If you want to carry up to 8GB of data around with you, you will probably buy a flash drive. For larger amounts, say 20GB and above, there are pocket hard drives, although you will need some big pockets here. With prices of these drives plummeting, more and more people on the move carry their data on these drives. A worrying fact with portable drives is their fragility. This means that if you accidentally bump it or it is dropped, than there are chances of the drive getting damaged. But Freecom's latest offering, the ToughDrive, is a rugged external hard drive.

The ToughDrive has a short integrated USB 2.0 lead, which folds round the end of the drive and clips in, so it's not left hanging. It has a blue LED fitted to it, which flashes to show drive activity, and an USB extension cable is included with the drive.
When you plug the drive in, Windows recognises it immediately, allowing files to be transferred to and from it without any software installation. There's a useful application provided, though, which can automatically compress and encrypt data, so you can get more onto the drive and keep it secure.

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We used our backup test files to check how quick the drive was. While the times were good for a drive of this size and capacity, it's not as quick as you might think from the Freecom specs. The spec sheet mentions the data transfer rate of USB 2.0Freecom also claims the ToughDrive can withstand a 2m drop onto a flat surface. It does this by suspending the drive in an internal anti-shock frame and casing it in silicon rubber. At its asking price of Rs.4,690, it compares well with its main rivals from Seagate and Western Digital in this test. However, it comes with the lowest warranty to be offered by any company in this test, three years to be precise.