Performance, Capacity and Compatibility - The Storage You Need Toshiba's Desktop 3.5" internal hard drives provide a convenient and reliable way to upgrade every major brand of desktop computer. We combine our proven and reliable hard drive technology with a Serial ATA interface to provide increased performance, capacity and compatibility. Compatible with every major brand of Serial ATA enabled desktop computer, our hard drives use proven state of the art Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) technology, Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and TMR Head Recording technology for increased capacity, reliability and performance.
Pros: UPDATE: We've now been using the 2TB version of this drive for over two and a half years and it has been flawless. Originally, it was used in a Hybrid-drive setup along with an SSD. Then we got a larger capacity SSD as our boot drive so the Toshiba became just for temporary and long term data storage. For editing large home video clips a lot of data is written to the drive then deleted later. Also, we have hundreds of CDs ripped to this drive and we play long playlists from it several days a week. Overall, the drive gets a lot of use and it has held up well; it remains nearly silent and performance has not dropped off other than the usual slowdown that occurs when the drive is 2/3 full! Very good performance by itself or in Hybrid drive setup.<br><br>Runs quietly.<br><br>3-year warranty.
Cons: none so far
Overall Review: A lot of "bare drives" from Toshiba and other brands got bad reviews here and it was often because of poor packaging which didn't protect the drives during shipping. We chose the retail version of the Toshiba because of its more secure packaging and we've had no problems. Several friends bought the retail Toshibas, too, and no one has experienced a dead or damaged drive. We use the 2TB version of this drive in combination with an SSD to create a fast Hybrid drive. The SSD works as a cache for frequently-accessed files, giving your system SSD-like speed but with large storage capacity, too.<br><br>Many newer motherboards can use the free Intel Smart Response to create a Hybrid drive. For older motherboards (which may be limited by having older/slower SATA II ports) you can use an add-on SATA III controller card such as SYBA SD-PEX40054 or similar which includes an excellent feature called HyperDuo. This feature allows you to use a large or small capacity SSD and HDD to form a fast Hybrid drive. Choosing the "Safe" option during setup will store frequently-accessed files on both the SSD (for speed) and also on the HDD. The other option is "Capacity" mode where frequently-accessed files are only stored on the SSD and total storage capacity becomes SSD + HDD. <br><br>The Toshiba with its 7200 rpm spin speed and 64MB cache is fast enough and quiet enough to use as a boot drive all by itself and, in combination with any good SSD of, say, 32GB capacity or larger it forms a real high-performance system with plenty of storage capacity if you choose to go the Hybrid route.<br><br>In any case, a 3TB drive will yield about 2.83TB of usable capacity after formatting, while a 2TB drive will yield about 1.89TB after formatting.