Western Digital My Book Essential portable USB3 hard disk

There are dozens of companies that make hard disks, but Western Digital's My Book Essential stands out from the crowd thanks to its well-designed Smartware software.

We tested the 2TB (2,000GB) model, which costs a very reasonable £120, but 1TB and 3TB models are available as well. The disk housing is quite large, measuring about 165mm high, 135mm deep and 50mm thick, and requires its own mains power supply, so it's very much designed for use with a desktop computer at home or work, not on the move.

Its USB3 interface provided excellent performance, almost four times faster than an older USB2 disk in our tests. It is still compatible with existing computers that only have USB2 ports, though at a slower rate.

The Smartware software really stood out. The program provides a visual display of all the different types of files stored, so you can instantly see how much space is devoted to each type.

Rather than scheduling backups for specific times, the software handily performed automatic back-ups whenever we added or saved any new files or documents, ensuring that our important files were protected.