Fujitsu 250GB HandyDrive V5 Portable External Hard Drive

From last year, we have seen that the size of the largest notebook hard drives expand up to 500GB capacity and this is quite a landmark, representing half a terabyte of mobile storage. This opportunity has been taken advantage by the external storage manufacturers who now offer with a massive capacity of up to 500GB hard drives in the ultra portable drives with in the 2.5″ serial ATA disks in them. Ever since the USB powered portable hard drives started appearing in the markets, we were totally convinced by their merits. From the earlier stages where you get them in very tiny capacities to these latest versions that pack hundreds of gigabytes, we have always embraced their ultimate combinations of portability, re-usability and the relatively high capacity. Even if you do not use them to carry large files around, they can always be used as a back up device or a device to keep your multimedia collection and take them with you wherever you go.

A different kind of approach:

Fujitsu throws a wild card into its product line with a new addition, Handydrive which is an external hard drive. The design, features and functionality of the HandyDrive are very basic. You do not get the extra features that the other manufacturers highlight like automatic backups or the ultra durable rugged chassis, but Fujitsu has put in a lot of efforts to offer quick data transfers for its customers. It will be great for the day to day users who just need more storage space than their internal hard disk.

Not an eye grabber:

The Fujitsu HandyDrive External Hard Drive is really lucky to have great performance results as it cannot get high scores by its looks alone. It has a very plain design, and you are not offered with any kind of colour options too. In short, this portable drives somewhat resembles the Seagate FreeAgent Go in dimensions and shape a downward facing curve in the front base. It is an average sized drive with dimensions being (W x H x D) 81 x 142 x 22mm. A green LED hidden below the top surface indicates power and drive activity, flashing on and off in accordance with the latter. It is nice to see a change from the in-vogue blue lights that adorn so many devices nowadays but, as we always say, if you are going to go with a safe design, surely a more universally appealing white light would be more sensible?   We will leave that one for you to decide, though.

The casing enclosure is a glossy black plastic and the 2.5” hard disk inside it is protected using a shock endurance mechanism. This does not mean that the drive is as durable as Iomega eGo Camo, but the outer layer is durable enough to withstand a couple of short drops or the tiny random bumps that occur during day to day transportation. But, if you have some high drops, you are going to kick yourself for doing so.

Interface:

The Fujitsu HandyDrive comes with an USB 2.0 interface in order to plug in the device to your system and the drive powers itself. In case you are using a mini laptop and if it is not capable to juice it enough, you will find a DC-in port for the mains power in the top of the drive. But the bad news is that, the power adaptor has not been included in the package. Two separate rubber stoppers on the back keep dust from the USB mini-B and optional power input ports.

Capacities available:

The Fujitsu Handy Drive V5 Portable External Hard Drive is available in capacities like 250GB, 320GB, 400GB and 500GB and the price difference between each of them is approximately £10.

Supported OS:

The HandyDrive 2.5″ Portable Hard drive is compatible with OS like Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista, Apple MacOS X 10.3 or later and Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional.

Set-up and Installation:

Set-up could not be easier. Just plug the device in and you can start using it straight away. If you are connecting to a Mac, you will need to reformat the drive using the included software or the Disk Utility in OS X because it comes formatted as FAT32 from Fujitsu. This also means that if you choose to use the disc with Macs, you then cannot plug the drive into a Windows machine without having to reformat back and erase all of your data. The same also goes for if you choose to use it with Windows machines.

Software Bundle:

The HandyDrive 250GB External Hard Drive comes with a huge software bundle with full versions of several applications that will aid you in organising, backup and even password protect your important data. One of the most notable software includes the Acronis TrueImage Personal HDD that allows you to create mirrored images of your data and also copy it to many other computers at once. However, with this version, you will not be able to backup the whole system, including the applications and Windows for a complete disaster recovery. For this to work, you have to purchase a full version of TrueImage.
You will also find the Password Lock program that allows you to password protect the drive, which is a very nice feature for securing sensitive and personal information stored in the device. The third tool is kind of useless as the Windows OS will itself do it for you; it is a Disk Formatting Tool. This tool is a very basic application that will just format and partition the drive. Keep in mind that all the software included are only of Windows and none of them are compatible with Mac.

