Toshiba Canvio Advance HDTC940XK3CA 4 TB Portable Hard Drive - 2.5" External

Pros: + A ton of space: 2TB (1.81TB ~ usable) Includes automated backup software (download) USB 3.0 USB powered. LED power indicator. Decent Transfer speeds. Textured surface provides slip resistance. Light weight. Pocket sized. Runs cool and silent. Removable, and replaceable USB cord. Price point. Red.

Cons: - no rubber feet, so it might slide around on smooth surfaces.

Overall Review: ~ This is an excellent drive, it offers a ton of space in modern stylish design at a competitive price. The activity light is a soft and easy to look at blue LED. It has a nice slightly matte finish, in a red color tone that is somewhat close to crimson in hue. As an external USB 2.5 inch mechanical drive, the transfer speeds wont break any records, but I did have some excellent results in real world tests which exceeded my expectations. I was able to transfer a Pictures folder with 5895 files totaling 3.30GB in just 1:39, then I measured the transfer time of large files with a 14.4 GB folder of 12 .mp4’s copied over in just 1:49. This was a transfer from a mechanical drive from my desktop PC, the external drive was connected by USB 3.0. The drive had been up and running for about a minute or so, the time would have been longer if the drive was spinning up from standby before initializing the transfer. Crystal Disk Mark 64bit results were decent, and outperformed other major brands external USB 3.0 drives I have bench marked in the past. Sequential Read: 147.263 MB/s Sequential Write: 150.858 MB/s Random Read 4K: 0.559 MB/s [136.5 IOPS] Random Write 4K: 5.628 MB/s [1374.0 IOPS] The automated Toshiba Storage Backup Software that is included by downloads is easy to use and understand. Simply select folders or files, and choose how often to back up; hourly, daily, weekly or monthly. Then you can select day of the week and time of day to begin the backup. Once set, the software will automatically backup the files or folders you selected, at the given time, the backup is then saved into a single backup file, and will overwrite previous saves. The backup software won’t complete the backup if the PC goes into sleep or powers down during the backup phase, so you would want to make sure your laptop or PC is in a normal power cycle when scheduling. Overall I have been very satisfied with this Toshiba Canvio Advance. The performance has met and exceeded my expectations and 2TB capacity of this external drive is more than plenty for most needs. I would recommend this drive as a daily or weekly backup or storage drive. If you have critical data for storage or backup, I always recommend redundancy and have multiple backup solutions. However for the average user this drive should fit the needs for backup and storage, any backup is always better than none.

Pros: 2TB for $70? What a deal. With the rise of SSD technology, the old spinning hard drives are starting to slowly come down in price. This is really affordable to the average consumer needing extra storage. It may be a regular hard drive, but it does connect via USB 3.0, offering decent transfer speeds for important files. It is small enough to fit in your pocket and will only take up a little space in your bag/backpack. The device I received was white, which is one of my favorite colors. Doing some speed tests on this device, it's Read speed was about 135-150 MB/s while the Write was about 145-150 MB/s. Even though it is a spinning disk drive, it is very quite in its operation. It doesn't get too hot like other drives I have owned in the past, so your support leg will thank you. Also available is software to use to backup files on your computer to this drive. It is very simple and effective.

Cons: I did not run into any issues with this device.

Overall Review: Overall, I would recommend to those needing a bit more storage space or a backup solution for a laptop/desktop. It is very portable for on the go use.

Pros: - 3 TB - 140 MB/s read and write speed on USB 3 (copying 2GB movie files) - fast enough for me and what was expected - Virtually silent - I like the blue (mine) and the option for other colors to easily identify what I use it for - The packaging looked robust enough to protect it from shock during shipping and handling - Portable - Easy plug and play - The warranty and some other information are preloaded onto it (not really a big deal, but its there)

Cons: - The packaging is not as pretty as some other products I have seen. There is plastic and maybe somebody else (not me) cares

