2. Usability

Notebook hard-drives fail. Most savvy consumers have at least heard such a horror story — if they have not already experienced one first hand — and know they must have a backup plan in place. The Signature Mini is a convenient portable mass storage device solution, and without factoring in its two accompanying backup software packages, the Signature Mini fulfills its marketing promise as a true plug-and-play accessory for both Mac and PC, as well as a prevention method for undoing the damage done by a horrifying disk crash or other data-loss situation.

The device is USB-powered, but in order to make it work with older laptops with low-powered ports, the Signature Mini ships with a dual-headed USB 2.0 cord (it looks like a Y). The mini end of the USB cord plugs into the back edge of the drive’s case. For laptops purchased during the last couple of years, powered-ports are the norm, so it might make sense to use the Signature Mini with a different, single-headed USB 2.0 cord. If the second head (the one with only power but no data connection) of the shipped USB cord is the only one plugged into the computer, the drive will not work. This is an easy mistake to make and is avoidable with a single-headed cord.

The back of the drive also features a completely unnecessary power jack— the drive doesn’t even ship with a power adapter. Think of it as a vestigial tail that all USB-powered devices will soon lose as they evolve. Instead, SimpleTech should have included a FireWire port for computers that can take advantage of this super-speedy data cable connection.

The drive works immediately when plugged into a PC running XP or Vista. With a Mac, however, the device must first be formatted and erased in disk utilities. Depending on whether or not the device will be used with both a Mac and a PC or just a Mac, the format option chosen should be "MS-DOS File System" or "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)." The tiny, sparse booklet that comes with the drive touches on this issue, but does not examine all formatting options. It is not necessary to reformat the Signature Mini each time it is plugged into a Mac—only the first time.

We encountered no hardware problems during our testing of the drive — it didn’t get very hot and the hard drive didn’t make any noise. However, if something does go wrong, Fabrik offers a three-year warranty and toll-free support.

Usability Score: 4/5