The Western Digital My Passport Elite is fast, cost-effective and easy to use. If you're happy with the design, then this is a drive you should check out.

Although expensive, if you do require a large amount of storage space, it’s hard to go past this drive. Not only does it offer a triple interface, but also dual RAID configurations, making it worth every dollar.

The Seagate FreeAgent Go proves that beauty and brawn can go together, with modern chic and high performance in a great device. If you're in the market for an external hard drive, and you can afford this unit, the Go is definitely worth looking at.

This is a neat little drive that lets you create a working environment, which can be used on any Windows XP or Vista-based machine. It's a little pricey, but the Ceedo software it's bundled with is useful.

A low-cost product that will look good on your desk while taking up minimum space. The LaCie Hard Disk 500GB design by Neil Poulton is not bursting with features, but it's all you need from an entry-level product. The LaCie Hard Disk 500GB design by Neil Poulton is USB only.

It's quiet, it's energy efficient and it’s 2TB of space in an easily connectible box. The Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II may not be the fastest kid on the block, but it isn’t a slow coach and it is customisable enough to suit most situations.

A very useful drive for the tech-savvy and not so tech-savvy alike. If you like to share data, or simply need to access two computers regularly you'll find this very handy.

As an external hard drive the Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus storage drive is solid, but add in the backup features of the OneTouch system and you have a first-class backup device.

While it isn't the cheapest option, Western Digital's My Passport Elite is definitely a great way to fit a large amount of data into a small footprint.

The SAFE Hard Drive is competitively priced when compared to other external hard drives and there is the added bonus of biometric security.

Sometimes you just can't protect valuable files enough. Whether you use the primary drive of the Western Digital My Book Mirror Edition (and rely on RAID 1 to make a second copy on the hidden secondary drive) or use the included backup software to make an additional copy of files on your system's built-in hard drive (using RAID 0) or two copies (with RAID 1 enabled), the quiet, fast and easy-to-set-up Western Digital My Book Mirror Edition gives you the best and simplest data protection in a user-friendly drive we've seen.

A feature-rich product with a good selection of software and excellent build quality, the Freecom Hard Drive Pro 500GB lacks the designer style or extreme ease of use of some competing products.