Do you find that the storage space of flash drives are too small for your needs, but you don't want to carry a full-fledged hard drive either.  Then consider Apricorn's EZ Bus Mini.  The EZ Bus Mini offers a simple, no frills package, that works right out of the box. 

Unlike flash drives which typically offer up to 1GB of storage, the EZ Bus Mini offers a whopping 60GB of storage all in the palm of your hand.  With 60GB of storage, this drive is ideal for holding all your music, documents, and even videos.  The EZ Bus Mini manages to offer a large capacity of storage to meet the demands of most users all in a compact package.  
 

This product is called the EZ Bus Mini because it is a smaller drive compared with a full-fledged EZ Bus DT, which is Apricorn's larger desktop external drive.  The product came in a purple and orange colored package.
 

It takes few words to describe this product.  The drive is contained within a rectangular black slab.  The front of the drive just has the Apricorn logo.  the back of the drive just has a sticker identifying the product.  What is unique about this product is how the USB cord is neatly tucked into the drive including the USB connector.  This makes the product completely rectangular without anything sticking out.  The black colored parts of the drive does pickup the oils from your skin quite easily, since I could see it easily from an angle.  When looking at the drive straight-on, it is difficult to see the smudges of dirt or oil.
 

Included in the package is a small neoprene case.  The case is slightly bigger than the drive itself.  When putting the drive in the case, it fit snug within the case giving it little room to move at all.  The case fits tight because you will need to stretch the case a bit in order to fit the drive inside.  The case is more of an option than a necessity.  Some users may not find the case necessary.  If you are putting this drive in your pocket with other items that may scratch the hard surface of the drive, then it might be better to use the case.
 

As with most drives, this drive comes with a user guide and a software that will help you backup your data automatically if you need to.  Most people will probably not use the software unless you have an old operating system.  In this case,  the CD will provide the necessary drivers.  If you have a more modern operating system, then you will not need to install drivers at all.  The operating system should automatically detect the drive and allow you to immediately move or copy files onto the drive immediately.
 

II first used HDTach to test the read speed of the drive.  The drive was able to obtain a sequential read speed of 37.7MB/s with a random access time of 20.5ms.  When reading at a longer period of time, the read speed would gradually lower and lower for an average read speed of 19.4MB/s.

I then used Sisoft Sandra to retest the drive.  It confirmed HDTach's score, by getting a read speed of 35MB/s.  It is able to do a buffered write at 26MB/s with a random access time of 12ms.

Finally, I tried transferring nearly one gigabyte of information over to the drive which took 40 seconds.

The Apricorn EZ Bus Mini is a very simple product that does what it's supposed to do.  The 60GB version of this drive retails for $349.  For that kind of price, it becomes crucial for the consumer to weigh between storage capacity and size very carefully.  For a little less than that price, you can easily obtain at least a 250GB external desktop hard drive.  The EZ Bus Mini simply works and no extra AC power is needed at all in order to power the drive which is typicall seen in external desktop hard drives.  If portability is extremely more important to you than capacity, then this is the product for you.

Reviewed by ronald@digitalreviews.net