Rainy days

With the system on and running the PCMark05 benchmark, I subjected each notebook to a simulated rainstorm. Using a paint gun set at 100 pounds per square inch, I doused each with a half cup of sprayed water. None sustained any damage.

I then went a step further and dunked each system underwater for 15 seconds. After allowing them to drain, I dried them with an air gun and then, more lightly, a blow dryer.

This test caused the most damage -- the M230 picked up water droplets behind its display and would not boot. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't revive it.

After being dried, the other two worked fine, except that the light on the XR-1's AC adapter started blinking, indicating a potential fault in the notebook's power system.

In the best of all worlds, your notebook wouldn't have to survive these kinds of conditions -- it would never be dropped, or caught in a rainstorm, or accidentally shaken around in the trunk of your car. But then, we don't live in the best of all worlds, do we?

LaCie offers a hard drive for tough times

If the 80GB of storage that either the Toughbook CF-30 or the GoBook XR-1 provide are too constricting, but you don't want to give up the peace of mind that rugged design and construction provide, there's another way: the LaCie Rugged Hard Disk.

At 8.8 ounces and measuring 1 by 3.5 by 5.7 inches, it's about the size and weight of other portable hard drives, but there's a big difference: This drive has soft rubber edging and internal bumpers, as well as a tough aluminum shell to protect the drive inside. (On the other hand, all its ports are open to the environment, which is a definite drawback.)

The 160GB model we looked at is a jack of all trades: The 2.5-inch drive has 8MB of hardware cache and includes USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 connectors for US$150.

After I plugged it in, the drive automatically set itself up on Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS X systems and yielded 149GB of usable space. It was powered by either the FireWire or USB cable. The LaCie worked well with four test computers, stayed cool and operated quietly.

As measured by Simpli Software's HD Tach benchmark on a ThinkPad X300 with a USB 2.0 connection, the drive had an access time of 17.8 milliseconds and a peak burst speed of 35.4Mbit/sec., which is competitive with the stated performance of other external hard drives.

The LaCie drive also performed admirably through my torture tests. It survived six drops from 29 inches, freezing, heating, and being sprayed with an ounce of water -- and kept on running.

LaCie's Rugged Hard Drive comes with a three-year warranty, as well as backup programs for PCs and Macs. All told, it's a quick way to make sure your data always has a safety net.