While capacities have been increasing consistently for as long as there have been hard drives around, the actual physical size changes very little over time. ADATA is now looking to change that for the mobile market place with the arrival of the HE720.

This drive uses a USB3 interface and will start with a modest capacity of just 500GB. Given that it is less than 9mm thick, that's not bad going.

It is delivered in a stylish brushed metal casing and, to ensure that it carries on looking that good, the material has been hardened to a significant level (apparently known as 9H – which we'd normally associate with glass).

While regular hard drives can't possibly compete with SSDs inside a PC or laptop, when it comes to external storage, the overall capacity is more important. On that basis, paying around £60 inc vat for a 500GB drive will compare nicely to the 60-120GB drive that the same money would buy in slimline SSD terms.

KitGuru says: Handy little number with a cool look and serious capacity. Will be interesting to see if they can push toward a 1TB drive – which is a capacity that SSDs are unlikely to reach in bulk for a couple of years to come.

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