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What immediately strikes you is that the 1.8" Portable 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.

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