Do you have an ever-growing collection of USB flash devices? Some 1gb drives with you photos, a handful of 2gbs with important documents you simply must carry with you. How often do you find the document you want isn't on the drive you're carrying today, or that you need more space than the one in your bag has spare? It happens to me all the time; I usually end up cursing in the first scenario, and buying yet another device in the 2nd. The Memorex ultra traveldrive looks like it could be the answer we've all been looking for.

Ranging in capacity from 80 to 160gb, these pocket-sized portable USB Hard Disk Drives are small (3.5"x5.28"x0.75"), neat and weigh in at only 186 grams! They also look to be quite rugged (although I didn't drop it to find out) and have shaped rubber edges making it comfortable to hold when it's in your hand, and giving a bit of grip when it's on a table. It comes with 2 USB cables, one for data and one for a power boost, and I was a little disappointed to discover that even on my fairly beefy desktop I needed to use both. On my older laptop I'd have struggled to have spare ports, and I expect that might prove impossible for some. Along side the connectors is a USB 1.1/2.0 indicator light which, although far from essential, is a nice little touch, just letting you know in advance what sort of data transfer speed you can expect to see.

In addition to the more common place grey exterior, each capacity of drive comes with 2 specific colours of interchangeable face plates, (the 80gb model on trial came with white and orange) now personally customising the colours of anything is pretty low on my priority list, but I was quite taken with these, I can certainly see the benefits if you have a selection of units in different sizes. The plates snap on and off simply, and all 3 colours looked quite smart.

The printed documentation supplied is minimal, just enough to get you started, which is fine, but I was a bit disheartened to find the CD didn't contain the user manual either, I had to go and download it from the support website.

The device installed really easily and soon I was dragging and dropping files around. I was impressed by the read/write speed, barely more than to my internal drive. I moved a couple of video files over, and they played back smoothly, with no sign of the 'judder' that sometimes happens with external devices. On the supplied CD you get Arcsoft TotalMedia Backup software, this installed quickly and proved extremely simple to use. Within a few moments I'd backed up quite a chunk of my hard drive, and the restore went just as smoothly. The unit has a 'quick backup' button on the side, which is linked to the Arcsoft software, and I had high hopes, expecting to be able to customise it so that one press would instigate a backup to my specifications. Unfortunately all it does is launch the software, saving you nothing more than a couple of mouse clicks. A bit of a wasted opportunity really.

So overall was the ultra traveldrive the answer to my prayers? No, not completely, although it's a definite step in the right direction. It's a nice compact unit, 80GB is a good size drive to carry around, and with an RRP of £59, you get decent amount of storage for your money, but the likelihood that it'll need 2 USB cables/ports to function just lets it down a bit too much. I might still consider buying one, simply for the capacity, but I'd be looking at leaving it in situ at home rather than transporting it about with me, which sort of defeats the object.

For purchase or further information, please visit: www.memorexlive.com