Samsung S2 mobile hard drive series is unique in its own right. The S2 is different from other portable drives in that it relies on on-board USB technology to reduce the length of the chassis, making it very compact (smaller than a typical passport, according to Samsung). We have to assume the engineers have taken out the SATA native interface and replaced it with USB. So this doesn’t look like you can gut the S2’s shell to remove the drive for other applications.

Available in 4 different colors (piano black, snow white, wine red, chocolate brown, sweet pink & ocean blue), the S2 is also anti-slippery with leatherette back cover. Other features include auto-backup, software data encryption & capacity gauge. It would appear Amazon has started carrying the S2 at around $109 for 500GB; $85 for 320GB; and as low as $65 for 250GB.

The FreeAgent series (i.e. XTreme, Go, Desk, Theater) has long been Seagate’s cash cow. So when the manufacturer rolls out new, bigger drive, the FreeAgent will be the first to get it. Seagate’s own website provides a teaser on what appears to be the largest FreeAgent Go ever, equipping with a 640GB 2.5″ drive. Before this, 500GB is the max. capacity offered by anyone in the laptop-friendly HDD form factor. So, this product page sheds light on what is to come.

As a consumer storage line-up, the FreeAgent Go comes in 250GB, 320GB and 500GB as well as the unannounced 640GB. While all the other capacities are available in at least 5 colors, the 640GB will only get two (titanium silver and tuxedo black) for now. In-house developed backup software is for Windows only and oddly works with Seagate drives only. And a 5-year warranty is about as good as it gets for a portable USB drive.

The guy who came up with the toaster-style USB hard drive dock should really deserve a medal. No longer do we need to figure out what to do with those old drives. We can easily jam in the spare 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives, and eject them like Nintendo cartridges.

Ever since the first dock shipped, we’ve seen no less than a dozen of ambitious, yet practical designs that expand on this cartridge system idea. However, those who are stuck for ideas simply copy the idea of a multi-slice toaster, and put as many as five slots like this extra-wide USB dock from Icy Dock. We couldn’t think of any viable way of putting this dock into good use besides creating a JBOD; perhaps this is just for show to spice up their Computex booth and won’t be in production.