The DuoGB from WiebeTech is without doubt the most impressive candidate in this test. The test device has two 3.5" hard drives and is equipped with two Western Digital WD2500JB drives with 250 GB and 8 MB cache, adding up to a formidable 500 GB. Once you get the DuoGB all geared up, though, it will add a doughty kilogram to the overall weight, making it harder to lug around.

WiebeTech uses conventional components to keep costs within limits. The housing has all the charm of a 90s PC despite fact that its front has been suitably jazzed up with some brushed stainless steel. Inside, it has a small circuit board housing the logic to run both hard drives. The compact power supply is located beneath the hard drives. On the back, there's also a 60 mm fan that keeps the drives suitably cool.

It is connected to the computer by Firewire with 400 MBit/s. Since WiebeTech also advertises the fact that both drives can be run by software RAID, it would make real sense to have IEEE1394b or Firewire 800.

Windows recognizes two hard drives to be used entirely as you see fit. We would appreciate having a second interface for the DuoGB enabling it to be run from two computers simultaneously. With 500 GB overall capacity, we could imagine that there's enough room to go around...

The front of brushed stainless steel gives it a high-class look.

One benefit over its rivals is that the hard drives are kept constantly ventilated by the fan.