Samsung S2 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive HXMU025DA/G52 (Chocolate Brown)

I got this on the 15th January (one day before estimated arrival, because Amazon is the god of online shopping), plugged it into my Mac and it was recognized right away. Deleted the software on the drive (since it was for Windows) and so far haven't had any problems with it.

Pros:
- Painless plug and play, no forced software use (at least with mac)
- Compatible with Mac
- Nonslip leather case included
- Doesn't heat up
- Pretty solid. I moved it around a couple of times while transferring 25GB+ folders and no bad sounds or interruptions.
- Quiet. You can hear something going on, but it's not loud.
- Good aesthetics and good price for the amount of space (I paid about $90 for slick looking 500gb)

Cons:
- It's a fingerprint magnet, but I mostly keep it in the case anyway
- I'm not crazy about "shimmer" or "glitter" and the circle designs on the top are slightly glittery... it's really subtle, you can hardly notice it,... Read more

The Samsung S2 is definitely worth considering if you are looking for a portable unit to transfer files between computers or to use for backing up files. Its physical size is comparable to an iPhone so it fits pretty well in a pocket. It also keeps fairly cool, even during heavy use. The unit comes with a nice leather case and a USB cable. The hard drive is very quiet and its performance very good with regards to speed. With around 32MB/s read and 28MB/s write it is up to par with the fastest 2.5" USB 2.0 drives. If speed is very important to you and you do not mind having an extra cable to power the unit, consider buying an eSATA hard drive instead (eSATA drives basically triples the speed of a USB 2.0 drive). The draw back is that the eSATA interface is not as common as the USB interface, practically all computers provide a USB interface, while the eSATA interface is not as frequently found.

A fairly recent review (May 2009) of the Samsung S2 and comparison to competitors... Read more

I bought the Samsung External Hard Drive for storing valuable family photos and data.
The 320gb of memory has been sufficient for the amount of information I have stored.
Pictures do take up a lot of room, so I recommend this size at the very least if you plan to store a lot of pictures/large files.
Besides being very functional and portable in size this hard drive is quite attractive. The chocolate brown finish looks very nice and the trim has a 'chrome' finish that gives it a luxury feel. You won't feel like you are lugging a large extra piece of hardware.
The size is perfect for travel or storage in a fireproof box. At a size equal to a large PDA cell phone, this hard drive is not a burden to carry around.
It comes ready to go, so prepare to start saving all those important files.