Apricorn's Aegis Mini Ultra Portable Hard Drive probably won't win any beauty contests, but it sure is handy! Plug it in and this little hard disk just plain works like you were plugging in any old USB flash drive. The Aegis Mini, a 1.8-inch bus-powered external hard disk that's mounted in a shock-resistant enclosure, works with MACs or PCs. Available with USB 2.0 or FireWire connections and in two different capacities—30 or 60GBs—it also comes bundled with Apricorn's Data Protection Suite.

On a recent two-week sea kayaking trip in California, I took almost 2,000 pictures and the Aegis was invaluable for quickly off-loading my 2GB SD card every day using my hosts PC (yep, I got to leave the laptop home!). The included EZ Gig II Backup and Disaster Recovery Software for Windows is great too.

The software package combines backup and synchronization that can be encrypted for better security, just in case the drive was to fall in the wrong hands. In terms of ease of use, the drive is plug-n-play and hot swappable, and all its drivers reside locally and load automatically when the drive is plugged in without you having to do anything.

At the Aegis Mini's heart is the Travelstar C4K60 "Slim" (just 3.5 ounces) hard disk from Hitachi. Its skeleton is a 16-point omni-directional shock mounting system. While its plastic skin isn't really glamorous, the drive comes with a neoprene slip cover for added shock absorption (as well as a one-meter USB extension cord).

The 30GB and 60B Aegis Mini versions sell for $149 and $199, respectively.

PCMag's Networking & Software analyst Davis Janowski wrote this review!