Toshiba Canvio Ready 2TB Portable Hard Drive

I bought thus during a sale at an excellent price for 1TB of USB 3.0 storage in a slim form factor. The device performs well despite negative reviews found on Amazon and Toshiba's website. I've had it for about 1 month and it hasn't died. It stays plugged in to my desktop and always powers on and shows up in my drive list in the file explorer. Transfer speeds were more than adequate with the included USB 3.0 cable. It draws power from the cable which is a huge plus. My much larger 2TB backup drive needed a bulky AC adapter. So long power cable hassle! Can I vouch for long-term? No. But it appears to be solid. Drive does include 143MB of pre-installed software, driver files, and PDF manuals. Total available space shows as 931GB. Long story short, 4 stars for the past ... MoreI bought thus during a sale at an excellent price for 1TB of USB 3.0 storage in a slim form factor. The device performs well despite negative reviews found on Amazon and Toshiba's website. I've had it for about 1 month and it hasn't died. It stays plugged in to my desktop and always powers on and shows up in my drive list in the file explorer. Transfer speeds were more than adequate with the included USB 3.0 cable. It draws power from the cable which is a huge plus. My much larger 2TB backup drive needed a bulky AC adapter. So long power cable hassle! Can I vouch for long-term? No. But it appears to be solid. Drive does include 143MB of pre-installed software, driver files, and PDF manuals. Total available space shows as 931GB. Long story short, 4 stars for the past incident-free 4 weeks of ownership.

Does everything I expected it to do

Let's be honest here - this is a plug-and-play back-up hard drive, nothing fancy or exotic. I plugged it in, I copied files to it, I put it on the shelf. Hopefully they'll still be there if I ever want to access them.I particularly liked that it was straightforward and didn't encourage me to install backup software or anything else. It just works as is, assuming you know how to copy files from one place to another, or choose to use your own favorite backup program.The only other thing in the box is a short USB-A cable. My only wish is that they had used a standard USB connector on the drive end so that, if the cable got lost, as things like this are prone to doing, it could be replaced with a common cable rather than hoping that Toshiba still has a replacement ... MoreLet's be honest here - this is a plug-and-play back-up hard drive, nothing fancy or exotic. I plugged it in, I copied files to it, I put it on the shelf. Hopefully they'll still be there if I ever want to access them.I particularly liked that it was straightforward and didn't encourage me to install backup software or anything else. It just works as is, assuming you know how to copy files from one place to another, or choose to use your own favorite backup program.The only other thing in the box is a short USB-A cable. My only wish is that they had used a standard USB connector on the drive end so that, if the cable got lost, as things like this are prone to doing, it could be replaced with a common cable rather than hoping that Toshiba still has a replacement available.

External, portable, or PS4 upgrade

A very cost-effective upgrade for your laptop, pi, or PS4. Right now, these are cheaper than internal drives, and USB data transfer rate is basically the same as SATA. I think the ps4 has 2x USB 3 ports (4.8 Gbps), and the PS4 pro has 3x USB 3.1 (10 Gbps). They both use SATA2 for their internal drives (6 Gbps). You can store data and play games from the external drive, and it's not noticeably different in any loading times.

Get real

Solid, well made product from respected manufacturer. Wish the NTI EZ backup software was better documented and up to date (without having to pay for the latest version). I have mine as NAS on my Arris 6900AC Surfboard and it works great as a home-based cloud server for all our computers. The storage space is considerably smaller than the 4TB--depending on how you format and compress the drive. It comes with only about 3TB or less, otherwise. Truth in advertising! It's still a good amount of storage, though.

Keith's review of Canvio Ready Portable Hard Drive - 2 TB, Black

Pros: This is my 7th Canvio hard drive of different capacities bought over the last three and a half years - 4 mains-powered desktop models and 3 USB-powered like this one, all for back-up or off-line storage. This drive is used as a full time back-up for an iMac running Time Machine sitting behind the computer and untouched - just working all the time the computer is on. For use with a Mac the drive needs reformatting which takes a couple of minutes using the Mac's Disk Utility software - very simple. It runs quietly, remains cool and I'm hoping for the same reliability I've experienced with my previous Canvio hard drives.Cons: None for how it is used.

