The Clickfree C6 Portable ($150, street) lives up to its name as both an easy-to-transport 1TB hard drive and a dead-simple way to back up and restore valuable data on one or more PCs. With backup and restore tools that are a snap to use and support for high-speed data transfers, the Clickfree C6 is a solid choice, though only for owners of Windows PCs.

Design
The Clickfree C6 Portable  is made of glossy black, fingerprint-attracting plastic and has rounded ends; it looks nearly identical to the Buffalo Ministation Cobalt USB 3.0 (HD-PEU3) ($84.99 list, 3.5 stars). A blue LED glows when the drive is plugged in and powered on, and the Clickfree logo reminds you that the drive was made with automatic backup in mind.

As its name suggests, the drive is built for portability, measuring a slim 3.1 by 4.7 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and weighing only 5.6 ounces. Despite this, the Clickfree C6's 1TB of capacity is enough to completely back up most laptops and desktops on the market (or even more than one, if you have the space). And thanks to a USB 3.0 connection, the drive can back up your data quickly.

Features
Sorry, Mac users: The Clickfree C6 works only on Windows (Windows 7, Vista, and XP). If you need an Apple-friendly alternative, the competing IDrive Portable ($69.99 list, 3.5 stars) will do the job, but it offers only 320GB of space and operates across a slower USB 2.0 connection.

The C6 Portable is loaded with Clickfree's standard backup software, plus the new Clickfree EASY Imaging software. Clickfree's naming convention for every feature in the software package drives home its claim of ease of use: There's EASY Imaging for creating a complete computer backup, EASY Run for automatically backing up new files, EASY Organizer for organizing photos and media, EASY Music for easily sorting through your backed-up music files and iTunes playlists, EASY Viewer for viewing all your backed-up files, EASY Restore for restoring specific files, and EASY Fix for recovering from crashes.

Luckily, the apps live up to Clickfree's claims. The backup software begins its magic once you plug in the drive. This initial backup session copies everything from your hard drive—including your operating system, software, and hidden partitions—and may take hours. If your system exceeds the 1TB capacity of the Clickfree C6, the software lets you trim down the size by selecting specific folders to exclude from the backup process.

Once this initial backup has been created, you'll have a full image that will be just be updated in future (shorter) sessions. You can leave the Clickfree C6 connected and schedule automatic backups, or you can periodically plug in the drive and start one manually. To prevent unauthorized backups or restorations, you can also lock down the Clickfree C6 with a password.

To restore your PC's data to its backed-up state, simply open the Clickfree navigator and select the "Restore/Transfer" button. This restores all of your personal content, such as photos and documents, but to restore the entire system (including the OS and software) you will need to use the similar EASY Fix tool.

Performance
The C6 Portable produced decent performance overall, scoring 1,406 in Futuremark PCMark 7, as compared with the Editors' Choice Seagate GoFlex Turbo (750GB) ($169.99 list, 4.5 stars), which scored 1,498. Using the slower USB 2.0 connection, the C6 Portable scored 1,232—not as impressive, but still reasonably fast. The C6 Portable copied our test folder in 17 seconds using USB 3.0, but 41 seconds using USB 2.0. When backing up or restoring your system from the C6 Portable, you will definitely benefit from the faster USB 3.0 connection, which can shave minutes or even hours off of the total time.

As backup tools go, the Clickfree C6 Portable hard drive may be the best solution for anyone on the go, letting you keep a complete backup on hand and use the oh-so-easy-to-use scheduling and organizational tools. That combines with 1TB of storage capacity to make the Clickfree C6 Portable an enticing option, provided you don't need Mac compatibility. For broader compatibility and an upgradeable interface, consider the Editors' Choice Seagate GoFlex Turbo (750GB).

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Clickfree C6 Portable (1TB) with several other hard drives side by side.

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