Gifts That Can Save Your Data's Life: Good Portable Storage Options

All signs seem to point to a rather practical holiday gift-giving season this year, thanks to the uncertainty in the macroeconomy. Save those frivolous gifts for white elephant parties!

Gifts that promise to have usefulness for a long time will be favored, economists say, as people try to get the most for their money.

And what could be more practical for anybody with a personal computer than the gift of personal data storage? Capacities keep going up, as do the number of value-added and optional features. And prices keep coming down, much to the joy of buyers and to the chagrin of storage executives.

"The prices are all market-driven. It's ridiculous how cheap these things are, but it is what it is," Iomega President Jonathan Huberman told eWEEK a few weeks ago.

Take full advantage while prices are down; since most things in business are cyclical, the prices will undoubtedly start heading back up at some point.

Here are some prime examples of relatively inexpensive storage hardware/software packages for consumers and/or small businesses.

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