This is nearly perfect. As described, it is pocket sized, so around the size of a 160GB iPod. It is fairly durable - not that you want to play football with it - but it can withstand small drops, knocks, and bangs with no shortage of guts. Whilst my primary format is PC, this machine selfpowers under the USB and Firewire, and that provides the advantage of ultimate portability : anywhere your machine goes, so does this. You don't need power sockets, merely the power in your machine. When connected it runs quickly and powerfully with a swift file transfer/access speed and is very responsive. On occasion, especially when transferring large packets of data (I was copying 738GB of material), the transfer sticks and hangs, which requires a reboot in PC mode - however this only applied on one of my machines and not on the others. Also, you need to download the PC drivers as it is primarily designed for Mac usage : which seems bizarre that both sets of drivers were not included in this otherwise perfect device. The big advantages are obvious - it self powers, has 1TB of storage in a durable device that is very light and small, and can operate on both mac and PC platforms. Recommended : the best external Hard Drive I have ever had.