That peerless system is quite nice!
I use a portable HDD (Fujitsu 20GB HDD mounted inside a case bought here in NZ) and it's quite nice. The only problem is my laptop doesn't have enought juice to power it, so I technically needs to have AC power fed into it.
When traveling, I use a 256MB USB pen drive, which has 'briefcase' on it that mirrors the server at where I work. It's a treat.