Overall Review: Four eggs only because I have only had it for a couple days. If it is still working after a year I will upgrade to five. There really isn't much to review here. Its a portable hard drive and 3 TB is not too shabby. The R/W speed is what you would expect and perfect for backups and other non-critical storage bandwidth tasks. You might even do OK loading large files for games or other if you don't have any SSD options. As one other review mentioned you get just about all you can get from a 5400 rpm drive. 5400rpm drives tend to last longer too. I want to go out on a limb here and say maybe the 7200 rpm drives and faster just don't add too much any more. Properly managed SSD and 5400rpm space gives you 99.9% of your storage size and bandwidth needs and has a higher probability of longevity. I have a RAID 5 array with five drives that has lasted for over 10 years! I tested this on a node with USB 3. I am going to put it to use on the media/backup server using USB 2. It would be fine to stream 10 or more HD movies simultaneously, but I am just going to put all the backups on there. If I ever have to evacuate, Ill just take it with me. Update (3/25/19) - Still Works Great!

Pros: The drive feels solidly constructed and the red color is nice, I consider it to be a cardinal red or almost a shade of maroon. Benchmarks look good for a mechanical disk. For standard to large size files, the drive does 100-135 MB/s read and write speeds. Drive temps stayed low while performing benchmarks.

Cons: Not the biggest fan of glossy plastic devices as they show fingerprints and scratches in no time, but I don't see that it will be an issue beyond cosmetic appearance. It is a little physically large for a portable drive, but the 3TB of storage more than makes up for the larger size.

Overall Review: I formatted the drive with exFAT since I have computers that are Windows, Mac and Linux and ran benchmarks using ATTO Disk Benchmark on a Dell Latitude E7440 running Windows 7. The drive will be best used while stationary as it has a strong gyroscopic effect if you pick it up while it is operational, and this affects the read/write speeds. The 2 year warranty is pretty standard for consumer hard disks. Benchmark results SIZE WRITE (MB/s) READ (MB/s) ------------------------------------------------------------- 512B 5.4 6.4 1KB 11.3 12.4 2KB 22.3 23.0 4KB 40.1 43.0 8KB 74.1 74.7 16KB 112.7 109.8 32KB 135.2 134.6 64KB 135.6 134.4 128KB 136.0 134.0 256KB 136.1 135.1 512KB 135.5 134.1 1MB 135.0 134.8

Pros: This is a nice portable hard drive from Toshiba. It is stylish, light weight, and very compact. I’d actually say the least portable thing about it is the cord, as otherwise, it literally fits in my pocket. It seems like it would be fairly durable, I hauled it around in my bag for a few weeks with my laptop knocking around and it’s no worse for wear. All in all, the drive feels well built, it operates cool and quietly, just about silently. Its modern USB 3.0 interface promises fast performance. When benchmarking the speed of the drive, I obtained the following results: Average Read Rate: 132.4/s (500 samples) Average Write Rate: 31.4MB/s (500 samples)

Cons: As you can see above, after doing that write benchmark, I was not super impressed by the write speeds. I understand that this is a 2.5” hard drive, so portability is the main concern, and I can cut Toshiba a little slack here. Still, at 31MB/s, it would take almost 9 hours to fill this 1TB hard drive. If I needed to move some large files around in a hurry, this wouldn’t be the first drive I’d grab, unless the files were already on the drive. That said - the initial write speeds at the start of my benchmark were around 130MB/s, but they quickly dipped after the first 50 or so samples. I’m not sure if this was due to some sort of thermal throttling (but the drive didn’t feel hot) or due to filling up some kind of cache that was boosting the performance in the beginning of the tests. If you were just copying a gigabyte or two, you might not see this poor performance, and it might perform at or above 100MB/s for you. How big of a deal this is would really depend on your use case.

Overall Review: Overall, this is a nice little portable drive, and I’ll definitely get some use out of it. For a basic user who is moving some documents around, it’ll probably be a good choice for you. I would just shy away from any use cases that involve dumping a few hundred gigabytes of data on to it in any short amount of time.

Pros: Great price for a 1tb portable. Easy to use on the go storage for anyone. The transfer speeds and OK and expected for a USB 3.0 speeds. I got 130 to 150 Mbs reads and just under that for writes. Load times for movies was at least adequate and was seamless. It's small and it looks nice. No issues with formatting, worked well.

