Thanks to recent advancements in portable storage it's now pretty easy to carry important documents or data around with you on the move. Micro-sized flash drives usually offer enough capacity for most, but if you're working with large files or quantities you might need something with a bit more legroom.

External hard drives are suitable for semi-permanent placement, but to provide something in between we've seen a range of mid-capacity portable drives designed to be small and lightweight enough to carry around.

Few are as small or as lightweight as Trekstor's Datastation Microdisk, and none are as good looking. We're not usually too keen to focus on aesthetics in a market that doesn't demand them, but we're going to make an exception here.

Trekstor's offering is extremely small. Not much bigger than a credit card and a few millimetres thick, you'll be more worried about forgetting which pocket you put it in than it weighing you down. It's also finished in a particularly stylish rough-black aluminium, and weighs in at a paltry 70g.

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Predictably for something this size it doesn't require external power, so the only connection you'll find on the exterior is for the mini-USB cable supplied. It's pre-formatted so works straight from the box, and if you don't have any backup software or want something with a little more clout than Windows' default applications you can install the Nero BackItUp2 application provided.

It's worth stating clearly here that this is the ‘Essentials' brand of the suite, so omits many of the more powerful features found on the full version. There's not much here past your typical backup tools in fact, which allow you to select an entire drive or individual files either manually or by using filters to automatically include all images or documents, for example.

Files can be restored individually or collectively, and you can create a series of ‘jobs' to schedule various parts of your hard drive to be backed up at specified times. The software is pretty easy to use, taking a wizard-based approach for the most part, and there are enough customisable settings here to offer a decent degree of control.

Trekstor's drive is very capable, then, but predictably you're paying a price premium for the portability and design. It's available in three sizes and is priced at £69 for the 20GB model, £119 for 80GB and £149 for 120GB. Admittedly this is comparable to other drives this size, but considering you can pick up larger yet still portable alternatives for around £40, we wonder exactly how many people would be so concerned over size as to pay that much extra.

Trekstor's Datastation Microdisk is extremely portable, looks great and has a decent software suite to help manage your backups. It's pricey, though, so you'll need some serious justification for needing something this small and lightweight.