On May 4th, 2005 I received an e-mail from Imation, asking me to beta test their new Micro Hard Drive. Of course, as an advocate of new technology I cordially agreed and within a few days I was sent the hard drive. In their e-mail they pointed out the differences between a USB Flash Drive and a USB Hard Drive.

• A USB Flash Drive is a device for storing data, sharing and transporting files, photos, music and more.
• A USB Hard Drive provides storage at GB capacity in a pocket-size form factor. A flexible USB cable is seamlessly tucked in the side of the device.

Update: I received a letter from Imation. I will also be writing a response to them which I will post soon.

Around the beginning of June I received a FedEx box in the mail and instantly opened it up as I had a use for their hard drive. "Imagine", I thought. "I am one of 20 people who have been asked to test Imations' next money maker, and I get to go move about 2GB of data from an old laptop to a new desktop in a non-networked house. This is cool."

At first I played around with it at work, moving data between my laptop and the dual G4's. It worked seemlessly, no problems what so ever. Then I copied 2GB worth of music to the drive from an older laptop. The transfer took about 40 minutes (USB 1.1), then I plugged it into the desktop computer and the data was off the drive in no more then 10 minutes (USB 2.0). I took the drive out, slightly warm to the touch and said "This is worth a lot to me, I'm not sending it back."