What immediately strikes you is that the 1.8" StoreJet Hard Disk can be quite easily mistaken for an iPod. The styling is similar to many of Apple's products, which is a compliment as it gives the PHD a more polished and even distinctive appearance. It measures 3.7 x 1.8 x 0.5" or 95 x 70 x 15mm (HWD) and weighs in at a scant 118g. To give a rough scale of comparison, a typical business card measures 90 x 55mm. Rounding off the unit's description, there's a red LED status indicator at the bottom and the interface connector is up top.
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The retail kit furnishes you with a very complete set of accessories. Included is a small leather carry-bag, USB cable, miniature installation CD, warranty card, quick installation guide and catalog of Transcend products. Among the included software is FalconStor's ExBoot, a drive backup and restore program that may be of value to some. Please note that the Express version of ExBoot is included as opposed to the more fully featured Professional version. We performed a backup of an OS drive and the program seemed well conceived for its purpose.
Installation of the PHD is very straightforward, requiring no drivers on Windows ME, 2000, XP and Mac OS 9.2 or higher. A recurring frustration with 2.5" drives is the inability of the host port to supply enough power, leading to erratic device behavior. This does not seem to be an issue with the 1.8" PHD at all, with the drive working consistently well on a variety of systems.
Aside from our subjective evaluations, we let the 1.8" StoreJet Hard Disk stretch its legs on some benchmarks.
| Platform Information |
| CPU | Intel Mobile Celeron 1.6 @ 3.2GHz |
| Motherboard | ABIT IS7-E2 |
| Memory | 2 x 256MB DDR400 CL2 DDR (PMI Gold Kit) |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar SE 80GB |
| Operating System | Windows XP Professional SP1 |
| Benchmarks | WinBench 99 v2
Intel IPEAK SPT v3 |
WinBench 99 clocks the PHD at an effective disk access time of 20.5ms, a figure akin to older desktop drives such as the Seagate U Series 5. The PHD's outer-zone sequential transfer rate (STR) is 19.7MB/s, while the inner-zone scores 10.5MB/s. These low-level measurements translate into Disk WinMarks of 6090 (Business) and 7510 (High-End).
The IPEAK SPT's Read Service Time analysis closely corroborates the effective disk access time given by WinBench 99, giving an average value of 20.6ms. More interesting is the Write Service Time analysis, which pegs the PHD at 12.7ms. CPU utilization maxes out just a hair over 20%, which is well within the standards of desktop IDE drives.
Overall, while certainly not as speedy as any run-of-the-mill 7200rpm desktop hard drive, the PHD delivers pretty impressive performance while still maintaining silent and cool operation.
Package Content 1.8" StoreJet Hard Disk Leather Case USB Cable Driver CD Quick Installation Guide Features
Fully compatible with USB 2.0 specification Easy Plug and Play installation LED indicates Power On and Data Access High Transfer Rate: Up to 480M bits(60MB) per second at high speed Quickly System backup and restore by ExBoot Express 2 year warranty 
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