The Samsung G2 Portable is a snazzy, eco-friendly external hard drive that's likely to appeal to creative professionals and trendy gadget fiends. While design is obviously this drive's biggest draw, it performs its core functionality of plug-and-play storage quite well.

This particular model with 500 gigabyte (GB) storage capacity is just one of many in Samsung's G2 lineup; the collection features external hard disk drives (HDD) with storage capacities ranging from 250GB to 640GB. Color options in each capacity are surprisingly limited, but in keeping with the drive's eco-chic theme, are apparently inspired by the colors found in nature.

When it comes to performance, the external hard drive delivers intermediary transfer speeds through a USB 2.0 interface. While the G2's transfer speeds aren't nearly as fast as the advertised 480 megabits per second (Mbps), they are right on par with most competitors using the same interface.

Samsung provides bundled backup and encryption software with the G2 external HDD that is disappointingly compatible only with Windows. The backup software is file-based so users have to manually specify which files and folders they want to back up. However, this only has to be done once and subsequent backups can be scheduled and incremental. The encryption software serves as a simple imaging program that creates a virtual drive to secure sensitive and private information on the drive. Some encryption is better than none, but users storing highly sensitive information may want to consider a drive that supports hardware-based encryption.

While the G2 external hard drive clearly isn't a fit for everyone, we actually like the drive's somewhat flashy design. Samsung modeled the drive's unique, multifaceted chassis after the baobab tree, and the design is most likely to appeal to a trendy, fashion-forward subset. The casing is additionally scratch-resistant to hold up against the minor abuse of daily transport, and the drive is bus-powered so it requires a single cable for both power supply and data transfer.

Aside from design, the external hard drive's minimized carbon footprint is likely to attract consumers as well. The drive does not contain any halogen (a nonmetal element believed to have environmentally damaging components) and requires relatively little power to run. A side benefit of its low power consumption we noticed is the drive is extremely quiet when active.

Samsung's technical support of the G2 external hard drive is rather lacking, something we were very surprised to find considering Samsung's global presence. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any dedicated technical support specifically for the G2 lineup. When we inquired about the drive through live chat on the Samsung support, we were directed to the Samsung general customer service toll-free line. We eventually received the answer we were seeking but only after a bit of a runaround. That being said, the G2 product page offers an array of technical and troubleshooting resources, and the company heavily uses social media platforms (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) to offer technical support. Lastly, the G2 external HDD comes with a generous three-year warranty that covers any product defects.