Data Transfer Test: DIGISTOR 250GB Portable Hard Drive

We just unboxed our newest gadget, a 250GB DIGISTOR Portable Hard Drive. When we got it, it was pre-formatted for Mac OS. Also, it would be good to note that this model is multi-interface — able to connect through USB 2.0, FireWire 400 or FireWire 800.

The DIGISTOR Portable Hard Drive connected to the test system

TEST BED:

• ASUS K50IJ Series laptop, 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, Core 2 Duo Proc, Vista OS

You might notice that while this external hard drive is a Mac-formatted drive, we are able to copy files to and off it. This cross-platform usage is explained in detail in one of our past articles. To that point, we used MacDrive 8, a piece of ingenious and reliable software that allows you to use Mac-formatted drives on Windows systems.With the MacDrive software on our system, the Windows Vista OS immediately recognized the drive, and showed it — rather cheekily — as a drive icon with a tiny red apple on the side. Nice to know these MacDrive people have a sense of humor.

The DIGISTOR external hard drive shows up on the Windows Vista My Computer window

Note that even with MacDrive software, Windows users will NOT be able to edit files on the drive itself — you only have read and copy access. (Solution: copy it on your Windows system, do your edits, copy resulting file back onto the drive.)

Data Transfer Test

We tested data transfer on the DIGISTOR portable hard drive using 3 types of data: 1) 1GB AVI video file, 2) 2GB folder with multiple files, and 3) a 7.5GB ISO image file of a double-layer DVD. There are also 3 permutations of the transfer test – 1) from the system to the external hard drive, 2) from the portable hard drive to the system drive (copy functions are, in general, slower when coppying to the drive where the OS resides), and 3) from the portable hard drive to a non-system drive.

And on to the copying...

1GB AVI file

• From internal HDD to the DIGISTOR portable hard drive -       25 seconds
• From DIGISTOR portable hard drive to SYSTEM (OS) drive -  55 seconds
• From DIGISTOR portable hard drive to non-SYSTEM drive -  40 seconds

As we can clearly see, the external hard drive performs within accepted standards with this transfer. Its transfer speed with this type/size of file is clearly at par with other drives, if not faster. The par for this course is 30-50 seconds.

2GB folder, multiple files

• From internal HDD to the DIGISTOR portable hard drive -       50 seconds
• From DIGISTOR portable hard drive to SYSTEM (OS) drive -  1 min, 30 seconds
• From DIGISTOR portable hard drive to non-SYSTEM drive -  1 min, 25 seconds

Within this test, we were already convinced that the 250GB DIGISTOR Portable Hard Drive is a worthy companion for road warriors and people who lead mobile lives, or people who work in a “mobile office” (meaning, your office is the nearest coffee shop, or where ever there is available bandwith). The average size of file transfers that normal people do on a daily basis is well below the 2GB size, and for any file transfer of that size, this external hard drive will perform as expected, if not slightly better.

7.5GB ISO image file, double layer DVD

• From internal HDD to the DIGISTOR portable hard drive -       5 mins, 30 seconds
• From DIGISTOR portable hard drive to SYSTEM (OS) drive -  7 mins
  
• From DIGISTOR portable hard drive to non-SYSTEM drive -  6 mins, 25 seconds

With this test, the smaller throughput of the USB 2.0 standard clearly told the story. If you plan to transfer large files into the DIGISTOR external hard drive using USB 2.0, be prepared to wait (we had coffee when we did this). It’s not that long a wait. Fortunately for you, this drive is FireWire 400/800 capable — those will be the subject for our later tests, and will surely better the USB 2.0 standard’s performance.

Conclusion

All in all, we at MacPCWiz find the DIGISTOR Multi-Interface Portable Hard Drive a worthy portable companion for your laptop system, be it Mac or PC — (although its sleek white design brings it aesthetically closer to Macs). The transfer rates using USB 2.0 are more than acceptable, and it will help you keep your data safe, while making it available for you any time you need it.

Watch out for the FireWire update to this post!