The scheduled backups and the easy set up tool have processes that are extremely simple and intuitive. We really loved the “Secure Zone” feature that hides away the images on the disk for restoring the sensitive data.

Performance:

A speedy drive:
When transferring about 10GB of data back and forth the drive, it had a read speed of 27.94Mbps for the HandyDrive and the write time is just 22.5Mbps. These rates are very much identical to that of the Transcend StoreJet 25 Mobile which had a read speed of 27.52Mbps and write speed of 24.3Mbps. As you can see the difference is very negligible and you will not feel it for sure while playing with the data. And of course, those are very very impressive read and write speeds and the only other drive that comes close to the lightning speeds of HandyDrive is the ClickFree Portable Backup Drive.

Quiet:
In operation the Fujitsu Handydrive 250GB MMH2250UB External Hard drive is very quiet, and on most systems you will not be able to hear it at all, a remarkable feat for such a capacious drive.

Less Power Consumption:
The new HandyDrive features reduced power consumption, which is part of the Fujitsu Green Policy Innovation Program. The drive’s utility management system decreases power consumption by stopping the spindle rotation in stand-by mode and reducing the spindle’s revolutions per minute at start-up to save power. The Fujitsu Handy Drive uses just 1.4 watts during read/write, and sips a mere 0.6 watts when idle. Other drives run as high as 2.6 watts.

Inexpensive:

It is really exciting to see that the cost per gigabyte for the 2.5″ storage devices drops significantly with the release of the new models.

The Package:

The HandyDrive package includes a 250GB version of the drive and no manuals are provided in paper format, but then they are not really necessary. Documentation and drivers are provided on a CD instead. You will also find a USB cable and a Bus Power Assist cable.

Satisfactory warranty and support:

Fujitsu has set a great example for all the other external hard drive manufacturers with a very impressive three year warranty that covers for parts and labour. This is really great to warranty the mobile products like the external hard drives to last for the complete three years on account of their constant travel and potential for daily abuse.

In addition to this, you also get technical support by phone from Monday to Friday from 5am to 5pm and even live chat through the web is provided through Friday from 7am to 3pm. The Fujitsu website also has a comprehensive list of FAQs and also has details on its hard drive replacement program, when the unit is defective, the manufacturer will replace it within two business days. (From August 1st, 2009  Fujitsu Limited transferred its hard drive business to Toshiba Corporation.)

Verdict:

Though the 250GB Fujitsu HandyDrive 2.5 inch portable hard drive is not the most handsome drive in the market, it is quite inexpensive and has great data transfer speeds. Fujitsu’s extra effort into performance while maintaining a very affordable price tag has really paid off. It is really good value for the money. Since the focus of the drive is more on utility than the fancy features, the HandDrive is great for the casual users who are simply looking for some extra storage space.


Fujitsu HandyDrive 250GB Hard Drive – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer Fujitsu
Model Name 250GB HandyDrive
Model number MMH2250UB
Colour Black
Dimensions (W x H x D) 81 x 142 x 22mm
Form factor 2.5″
Hard disk drive capacity 250GB
Other capacities available 320GB, 400GB and 500GB
Buffer size 16MB
Interface USB2.0
Data transfer rate (max) 480 Mbit/s
Average seek time 12ms (Read) / 14ms (Write)
Compatible operating systems Microsoft Windows XP ,  Microsoft Windows Vista ,
Apple MacOS X 10.3 or later and Microsoft
Windows 2000 Professional
Software Acronis True Image Personal HDD Back-up software,
Security Software Password Lock Tool Security
Software Password Lock Tool,
Hard Disk Format Tool (English version only)
Supported OS : Microsoft Windows 2000 professional / XP / Vista
Software languages supported English, German, Italian, French, Russian, Spanish,
Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese,
Korean and Japanese versions available
Additional features Shock resistant
Bus Powered by USB
Less Power Consumption
Password lock
Package contents HandyDrive , USB cable, Bus Power assist cable,
Quick Start guide and CD-ROM
Power consumption 1.4 watts
Warranty Three years

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