Imation Odyssey - TechRadar UK

It may seem like something of a cruel and unusual punishment to compare a removable cartridge drive to rival internal hard drives, but at its heart the Odyssey is using 2.5in hard drive platters and it's being actively pushed as the logical alternative to tape backup.

In these heady times, where we're coddled by the luxury of cheap but fast external USB 2.0 drives and secure off-site server storage, you'd be forgiven for asking exactly what the point is.

Well, it's USB 2.0-based, and our supplied cartridge was a 40GB unit, while Imation does offer larger and faster 80GB, 100GB and 120GB units.

With 256-bit encryption and a cartridge design that can happily be dropped on to concrete and survive (which we did several times) this is certainly a secure and easy way to back up and transport your data.

Once you install a new cartridge it is automatically mounted as a removable disk so data is immediately accessible, and with transfer speeds in the mid-20MB/s, it's not too painfully slow to use. If you need this kind of device, this is a good choice.