I use a variety of different storage mechanisms on the road, what with online backup, file synchronisation and online storage locations… as well as the huge amount of storage that even the most basic laptop provides these days. My old netbook went through the upgrade from 80GB to 250GB which effectively meant unlimited amounts of normal storage as I have not come close to using that up even when loading up on music (for the road) and every photo I have ever taken (I have owned a digital camera since 1998). My current netbook has a 160GB which is still pretty meaty (particularly once I had done the partition shuffle to convert the dual partition to a single one… I am not a fan of data stored in its own partition, as I lose flexibility to make use of all my storage and I use sync to ensure my data is always recoverable). However sometimes you need that separate storage, separate from the main partition for on the road backup (for extra safety) or for dealing with the transfer of some of the big super media files (>50GB) that occasionally I have to deal with.
This is where I come to my latest favourite, the Freecom XXS 320GB. This is a tiny 2.5” device that is as simple as simple can be. It is essentially a rubber cased bare harddrive with an attached USB2 Interface. It has a good low cost/size of storage ratio (less than €100 for 320GB) and is speedy enough, and the cost aspect is very important. This is because when travelling, the failure rate for HDs is very high even when they are supposed to be robust. This unit is replaceable… an effective property. The rubber casing makes it reasonably robust still though, so I do not expect this to fail too quickly, and this so easily gets dropped into my flight bag. The other thing is, the sleek black rubber just looks cool. You really do want something like this when you are away from home, particularly for taking that extra addition of media for long evenings stuck in hotel rooms with CNN for company.