With a weight of only about 180 g, the SPIO undercuts its rival from Fujitsu significantly. Although the aluminum case seems more solid, there are no slip-proof bumps or cooling fins. The heat generated by the built-in hard drive must therefore be piped out through the case, which seems to work perfectly, because it does not get especially warm.
Included in the package are, of course, a short manual and a driver CD that no one using Windows 2000 or XP will need to fall back on: switchable data carriers like this one are automatically recognized and, if partitions are already present, assigned a drive letter.
Also in the package is a little leather bag for the SPIO, which is unfortunately cut a little too narrow. The user will have to figure out how to transport the connector cable on his own; with Fujitsu's solutions, everything fits easily into the leather bags, which are, however, about three times as big.
The case opens in seconds when two buttons are pressed. The hard drive within can be changed quickly and without complications.
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Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.
