Verbatim SmartDisk External Hard Disk 640GB in Mechanical

A quick look at the price above suggests the new Verbatim SmartDisk offers more bang per buck than its A-listed rival, the Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition. Whereas the MyBook costs £162, which equates to 16p per gigabyte, Verbatim's costs a mere £62 and, with 640GB of storage, works out at a stunning 9p per gigabyte.

This low price does mean that some features that you'd take for granted on an external hard disk haven't made it onto the Verbatim. The only PC connection available, for instance, is USB 2; in contrast, the Western Digital drive offers FireWire 800 and eSATA, along with mini-USB.

The lack of connections isn't appeased by quick performance, with the Verbatim providing mixed results. When reading and writing a single 50MB file between PC and disk, the Verbatim took 4.3s to write the file and 3.9s to read it again - in both cases 0.2s quicker than the Freecom Hard Disk Pro (Best Value in our recent Labs).

However, when tasked with our 50MB folder comprised of smaller files, the Verbatim fell behind, sometimes shockingly so. It took us just nine seconds to write the folder to the Freecom drive, but the Verbatim took one minute and 13 seconds.

Performance was also poor in comparison to drives that come with more connections. The eSATA-enabled Western Digital drive, for instance, outperformed the Verbatim in every one of our tests: where the Verbatim took 4.3s to transfer a single 50MB file, the Western Digital managed it in a mere 1.5s. Where the Verbatim took over a minute to write our 50MB folder full of small files, the Western Digital managed it in a mere seven seconds.

Aside from the incredible value on offer, we can't see many benefits to the Verbatim. Performance is only marginally better than similarly-priced USB drives - the Freecom costs £66 - and, in some areas, it doesn't even manage that.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the Verbatim, and at £62 it does appear a viable option. But if you can spare some extra cash to buy the eSATA-enabled Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition or the Freecom Hard Drive Pro, then you'll be granted quicker - and more versatile - performance all round.

Author: Mike Jennings