In contrast to the USB-only offerings from Axiomtek and Maxtor, the SmartDisk Crossfire offers both 400 and 800 Mb per second FireWire and USB 2.0 PC links to its buyers. The performance we measured for both interfaces runs from good to very good. This is a situation where the 250 GB Hitachi hard disk with its quick seek and access times makes a particularly good fit.

It's sad that SmartDisk offers only a conventional external hard disk, though. We looked for additional software in this package in vain, and were thus unable to award the product any points for backup coverage. But a quick price comparison also reveals that omission of software also makes this product the cheapest. This might encourage more parsimonious users to script their own backups, and pocket the savings. But for backup of a business system, this offering doesn't measure up.