Verbatim Secure'n'Go Executive: USB 3.0 Elegance

Verbatim has been very active lately as far as presenting new products goes. Of course, this mostly consists of new USB sticks, portable HDDs and other data storage devices. The same applies this time around as well, with a particular twist in the fact that we’re dealing with the absolute latest the market has to offer - an Executive 2.5” HDD with a capacity of an entire 750 GB, complete with USB 3.0 interface.

The model that we’ve received is silver, whereas two other models are available too: one in glossy black and one in graphite grey. We can’t tell you anything about the other two colours, but everyone in the office agreed that the silver version looks absolutely stunning. The novelty in this type of hard disks is the presence of a touch-sensitive button, used to activate functions such as automatic backup, opening a specified document and similar. It’s surrounded by a pleasantly blue ring LED that lights up whenever the HDD is powered up.

Besides the fantastic, minimalistic design, the major and most important feature of this model is the presence of USB 3.0 technology, which allegedly provides up to ten times better performance. Although it’s clear that this is more of a marketing statement than the actual performance boost (mostly because the interface is limited by the performance of the HDD itself), the situation should still be much better compared to previous USB 2.0 external HDDs. Of course, the PC you’re connecting the HDD to must also be equipped with a USB 3.0 port in order to make use of the available performance enhancements; this shouldn’t be too much of a problem, as USB 3.0 has slowly started its descent into the mainstream, becoming available even on budget motherboards and notebooks.

You’ll agree that this beauty shouldn’t be carried around unprotected in its pristine condition. The folks at Verbatim thought the same, so they included a carrying bag in the bundle accompanying this HDD.

After the HDD is connected to the PC, other than the aforementioned blue signal LED, you’ll have no indication that the disk is actually spinning (well, other than the Windows message, of course). As we’re already accustomed to, Verbatim has integrated 256-bit AES encryption into this model, encrypting your data on-the-go without disturbing performance levels, which is a great feature. As for speeds, we’ve measured around 87 MB/s for read and 80 MB/s for write. Furthermore, we’ve been unable to make this HDD noticeably warm, even after constant transfer of more than 100 GB of data. All in all, this external HDD is a marvellous little fellow that we really have nothing to reproach to; note, however, that its final price is still unknown to us as of this moment, so we can’t comment on its price/performance ratio, and therefore its market value.