Freecom Tough Drive Mini SSD 256GB
Freecom has had a tough drive in its range for a while now, literally dubbed the Tough Drive – a portable hard drive with chunky rubber armour to protect it against shocks and drops.
More recently, the drive went solid-state, an option added of a 2.5in SATA SSD with 256GB capacity. Now we have the Tough Drive Mini SSD, taking an mSATA SSD inside to allow it to shrink to just 87mm long.
The Tough Drive Mini SSD looks exactly like its larger namesake, just scaled down to more diminutive proportions with the help of the baby mSATA device inside, itself only around 50x30mm and under 4mm thick.
Putting an SSD inside the Tough Drive’s rubber jacket is a real beltand-braces protection plan, since the SSD itself is almost impervious to shock and vibration – the bouncy coating was devised in earlier times with delicate hard disks in mind, which do need care in handling; especially when powered up.
The Tough Drive Mini SSD inherits its predecessor’s built-in cable with USB plug, which neatly folds inside and is secured by a magnet when not in use. It certainly helps prevent the loss of the cable at a critical moment. And where we found the old full-size Tough Drive cable to be short for comfort much of the time, the Tough Drive Mini is annoyingly undersized.
The cable is stiff, with a 90-degree bend engineered into the plastic shank which you must tug to straighten to get the plug away from the drive body. If you have a laptop perfectly flat on the desk, it’s just about long enough to reach into most USB ports. But raise your computer on a stand or platform and the drive will be left dangling in the air. Fortunately, at 70g it won’t immediately strain the supporting USB port enough to break it.
Freecom advertises this Tough Drive as compliant with IP55 standard for dust- and water resistance. The specification of resistant to bumps and drops up to 4m looks almost conservative – given the SSD with no moving parts inside, the thick rubber and plastic jacket outside and the overall low weight, we’d anticipate being able to drop this from the top of our seven-storey office and still have a working drive at the bottom.
Two capacities are available, 128- or 256GB, and the colour finish