These days, things have changed. Now the purchase of an external hard drive is a simple affair. Pick the one you want, with the capacity you want, and take it to the check-out point. This is probably largely due to the popularity of external hard drives these days. Shifting data around is always needed, whether it be important work documents or a bunch of illicit video files nicked off of the Internet. And, with long download times via email (aside from email size restrictions) and the generally smaller storage capacity of other data transfer devices, the external hard drive makes a lot of sense. And among those sensible devices are some that make even more sense, for various reason.

Apacer’s AC430 external hard drive is one of those. First of all, it makes use of a 2.5” drive. That means that it’s small. It’s not quite what one could consider pocketsized, but it comes close. That means easy transportation, facilitated by a stylish protective slip-case included in the box. Further portability is implied by the unit’s sturdy design.

The casing is mostly finished in brushed metal, with sturdy plastic caps covering the ends. An internal anti-shock system will help protect against accidental bumps and bruises, although heavy blows may still have an effect on the device’s performance. So don’t throw it at people who annoy you.

The 2.5” drive in the model we tested offers a fairly generous 500GB of storage space, which can be transferred to and from the device via a USB cable. Power is also supplied to the unit via the same cable, so the need for lugging an extra power adapter around is removed. On the downside, though, it uses a very specific USB cable… the plug on the unit itself is an odd one, so you’ll want to treat the included cable like gold. The carry-case has an elasticised strap to hold it in place, but you may want to consider a slightly sturdier option than that.

Best of all: it’s USB 3.0. We haven’t seen too many devices using this new speed standard yet, so the very fast data transfer rates that the AC430 offers are something of a treat. Naturally this can be used with all other iterations of USB technology, but that speed is sublime.

The device also has a smart power management system, so leaving it plugged into your PC or laptop for extended periods of time will not put too much strain on the system.
The drive’s power status is indicated by an LED light housed behind one of the plastic end-caps.

OK, maybe the USB 3.0 isn’t the best aspect here… we really like the price. Considering the reliability and performance of the unit, as well as its sleek, sturdy design, the recommended retail price is really rather sweet. All in all, a winner.

PROS:

• Good value
• Fast
• Well-built

CONS:

• Proprietary USB plug
• “Only” 500 Gigabytes

Verdict:

Sturdy, stylish and fast… it’s like an external HDD version of a sports car.

The developer of No Sleep has created a simple program that writes a blank text file every x minutes to the external hard drive effectively preventing it from entering sleep mode. The same can be done with a simple batch file or Autohotkey program but No Sleep is a solution for users without the knowledge to create a program of their own.

The software program is portable and comes with a graphical user interface that can be used to configure some of the program’s settings. The gui can be used to select the external hard drive that should be prevented from going into sleep mode and to define the write interval of the blank text file.

The interval can be set between 1 and 15 minutes. NoSleep mode can then be started with the click of a button. It is furthermore possible to place the software program in the Windows system tray to make it as unobtrusive as possible.

No Sleep should work on all versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system and with all kinds of hard drives that are connected to the computer system.