Labs

It may be this month's priciest drive, but the Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus also turned out to be one of the fastest, achieving great scores across the board in our USB speed tests. But it was still given a run for its money by cheaper drives, and where the Buffalo justifies its price with extra interfaces, the

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Maxtor lacks eSATA.

Still, the OneTouch certainly scores when it comes to robustness. This drive feels rock solid, its tough plastic and aluminium case exposing not a single point of weakness.

Maxtor's package scores highly on the software front, too: SafetyDrill lets you back up your PC's hard disk and boot from the external unit in case of emergency, and there's encryption software included as well, just in case your OneTouch falls into the wrong hands.

A final strong point is the warranty, which at five years ties with the Seagate's as the most generous here.

At the end of the day, though, the price of the OneTouch weighs heavily against it. If you want a solid drive with a decent warranty, the Western Digital is just as hardy and offers eSATA. If you just want a standard USB drive, the LaCie is faster and cheaper. Either way, there's no need to pay this much.