Product Description

Expand the storage capacity of your laptop or desktop PC, with a sleek Verbatim Portable FireWire Hard Drive. Whether you are on the go or at home, rest assured that your favorite music, photos, video and critical data are safe. Each drive is constructed of a durable aluminum casing to provide protection during transport. The external hard drive includes CMS BounceBack Express Backup Software that allows you to automatically back up your personal content. BounceBack Express incorporates scheduling, backup sets, automatic launch options and CMS' QuickRestore feature.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22963 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Verbatim
• Model: 96402
• Platform: Windows
• Format: CD
• Dimensions: 2.30" h x 7.50" w x 7.80" l, 1.00 pounds
• Hard Disk: 250GB

Features

• Powered by a 6-pin FireWire port
• Connect multiple drives using two FireWire ports
• Includes CMS BounceBack Express Backup Software
• Increase the storage capacity of your laptop or desktop PC
• Transfer files between office and home

Customer Reviews

this disk is good dont buy lacie
Verbatim 250GB FireWire Portable Hard Drive (96402) As a professional photographer I have used these hardrives for nearly 5 years. I own 12 of them and never had a problem.I used lacie before and no disk would last more than six month.

232GB! Dependable quality! MAC OS X & Time Machine compatible!
This is my fourth SmartDisk hard drive that I own. Excellent quality and dependable service: not one crash, bug or problem.

SMARTDISK vs. VERBATIM
Make sure to look for the "SmartDisk" branding. Verbatim now owns SmartDisk and has put out a second Verbatim series that is cheaper BUT is all plastic and has no busy-in-use light. The SmartDisk version also has a metal enclosure which helps dissipate the heat produced by the unit, and the unit feels more "secure" and "solid".

FIREWIRE vs. USB 2.0 VERSIONS
Had no problems using the firewire version on my Mac OSX (Panther & Leopard). The USB 2.0 version is reportedly buggy. The firewire cable supplies power to the unit so you won't need to plug in a separate power cable. The USB 2.0 version occasionally does need a separate power cord. The USB 2.0 version is also ridiculously SLOW on USB 1.1 ports, and it's tricky to tell which kind of USB port you have on your computer since they look identical to one another.

TIME MACHINE COMPATIBLE
To make it compatible with Time Machine, use the Disk Utility (in the Utilities folder under Applications) on your Mac and reformatted it to "Mac OS Extended (journaled)" - do this BEFORE adding any files since it erases everything on the hard drive. Time Machine runs smoothly and you can control how often you back up your files by plugging and unplugging the hard drive. But make sure to ALWAYS properly eject the hard drive (drag the icon to the trash/eject button) before unplugging!

232GB ACTUAL SPACE vs. 250GB ADVERTISED
Finally, remember that you won't get exactly 250GB of space on the hard drive. The dirty secret of the industry is that memory is inexplicably measured differently on hardware than on software. You end up with about 232GB of useable space on this drive. If you need more space, diversify your back up onto separate drives (one for music, one for photos, etc.) and always have at least 2 copies of your most important, irreplaceable files (photos, financial, taxes, etc). The firewire drives can be daisy-chained together since they have 2 firewire ports.

Great little drive but...
I use this drive on my Macbook to store photos while shooting events. No complaints, other than I bought mine at B&H Photo for fully half the price ($82) it was listed here at Amazon ($166).