Sooner or later, everyone will need to move data from one place to another. When you're in a hurry, there is practically no alternative to an external hard drive. Writing to DVDs simply takes time when it runs into double-digit gigs, and transferring it over the Internet is often not an option for numerous reasons.

So it's a foregone conclusion - it's got to be an external drive. But should it have USB 2.0 or FireWire? These days, it usually depends on the interface available on the computers in question. Naturally, hard drives that have both interfaces guarantee the greatest possible flexibility.

What about the inside of the hard drive? In most cases, the conventional ATA drives of well-known manufacturers are used, but because of their technical conditions they have a disadvantage: they contain electromechanical components that might be damaged by external conditions, as well as everyday wear and tear.

The drive manufacturers are focusing intensively on this issue, because after all, nothing is more irritating than a drive failure - both for the customer and for the manufacturer. Common external hard drives from big names like Maxtor, Seagate and Western Digital have already been designed so that mechanical interferences, such as lightly bumping or moving the devices while they are running, have no significant impact on the life of the machines.

However, severe mechanical interferences can shorten their lifecycle. Olixir Technologies has tackled this issue and now offers the Mobile Data Vault 3DX, an external drive that was developed specially for frequent use. Their claim to fame: it is supposed to be better than conventional models in many ways.