Cons: I have no Cons for this drive.

Overall Review: I typically have a lot more to say on the pro and con sides but to be honest this is straight up you get what you pay for. It's worth every penny you will spend but there is nothing spectacular about it. You could get a portable ssd but have to spend a lot more cash for those speeds. Whether or not that is worth it is up to the individual. If you need one I would recommend it.

Pros: + Compact form factor with a slimmer design than that of the competition + USB 3.0 with speeds up to 135MB/s, with a minimum of 60MB/s + Security software allows password protecting the hard drive and enabling drive encryption + Extremely quiet when in use + 2 year warranty

Cons: - Lack of rubber feet on the bottom of the drive to keep it in place when in use - Plastic enclosure will make the hard drive run in the mid 40 degree Celsius range under load - Glossy exterior which will scuff very easily

Overall Review: Toshiba has currently has 3 main product lines for the external hard drives (Standard, Advanced, and Pro), with this one being positioned in-between. For those considering which drive to purchase, the more basic (Standard) model comes with a 1 year warranty instead of 2 year. Also it does not allow use of Toshiba’s password protection and backup programs. The Pro model, retains all of the features of the Advanced series, but gains a 3 year warranty and an aluminum enclosure for better heat dissipation, and is compatible with USB Type-C connectors.

Pros: The good stuff... + Quick file transfer. + Single cable. + Compact design and color choices. + Security software is easy to use. The Canvio is pretty quick when copying files using my computers. When the Canvio is formatted as NTFS, the file transfers on my Windows 10 PC using USB 3.0 is roughly 133MB/s to 145MB/s for a 500MB file and 143MB/s to 147MB/s for a 2GB file. Using a USB 2.0 on my older MacBook Pro, the file transfer is roughly 93MB/s for both the 500MB and 2GB files. The real difference here is USB 2 vs USB 3. The drive has a sleek compact design with a single short USB 3 cable allowing the drive to take up as little space as possible for mobility. In my opinion, you wouldn't want a long cable to wrestle with on a mobile drive. I like that several color choices are available to help fit your personal preference rather than being stuck with black or white. I have the red which is dark rich red. Nice color. The security software was easy enough to install in a few minutes and encrypt the drive. The software will need to be installed on the computers you intend to use the encrypted drive on. When you plug the encrypted drive back in, you will be immediate prompted for the password by the installed software. The encryption software installer is available on the unencrypted partition if needed. I didn't use the software enough to give an opinion beyond the ease of installation and use.

Cons: Issues during my experience... - Backup software schedule required just to use it. - Encryption software missing feature to remove drive as encrypted. - Glossy case shows small scratches easily. To perform a manual backup, I had to configure a backup schedule first and then I was prompted with the option to perform a manual backup. I was able to make a manual backup at anytime after that. Once I formatted the drive, effectively removing the encryption, I could not find how to remove the drive as encrypted in the software. Everytime I plugged the drive in, the encryption software prompted for a password. I uninstalled the software and I was no longer prompted for a password. The top part of the case that is colored is glossy and the bottom part that isn't visible is a black matte finish. The glossy part shows fingerprints and micro-scratches easily; but such is life with any glossy finish plastic. Maybe glossy isn't the best choice for a mobile drive. I'm not going to crack an egg over any of the issues I listed above. If I were serious about making a backup, I would use a product from a developer that is focused on backups. It's a bonus for Toshiba to include the software and I can see its uses. The encryption software issue is probably the most annoying, but easily corrected by uninstalling and, again, a nice bonus that Toshiba provided. The glossy plastic showing fingerprints and scratches is, in my opinion, just the nature of glossy plastic.

Overall Review: The drive works great on both Windows and Mac OS. The software does not work on Mac OS and the drive will need to be partitioned with a Mac compatible one; opposed to the Windows NTFS. Overall, I think it's a great drive that is compact for mobility. As long as you aren't hung up on on fingerprints and micro-scratches, I say go for it. If you found this review helpful, please let me know.