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Provides: portable HDD
Developer: iStoragePro
Minimum Requirements: USB 2.0 or FireWire (400 or 800)
Price: $145-220
Availability: Now

iStoragePro’s Pocket hard drives replicate the look and feel of the G-Technology line of Mac inspired portable hard drives, but are they as good?

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Before me there are two brushed aluminum, portable hard drives.  Both look like they belong with a Mac.  Both are bus powered over USB 2.0 or FireWire and include all possible cables (USB, FireWire 400 and 800).  Both are well made and attractive.  The designs are different, but the only obvious, external difference is the brand name.  One is made by G-Technology and the other is made by iStoragePro.

And honestly, on the inside, they are pretty similar too.  Both house 2.5 inch hard drives (laptop size) and have varying storage capacities.  The iStoragePro Pocket comes in 5400RPM models of 320GB and 500GB and 7200RPM models in 250GB and 320GB.  All of which have USB 2.0 and FireWire (400/800) ports.

Now I’ve made it seem that the G-Technology and iStoragePro mobile drives are pretty much the same thing, but that’s not really the case.  Sure, they are both mobile hard drives with USB and FireWire connections, but there are two notable differences.  The first difference is the hard drive on the inside.  iStoragePro’s hard drive is much noisier than the G-Technologies hard drive I’ve tested.  While the G-Tech drive is completely silent, the iStoragePro drive can be heard spinning.  It sounds like a small fan is constantly running, though the drive is fanless, so it’s definitely the drive.  This could be a soothing “White Noise” like background noise for you, I suppose, if it weren’t accompanied by a high pitched squeal.  It’s not ear splitting or anything, but after about a half an hour of being plugged in I found myself searching the room to figure out what that awful noise was.  For some reason I had a hard time remembering that the hard drive was the source of this annoyance, as every time I plugged it in I wondered what was causing this noise.  Eventually, I just stopped plugging it in.  I’m told this is definitely not intended, nor expected behavior.  It’s possible that my ears are younger and hear high pitched tones more easily.  The best I can say is any one drive may or may not make an offending noise. 

The other difference is the price points.  Strangely enough, they aren’t consistently lower.  I’ve found the G-Drive mini to be cheaper for all 5400RPM models, and the iStoragePro to be cheaper for all 7200RPM models ($20 to $40 less).  Currently, drives are hard to find online since they are just hitting the market.

Going into this review, I expected (or maybe wished that) the iStoragePro Pocket to be a cheaper alternative to the G-Technologies G-Drive mini.  For reasons I still don’t understand, it is not.  It’s not consistently cheaper, when it clearly should be.  G-Technologies has a brand name and reputation worth charging for, but I just don’t get the same feeling from iStoragePro.  It’s not that it’s a bad product.  In fact, in terms of storing data, looks and sturdiness it’s awesome.  But to compete with G-Technologies, it needs to be just as good and cheaper.  If these drives were priced maybe ten to twenty dollars cheaper than G-Tech’s similar offerings, they would be an awesome alternative (assuming the drive noise is fixed).  It’s a mobile hard drive that looks nice, and functions mostly like it’s supposed to.  But the drive really sealed its fate in my mind when I realized it wasn’t cheaper across the board and how annoying my test unit’s hard drive noise became.  So while I wish I could tell you that the iStoragePro Pocket is both a great and slightly cheaper alternative to the stellar drives that G-Technologies puts out, I can’t.

Update
I’m told, from iStoragePro, that they are looking into the noise problem, which is almost certainly a result of the Seagate or Western Digital drive on the inside of the enclosure.  Hopefully this won’t be an issue by the time you can track one down online.