Poor Quality

Quality is an aberration at Microcenter. Quantity and cheap products prevail. Cheap products lead to poor design and outright fail. On the other hand I understand why Microcenter mandates a "cheap alternative" to proven brands for Financial reasons and logic.However, these poorly manufactured products fail often and Microcenter support or repair team are incapable of fixing them. My PC was in 4 times and the repair was simple yet the technicians could not resolve it. I unfortunately had to do it myself as Microcenter vaguely stated that they only "might" be able to fix it.It was a simple Basic Input and Output update that was needed. Since Microcenter was incapable and or unwilling to resolve this, I had to repair my PC due to my superior knowledge to the ... MoreQuality is an aberration at Microcenter. Quantity and cheap products prevail. Cheap products lead to poor design and outright fail. On the other hand I understand why Microcenter mandates a "cheap alternative" to proven brands for Financial reasons and logic.However, these poorly manufactured products fail often and Microcenter support or repair team are incapable of fixing them. My PC was in 4 times and the repair was simple yet the technicians could not resolve it. I unfortunately had to do it myself as Microcenter vaguely stated that they only "might" be able to fix it.It was a simple Basic Input and Output update that was needed. Since Microcenter was incapable and or unwilling to resolve this, I had to repair my PC due to my superior knowledge to the technicians at Microcenter.

Sleek and fast

I bought two of these drives for business to replace my old 2012-2015 1TB chunky drives. I am surprised with the small size and performance. I use Bitlocker so had to format the empty drives first and they were then locked in less than a minute. I chose these drives over WD as I had two WD USB drives fail within two years, but my old 2TB Canvio was slow and refused to Bitlock. Am likely to buy more as I need drives for business use. Delivery was on time, parcel left at door in paper bag.

Toshiba Portable Hard Drives Are Super

This is the third Toshiba 1Terabyte portable hard drive that I've bought. Each one just a bit cheaper than the last. I back up my photos monthly. Now that I have a business, I needed a third one just to back up work right out of the camera and as various levels of editing are done for the business. It is USB 3, so transfer rates are quick. My other Toshiba portable hard drives have survived drops, days in a hot car, airport security x-rays "the wand", chewed on by a customer's dog and being shipped by USPS and they have never lost a photo.

Would buy again

I just bought this external hard drive because I wanted to store pictures on it instead of taking up space on my computer. Anyhow after doing some research I decided on this one. When I received I looked over the directions and immediately connected to my computer. It was so easy to transfer the pictures from my computer to this device. There was no software to install which in my opinion is a plus. I think I transferred around 1600 pictures in less than 10 minutes time. The device is small in size.

great drive for a great price

My suggestion when you first receive the hard drive: 1) Right click, go to properties, then tools, then do an error check to make sure its operating normally. 2) Copy the files, folders, and documents from the hard drive to your computer and save in a folder in case you ever need to access the included software or warranty documents. 3) Re-format the hard drive (file system based on your operating system, default allocation unit size, uncheck quick format -- this is so it will do a thorough format, which will take some time) 4) When all is done, right click, go to properties, then tools, then do an error check to make sure everything is ok. 5) I always suggest unchecking "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties", then click ... MoreMy suggestion when you first receive the hard drive: 1) Right click, go to properties, then tools, then do an error check to make sure its operating normally. 2) Copy the files, folders, and documents from the hard drive to your computer and save in a folder in case you ever need to access the included software or warranty documents. 3) Re-format the hard drive (file system based on your operating system, default allocation unit size, uncheck quick format -- this is so it will do a thorough format, which will take some time) 4) When all is done, right click, go to properties, then tools, then do an error check to make sure everything is ok. 5) I always suggest unchecking "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties", then click apply. The next screen will ask you which folders/subfolders -- highlight all subfolders and click ok. This will keep your system from indexing the files. Indexing speeds up search times. But for external hard drives, this "speeding up" (which is initiated every time you plug up the drive) is equivalent to the amount of extra time it takes to search for files that are not indexed. So, basically you dont need this feature and it will essentially reduce resource drag on your system. In fact, you should turn off indexing for your entire system in order to reduce resource drag. But thats just my personal opinion.