Toshiba Canvio Basics 3.0

Trustworthy – After a bad run with Seagate drives failing, I have switched to Toshiba (laptop and pc) without issue, so this external drive was an easy choice especially at a good price Show details

Great for large data storage – I got this along with my camera and honestly this is the best external hard drive i have ever used, its quiet, fairly slim and transfer speeds are very fast and although i wish there was a larger option as i have already filled a quarter up in a few months other than that its a great product  Show details

For the money this little drive is great – The positives: - No frills. Does what it is supposed to do and ONLY that! - Works straight out of the box - No fancy software to go wrong, slurp data or fur up Windows. - No power supply required - Powers down when not in use (Very important when used for NAS or on battery powered devs) - No annoying web based signups or extra stuff to buy … Read more

The Negatives: (Picking at threads here)

- I hate bright blue LEDs on things (no need)

- No facility to plug in external power (Would be useful for connecting to low power devs)

- Apparently Discontinued (Still available in stores)

- Quite power hungry will not share USB hubs well unless externally powered.

I have two of these drives (One 2gb one 1gb) both have performed well and I have had no issues or data loss.

I use these drives with the USB 3 port on my Router (RT-AC68U) to provide dirt cheap, but useably fast NAS storage at home.

I am about to purchase a few more as they are cheap enough to be a backup solution to my desktop. I will probably try the 3tb ones.

It is a real shame that Toshiba have decided to discontinue this line. I much prefer the aesthetics of this to the newer Toshiba drives and I am really a no-frills kinda guy. I like the keep is simple approach as there is less to go wrong.

It is also worth noting that there is not a long list of people giving bad ratings. Given all magnetic drives are at risk of failure and people are very quick to give bad reviews when they lose all their precious data I would say this is a good sign!

Quiet and reliable so far – It could be a little bit slimmer, but it is priced very competitively and does the job. There are better options out there if portability is important to you. This is a no-frills drive that does everything it should, but it won't stand out from the crowd with any special features.  Show details

Excellent quiet and slim drive, last one which still has standard SATA drive internally – While this is a review for the most recent (version 3) of the Cavio Basics drives, the HDTB310AW3AA which is a white slim unit, I actually own both the version 1 and the version 2 as well which are still working perfectly so this review applies to all of the Cavio Bascs series. All 3 revisions use similar drives internally, the same VIA… Read more

controller chip and identical USB cables.

The device performance is great, it sustained a consistent 70MB/s over USB3 for large file transfers. Construction-wise I'm impressed, the hard drive casing is extremely well made with slightly rounded corners and hard plastic. The standard microUSB 3.0 socket is also well secured by the casing which should mitigate damage somewhat. This socket is STANDARD, it also works fine with a good quality standard MicroUSB 2.0 cable.

Noise-wise, this is a quiet drive apart from some usual clicking noises.

An indicator light on the top indicates Blue for USB3 while White indicates a USB2 connection.

The drive comes formatted as standard Windows NTFS however I was able to format it to a different filesystem (FAT32 in this case) without any problems unlike some drives currently on the market. Mac users should have no trouble formatting this to HFS though I have not personally tested this.

The best news: This drive has a USB-SATA board inside which is very unusual in this day and age., what this means is that if the USB port is damaged, this drive can be taken apart (with difficulty), the USB-SATA module removed fro m the standard drive and your precious data recovered from the standard SATA drive.

Not so good with this drive is that the USB cable is the same "basic" quality 30 CM cord and prone to being bent, not necessarily a bad thing as a strong plug could instead damage the socket on the drive.

Highly Recommended. Be sure if you are buying the latest revision white model which I recently purchased 2 of, that you get the model number DTB310, aka HDTB310AW3AA. Date code from mine is 10/14 Earlier dates should be almost guaranteed a SATA drive but later dates may have gone to a native USB drive. The dangers of the native USB on most current models means that the usb socket breaks, your data is toast.

Technical information including my own tests

Model: HDTB310AW3AA

Drive: 3.5 inch standard 9.5 mm height SATA drive.

Model: Toshiba MQ01ABD100, ATA-8, Serial ATA 3.0, 5,400 rpm,

USB-SATA: VIA VL711 USB 3.0 to SATA Bridge chip.

Spin up: 5 Seconds

Head Park: 15 seconds

Spin down: 180 Seconds

Power consumption (USB2.0)

Reading: 500mA

Heads parked: 150mA

Idle spindown: 40mA

Does what it's supposed to, so I'm happy – The Toshiba 1TB Canvio Basics 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive, is compact fast and USB 2 & 3 compatable, which is what I wanted and what I got, as long as it last a few years, like others I have bought I will be over the moon. I have bigger and smaller usb's but for the size and price this was brilliant Compact and fast. Portable

Great little portable hard drive – Fantastic little Toshiba portable hard drive, we can download heaps of stuff, it never fails . The size of the hard drive is great as it is physically small it can be transported with us at all times, therefore enabling us to copy or download programs etc. wherever and whenever we require to do so. The delivery was almost immediate it arrived… Read more

within a few days which is great as we live out of town. It's very small and easy transportable wherever and whenever we need it