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by Steve Becker
Company: SmartDisk The FireFly drive also could be called "the incredible shrinking hard drive." SmartDisk's new generation of FireWire hard drives comes in an incredibly small (2.44" W x 4.05" D x .51" H) and light (less than 4 ounce) package. And SmartDisk didn't skimp on the esthetics -- the look and feel of the FireFly is first rate, and the drive would easily look at home on the set of a Star Trek film. Included with the FireFly is a FireWire cable, a padded carrying pouch, a copy of the popular Copy Agent utility from Connectix, and SmartDisk's excellent formatting software (now called "SmartDisk Tools"). To help monitor the status of the drive, the FireFly includes both a blue power light and an orange light that denotes disk activity. Of course, the most important criteria for evaluating a drive is performance (OK, looking so cool does earn it some brownie points), so you ask, "How well does it perform?" More good news! The FireFly uses the latest-generation chip set from Texas Instruments and produces some impressive performance numbers. The drive I tested is a 5 GB unit (a 10 GB version is expected to be released in '02), uses a Toshiba 1.8" mechanism, and has a rotational speed of 4200 RPM. Here are the results of my tests:
To provide some perspective for the FireFly's performance, I've included the results of tests I ran with two other FireWire drives: a 30 GB drive that uses a 4200 RPM 2.5" drive mechanism and a full-height drive that uses a 7200 RPM 3.5" mechanism. By the way, both of these drives are partitioned (generally, this improves a drive's performance). As you can see, the small size of the FireFly drive doesn't prevent it from offering performance that actually exceeds that of the other drives when copying a large file! As expected, the higher RPM of the full-height drive provides better performance when copying many small files. Of course, these are just two simple performance tests, but they are real-world results that indicate the FireFly can more than hold its own against these larger, very good drives. The extremely small size of the FireFly makes it a great device to use when you need to be able to easily carry large amounts of data around with you. (SmartDisk is promoting it as a great way to transport a music library and video files.) Since the FireFly is powered by your Mac's FireWire port, it's even not necessary to carry a power supply for the FireFly -- in fact, the only port on the FireFly is a (single) FireWire port. Because of the FireFly's substantial data storage capacity, diminutive size, and good performance, it also invites being used as an off-site backup storage device. For example, it will easily fit into even a small safe deposit box or the drawer of an off-site desk. (Whenever using a hard drive for storing data, be sure to keep it away from strong magnetic fields.) While SmartDisk officially supports the FireFly being connected to only a G3 or later computer, I had no problem with the drive working properly when I connected it to a PCI FireWire card that is installed on a PowerCenter Pro 210 (the minimum OS requirements for the FireFly is 8.6). However, because most FireWire CardBus Cards don't supply power to devices that are attached to them, you will have difficulty using the FireFly with a PowerBook that doesn't include a built-in FireWire port. It's easy to see why when the FireFly was announced at last July's Macworld show in New York it won a "Best of Show" award. While the cost per gigabyte of the FireFly is higher than most other FireWire hard drives, its unique features, included accessory bundle, and outstanding formatting software make it an exciting, very useful, and very attractive package! Pros: Incredibly small and light, good performance, and includes excellent formatting software. Cons: Included case needs a belt/pocket clip. © Steve Becker. All rights reserved. |
