue light almost as bright as the pocket drive.
Overall, a great product. When even high capacities become available, I'll probably buy a larger one.
The pocket drive is almost perfect for my purposes. I'm about to finish my Ph.D. and have been traveling extensively interviewing for jobs. My problem was that I ended up spending many hours sitting on planes, unable to work because I didn't have a linux development environment on my laptop and had no network connectivity on the plane. I also needed to carry around the powerpoint slides for my presentation and various other job search materials. The laptop I use is shared with a number of other grad students so I don't want to keep any of my personal data on it.
The pocket drive solved my problem. At 5GB, it's large enough to hold all of my job search materials and a complete Linux virtual machine which I can run using VMWare Player (which also fits on the pocket drive). So now I can work on my research and dissertation on the plane, giving me 6 to 12 additional work hours every time I go on a trip.
Their are four minor things I don't like about the pocket drive. The first is it's speed. It contains a 3600 RPM microdrive. For most things, like editing Powerpoint files and such, that's fast enough. But running a VMware virtual machine on the pocket drive is painfully slow. The solution is to copy the VM onto the laptop to run it, then copy it back when I'm done. Easy enough but somewhat inconvenient. The form factor is quite a bit bigger than flash memory sticks. It's a little smaller than a hockey puck and has a USB cable that retracts into the body of the device. In most cases, I can plug it in and set the drive down next to the laptop, but I can't just pick the laptop up and walk around with it like I can with a USB stick. I also worry if the cord will one day break due to stress. Also I wonder why an iPod has a 40GB microdrive in it and the Seagate pocket drive has only a 5GB drive in it. Though I suspect that if these drives become popular, larger capacities will become available. My last, and perhaps least important complaint is the incredibly bright blue LED that indicates when the drive is in use. If I'm using it in a well-lit space it's not so bad, but on a plane, at night where it's dark, I'm afraid it might be bothering the person in the seat next to me. Though my previous USB stick had a blue light almost as bright as the pocket drive.
Overall, a great product. When even high capacities become available, I'll probably buy a larger one.
