Some people claim that data is never 100% safe. There are hundreds of possible scenarios that could result in data loss - viruses, defective components and everyday mishaps, just to name a few. There is, however, one way to come pretty close to keeping your data 100% safe: make a copy that you can store in a safe location.

Some years ago, users who required data mobility had to purchase devices that were largely based on proprietary standards. Of course there were certain widespread standards such as tapes or, in particular, the beloved SCSI interface. However, mobility was only to be had at a high price.

Today, we have a growing variety of external storage devices for all common interfaces: there are streamers, disc and tape drives and other non-volatile memory solutions. These solutions can be attached to the popular USB port (max. 12 MBit/s), to Firewire (up to 400 MBit/s), to SCSI (now up to 320 MB/s) or, if there is no other option, to the serial or parallel port.

This review takes a look at two external hard drive containers that can be used to deliver data mobility, and which are shipped without the actual drive, allowing you to add your own data component of choice. DataFab manufactures these two cases that can be fitted with commercial 2.5" IDE hard drives. The first version is connected via the Universal Serial Bus, and the second one has an IEEE1394 interface (aka Firewire). Let's now take a closer look at the DataFab drive systems.

That's what the DataFab drive system looks like (both USB and Firewire).