HGST Touro Desk 4TB USB 3.0 Black External Hard Drive HTOLDX3NB40001ABB

Pros: High Capacity

Cons: I tried adding files to it, it would add some and tell me that there was a io devise error on that hard drive. I did a test with HD tune and over half the hard drive came back as damaged. I dont want my money back i just want it replaced!

Other Thoughts: Hope the next 1 works better

Pros: -4TB of storage
-USB 3.0
-Low Price

Cons: -Speed Can be a bit slow compared to e-sata, but it is external. Even with 3.0, I found it to only transfer around 122mb a second high and 90mb a second average.
-Gets very hot! Using temperature monitors (software and hardware) This thing hits 53 C very quickly. I put my laptop cooling pad underneath it one night and managed to keep it in the high 40s. This makes it okay for backup purposes (which is what I use it for) but I do not recommend it for everyday use at those #s. If you do, find a quick cooling solution.

Other Thoughts: I purchased 2 of these for external backups of my data incase my raid on my home file server ever experienced an issue (its hardware so anything from a motherboard to Raid failure could be an issue). I have nowhere near 4 tb of data so I cloned the 2 external until the day I need both. I ran HD sentinel and Crystal disk with these things plugged in, and health stayed at 100% with a few days of use. I am very happy with these drives. It wiped the bad taste out of my mouth after owning a failing HGST drive in the past (probably just chance or inadequate care on my part).

Pros: Lots of space, no errors copying two 2TB drives to this 4TB drive. Very quiet drive.

Cons: Drive only spins down when computer is powered off. It took almost 3 days to transfer 3.5TB of movie files. Not a fan of the large enclosure.

Pros: Price and Huge capacity to back up my WHS.

Been reliable so far and I feel confident it will serve me well in the coming years.

Cons: None.

For the price....it might be worth buying one or more and simply pull the drives out of the enclosure for a NAS build. These are not the 7200rpm drives, but should do the job for mass storage.

Other Thoughts: These drives are specifically for mass storage and not speed, so people should understand that before purchasing.

My WHS does not have USB 3 ports so the backups take a little longer, but I just simply plug in the USB cable, add the drive through the WHS console and run the backup. The backup only loads new or updated files, so its not like a complete backup is needed each time.

Due to the low price per gig, I'm tempted to buy two of these to replace the 4 drives (4T total) currently in my server, but since the servers been running 24/7 over the past 4 years....better to leave it alone for now. I'm looking at upgrading the MB/CPU soon, so I'll revisit this in the coming months.

Pros: This external hard drive (4TB model) to a solid product, and does exactly what you expect. Plug in the AC adapter, plug in the included USB 3.0 cable, and you're up and running. There is also a place for a security lock to keep it from (easily) being stolen. Low noise from the drive, low heat

Since some of us run Linux instead of other hard drives, I can say that this drive works great under Arch Linux. Supports any file system you want with no fuss (LUKS + ext4 for example)

Cons: No power switch, so to turn it off you need to unplug the AC adapter. Power and activity LED is blue, which I'm not a fan of. The preferred orientation for this drive is vertical, which I'm not a fan of either.

Included power cable and USB 3.0 cable are somewhat short at about a meter length each.

As far as I can tell, it is not bus powered, and requires the AC adapter to function. This makes it a poor drive if you need portability.

Other Thoughts: Even with USB 2.0, file transfer speed is preppy. The physical drive is fairly large, but not unreasonably so. It's slightly larger in volume than 2 3.5" desktop drives layered on each other.

Pros: HUGE...fairly quick for an external. Can't beat the price. Ryns cool and quiet. So far, I have transferred 700Gb to the drive.

Cons: None...but then, I can read specifications and know what I am buying for my needs. I also know what I am doing, unlike most of the folks who rate HDDs at 1 or 2 eggs.

Other Thoughts: There are always a few DOAs...usually due to rough handling by the shipper...but, honestly, if you paid attention to the average 1/2 egg raters, you would swear that HDDs have a 50% failure rate. Get real, eh?

These are big drives for storage of huge files.

As for those who say they lost data during a crash...uh, you mean you didn't keep a copy of your original data? LOL Commercial aircraft usually have 4 back-up systems. Learning from that, I always have my data stored on at least two different drives...sometimes three. I have never lost a single byte of data. No, it isn't luck...it is planning to store stuff that is really important to you. If you copy your old files to a new drive, why wouldn't you still have the data on your original HDD?

Look, these are great drives. ither buy one...or just move on. HDD makers are not responsible for acts of stupidity on the part of the end user.

Pros: Plenty of space, small in size, fast USB 3.0 connection. I returned it to newegg just because it did NOT serve my purpose. The product is great however. If you want it for something other than backup for WHS 2011, go for it, it's worth it.

Cons: Does not work with Windows Home Server 2011 as a backup drive for the server. I tried different file formats, different cluster sizes, nothing works. The server says it has been setup correctly, but the backup process was never successful, the error says, something went wrong with the IO. Changed to another USB port, the same thing. I contacted support, this is their response "In this drive is a 4K native HDD. Unfortunately 4K Native drives cannot be used for window backup on window 7 and ealier, including server 2011. This is a known window issue that has absolutely no work arraound at the moment". And they also mentioned "However window 8 and server 2012 supports this function for 4K native drives"

I hope this is helpful to someone.

Other Thoughts: Mine said Toshiba on the side, not what is shown in the picture, it does not matter to me, but worth stating. I would buy one if it served my purpose.

Pros: Have been CONTINUOUSLY (SMART total stop/start count=5; 49 days powered on) writing/reading to this drive; now almost full. Hard Disk Sentinel Pro shows in perfect health (as in no relocated sectors). Max lifetime temperature=109F.

Cons: Does require additional cooling (see my solution with an external usb fan in previous review below). With the additional cooling, can't complain.

Given it's an external case, it does take an additional power socket for the brick.

Pros: Cheap, lot of space, consistent file speed

Cons: Slow, cords could be longer

Other Thoughts: Moaned and cried in the NewEgg reviews after the first drive was DOA. After the pain and suffering of waiting 16 days from the original order date I got a working drive. I doubt it's the drive's fault, the box was probably mishandled somewhere along the route in shipping, but that's the way it goes. File transfers are slow with this drive, around 25MB/s. While the transfers were slow, they were extremely consistent, no dips, no spikes. As with other 3.5 external drives, there is a power adapter which is another thing to plug in or lug around.

Pros: Looks good on the desk. Maybe I can use them as paper weights?

Cons: No power switch, no fan. Don't expect long life without proper cooling.

Other Thoughts: I purchased (3) of these as a shell shocker deal for 160. each. It seemed like a good deal at the time. They were all recognized by Windows 7 at thier full drive capacity using NTFS. I did not have to reformat to GPT. I tested this on three different PC's and they all worked. Everything seemed okay until I ran WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics (long test - takes about 10 hours per/ drive). I was surprised that the first one failed due to "too many sector errors". Then I tested the other two and was shocked when they failed for the same reason. These were brand new out of the box. According to the software, they were Hitachi HDS5C4040ALE630 drives. I immediately send them back for a refund. I plan on purchasing WD red drives the next time they are on sale with external enclosures. At least the red's have a three year warranty. HGST has their own diagnostic utility but, I never tried it. I am not familiar with it and they could possibly have a higher failure thresh hold set (which could make them pass)? I strongly suggest anyone who has purchased these to run a long diagnostic test and move your data immediately if any errors are detected. Maybe I just got a bad batch, but why take the risk of loosing 4TB of data! Also, if you look at the the companies website reviews, there is a lot of negative feedback too.