External Hard Drives

A segment of the market where we have seen a lot of new entrants lately is External hard drives. One such entrant is Storage Appliance Corporation.  Formed in 2005, they have branded their hard drives under the name ‘ClickFree’. Their drives have combined great design as well as the latest of technologies available. This time we are reviewing one of their products the ClickFree HD1035.  This sleek and stylish drive needs no sort of software installation or configuring to backup. Does this also mean the user cannot control the backup settings? Absolutely not.  The drive is user modifiable giving the user control over backup settings.  The drive promises to be adept at backing up data, restoring lost files, transferring data as well as sharing data with friends. So does the drive live up to the brand’s mission of catering the needs of people for backing up data? Read on to find out.

Design:

Identical:
The peculiar thing about ClickFree drives is the fact that most models look alike.  Made up of brushed aluminium, the drive is capable of standing on its side or lies flat without any additional hardware. The model we reviewed was white in colour with 2 metallic covers at the top and bottom.  There are 2 Blue coloured LEDs on the upper right corner of the DVD.

Backup Button:
Another neat add to the design of the drive is the backup button on the drive. Pressing the button would automatically backup the entire data of the computer. It involves no other step and is the easiest way to backup data.

Dimensions:
The hard drive is roughly about the size of a cigar box. It measures (H x W x D) 47.5 x 4.5 x 1.5 inches and weighs roughly around 2 pounds. So, it can easily fit in a pocket and be carried around. This does make backing up data even more convenient.

Connectivity:
The ClickFree HD1035 Desktop Hard drive uses a mini USB connector which comes along with a cable that one could also use for host of devices such as cameras.  Had an eSATA port been present, the drive’s PC performance would have been greatly enhanced.

Features:

Incremental Backup:
The idea is simple. Instead of providing software to make copies of data, the company has put the backup software right on the disk that will be used for backing up data.  Unlike the Iomega eGo Brown Leather, the ClickFree drive does not need any effort to backup files. When plugged in, it finds all of the user files and stores them into the drive. Each time after that, it will back up the newer files or the ones that have been changed.

How it works:
When the drive is plugged in, it assigns 2 of the same file letters to the host drive: one for software’s executable file and another one is for drag and drop dumps. After the pre-installed proprietary software is launched, one can connect the drive to view details about the host and the drive contents. One can alter the settings to choose what files to backup and even specify sub folders to check for new files.

More about the drive:
While it does take some time for the first backup, the drive will take cut down the subsequent backup times to lesser than 5 minutes. Even if you delete files from your computer, the drive would not do the same, in case you might need it at a later time.

Organised:
Once all files are backed up, they are sorted according to the type of file extension. The pictures, the videos, the word documents, the spreadsheets, all those are arranged and organised.

Supports Several Formats:
The HD1035 is capable of backing up files of about 400 types such as photos, music, video, Microsoft Office documents, email and website data.  It even is capable of backing up XML formats from Office 2007.  There are some pretty uncommon file extensions such as .NEF as well.

Hassle Free:
Another pretty neat feature is that one can backup their Outlook database even while it is running. Consider that many drives require one to shut down the program in order to back up. It is an added hassle that most people would rather not deal with.

Memory:
The ClickFree HD1035 Drive has a capacity of 1TB which is a huge amount of space even by present standards. It can be used to store about 220,000 songs, twice the number of pictures and 10 times the documents. It uses a 3.5 inch drive with a spindle speed of 7200rpm.   The drive is compatible with Windows and Mac as well.

Issues?
There were little quibbles we had with the drive. For starters, one cannot decide on how the drive would back up data as.  Also, when one wants to update a file on the drive, ClickFree replaces the older one with the newer one.  Some backup software have the options to preserve older versions of the same file whereas ClickFree does not. As we did tell earlier, once you delete a file from the computer, the drive does not remove it. One needs to tell the software to delete them. Another issue we had is the fact that the drive dumps all restored files into one single folder, whereas there are drives that restore files into folders from which they were originally backed up.  However, they are minor issues for the majority of users who just want to backup their data.

Performance:

2 words: Simply Amazing. When we tested the drive against some of its rivals such as the drives from Maxtor, Seagate and Iomega, the drive had the best rates amongst them. With speeds of 25MBps read and 23MBps write, it is both friendly on the wallet as well as has great transfer speeds. How can we not like it?

Warranty:

There is a warranty of one year on the drive and is considered for exchange only if the original receipt with the date of purchase is produced.  While there is adequate support on the site present in the form of FAQs as well as toll free support lines, the drive would have been a better product had the warranty period been longer.

Verdict:

The ClickFree HD1035 is an excellent and cost effective choice for regular users as well as small businesses. It does backup files easily and stores a lot of different formats. Our issues with the drive are minor but if they do matter to you, you could choose drives like the Lenovo ThinkPad USB Secure drive.  Overall, if you want a hassle free way to store a lot of data, this is a great choice.

ClickFree HD1035 1TB External HDD – Technical specification Table

Manufacturer	Clickfree
Model Name	Clickfree HD1035 1TB
Form Factor	3.5″
Dimensions (H x W x D) in inches	7.5 x 4.5 x 1.5 inches
Capacity	1TB
Interface Type	Hi-Speed USB
Buffer Size	16MB
Interface Transfer Rate	480 Mbps
Spindle Speed	7200rpm
Interfaces	1 x Hi-Speed USB
Cables Included	1 x USB cable
Operating system supported	Microsoft Windows Vista / 2000 / XP
Warranty	One year