While they're not quite ten-a-penny, external 2.5-inch hard drives for laptops are inexpensive, portable, easy to use... and very vulnerable to being nicked. Their size, ease of use and the ubiquity of USB means just about anybody can read the data on an external drive. A simple solution is Sandberg's 133-47 Fingerprint Hard Disk Box.

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As the name says, this is a box: actually a small, pressed aluminium box with a light and button at one end and a captive USB plug, a mini USB socket and a fingerprint reader at the other. You'll also need a SATA 2.5-inch hard drive to fit inside it, and an 80GB one will cost you around £30 at current rates, so the complete device will be around £70.

Assembly is easy enough, as screws for fixing the drive in place and for closing the case are supplied. The USB cable has two USB plugs at the PC end, so if your PC's port doesn't have enough power, you can connect to two: on different hubs, of course. We didn't have any trouble running our drive on one port.