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Standalone PC backup used to be an expensive business until the advent of the World Wide Web in the early to mid-1990s made online backup a reality. Likewise with notebooks PCs which, unlike their desktop cousins, are often used on a standalone basis, although wireless LAN technology, in the shape of the 802.11b standard, is changing matters in that regard.

Backing up notebook PCs is a tricky job, with online backup services such as Netstore (www.netstore.com) being used. But at 15 pounds sterling a month for the ongoing service, users end up paying for the convenience. Iomega's Zip 100Mb and 250Mb drives, with their chunky super-floppies, go a long way towards solving the notebook backup issue, but a hard disk failure on the notebook is a major problem, usually requiring a trip to the workshop for most users.

Mountain Solutions, a subsidiary of the Magellan Group, is selling a branded version of CMS Peripherals' ABSplus (Automatic Backup Plus) PCMCIA backup units in the U.K., with storage facilities from 6Gb to a whopping 48Gb of data.

Each ABSplus is a seven-ounce (198gm) semi-ruggedized unit that contains a 2.5 inch shockproof drive, as well as auto-load firmware contained in the electronics of the drive interfacing chipset. The unit is shock-proof and can handle 25 times the force of gravity (25G) when operating and 1,400G when switched off. These ratings are as per Mountain Solutions and in line with the specifications of most ruggedized hard drives. Since the unit draws its power from the power rail of the PCMCIA Type II (and above) slot of the host PC, the unit is self-contained. There is a blue LED on the device to indicate when the drive is active.

As the palm-sized unit is slid into the host notebook's PCMCIA slot using the foldout cable and slider, it auto-loads the required driver software. From there, it's a simple matter to install the utility software from CD-ROM, after which the software auto-formats the hard drive in the ABSplus device. Rather than simply allowing users to backup selected files and folders on the notebook's hard disk, however, the ABSplus is designed to backup all the available data on the hard disk quickly and efficiently.

Data transfer speeds of up to 75Mb a second are theoretically possible, but, in practice, most users will find the speed of their notebook's hard disk is the limiting factor. On an Acer Travelnote 507, for example, with its 550MHz Celeron chipset and around 2Gb of hard disk space in use, it took the device around 20 minutes to back up the entire data. On a second machine, a Pentium 200MHz Toshiba Libretto sub-notebook, the process took just as long, confirming our premise that the hard disk, rather than the notebook's processor, sets the speed with which data can be backed up.

Now the fun starts. If the host notebook's hard disk fails, for any reason, it's just a simple matter of plugging in the ABSplus and waiting for the driver's software to auto-load. From there, users must then load a floppy disk and run the rescue disk software. This allows the ABSplus to be used as the master hard drive for the notebook in question. For users without an IT department, it's even possible to disassemble the ABSplus and swap out the 2.5 inch hard disk for your notebook's hard drive. In most cases, this should work well, as many modern notebooks use 2.5 inch hard drives as a matter of course.

At £249 for a 6Gb and £649 for 48Gb version of the ABSplus, users are paying roughly a 50 percent premium for using the device's hard disk in place of their original hard drive in their notebook. Against this, of course, there is the convenience aspect of using the device as a solution to a hard disk disaster, which usually strikes a notebook in a hotel room late at night just when you need to make the finishing touches to a presentation you're doing in the morning.

The driver and utility software is impressive. It coped with this writer's early-generation Libretto 120, which is notoriously fickle when it comes to USB and PCMCIA-connected peripherals. This writer has used Iomega's Zip disks for several years to transfer data between desktops and notebook, but the Zip disk is very slow on the original parallel port connectors it came with in the early 1990s. True, the USB interface for the Zip disk has speeded things up, but a hard disk backup - even on 250Mb Zip disks - can take a very long time and a lot of Zip disks. There's also a PCMCIA version of the Zip drive (known as the Pocket Zip) now available.

Iomega's Clik smart media option also offers a much faster backup option for notebook users, but the compact flash smartcard media can work out to be an expensive. ABSplus solves all these problems.

The paper documentation for the ABSplus is minimal, but there is a comprehensive manual on the supplied CD-ROM. The manual is quite good, but is not designed for novice PC users. Online support is good, and, in the event of a notebook PC hard disk failure, the disaster recovery software allows users to replace their notebook hard drive with the ABSplus drive - the hard drive slips out of the ABSplus protective cover.

The supplied CD-ROM and floppy-based software supports Windows 95B, 98, NT 4.0, Me and 2000 operating systems. The new Windows XP operating system is also supported.

Mountain Solutions also supplies a £69.95 USB-to-PCMCIA converter to allow the ABSplus to be used with a desktop PC. In addition, the firm offers a USB version of the device, with storage capacities of up to 100Gb.

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