Despite limited interface options, the Office Edition range offers business users an inexpensive way to access large amounts of data both locally and remotely.

The LaCie Hard Disk Design by Neil Poulton (1TB) is an enticing piece of hardware; whether you know who Neil Poulton is or not. Artfully sculptured and bursting with memory, it will satisfy every type of user, from PC plebs to computer connoisseurs.

Although there's little to this device it's quite versatile, offering three connection options, including e-SATA. It's compact, tidy looking and quiet, which are all great traits of a desktop hard drive.

This is a basic drive with plenty of storage space at a competitive price. It's suitable for anyone who wants to expand their computer's capacity, without going under the hood.

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.

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.

This drive is primarily aimed at Mac users, but it can be adapted to work on PCs. It's a capacious and fairly inconspicuous drive, but we do wish it was supplied with a full version of its backup software, instead of a trial, and that WD would include an eSATA cable.

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.

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.

A simple device with great utility. If you've got an ever growing media library, you need regular backups, or quite simply need to move large data files from place to place, then you can't go wrong with a portable hard drive solution like this one.

The FreeAgent Pro's large capacity, multiple connectivity options, fast performance and unique design aren't quite enough to justify its high price. If it came with a full version of Memos Autobackup backup software, then we'd rate it higher.

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.