Toshiba Canvio 1.0 TB USB 3.0 Basics Portable Hard Drive – HDTB110XK3BA (Black)
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- USB 3.0-powered portable add-on storage.
- Easy to use with no software to install.
- Protects your drive (Internal Shock Sensor and Ramp Loading Technology).
- Gives you peace of mind (Toshiba 1-Year Limited Warranty).
- Plug and play operation.
Canvio Basics 3.0 products have been designed and manufactured in accordance with Toshiba’s high quality product standards, incorporating the latest technology and user-interface, while ensuring best-in-class performance, quality and workmanship. With Toshiba’s Canvio Basics 3.0 Portable Hard Drives, you’ll enjoy portable storage space for even the largest digital libraries. Our 1TB Drive is capable of storing up to: 285,000 digital photos, or 263,000 digital music files, or 820 downloaded digital movies. Each Canvio Basics 3.0 Portable Hard Drive includes an internal shock sensor and ramp loading technology to help keep your drive safe. Storage for your computer made simple. Future proof with USB 3.0 interface and backwards compatible with USB 2.0, Toshiba’s Canvio Basics 3.0 Portable Hard Drives are an ideal portable add-on storage expansion solution that makes your storage easy and simple. Extremely portable with a compact design, the sleek looking and post card sized Canvio Basics
Hard Drives
Toshiba Canvio 1.0 TB USB 3.0 Basics Portable Hard Drive – HDTB110XK3BA (Black)
List Price: $ 119.99
Price:
Please Read if Your Drive Isn’t “Recognized” Anymore. An Easy Primer and Tutorial.,
Many people have complained about the Toshiba 2.5″ drives (of all capacities and price points) quickly ‘dying’ after a very short time. This opinion is prevalent on both Amazon and other shopping sites and even Toshiba’s direct site itself.
I was in the same boat. My Canvio Basics failed to be “recognized” by my PC within 1 month. My 2-star rating reflects this.
HOWEVER, this is directed toward those who believe “all [my] valuable data is lost forever”. I conjecture that 99% of the time it is not, and there is a relatively very simple & inexpensive fix.
The problem is most likely not with the drive itself but rather the ‘bridge’ circuitry between the drive and the USB connection. There is most likely nothing wrong with the drive itself, and thus nor is there anything wrong with your data. Such was also the case with me.
These drives, regardless of manufacturer or capacity, are essentially identical in their ‘guts’. The difference is often nothing more than what you see: packaging, branding, bloatware, and other brand-specific identities. Indeed, crack open a lesser-known brand (Calvary, Fantom, etc.) and there’s a good chance you will actually see Toshiba, Hitachi, Western Digital, or some other recognizable name’s ‘guts’ inside.
Here is how to fix the problem.
1. Purchase a 2.5″ SATA-to-USB enclosure. Amazon lists them for as little as $3. If you are fortunate enough to live close to a MicroCenter, they sell them for $6. Yes this is extra money and hassle, but your data is worth it, and I presume for many of you this is more convenient than dealing with returning the drive. You probably purchased this drive because it was over $6 cheaper anyway.
2. The drive casing is a 2-piece shell. Use an Exacto knife or boxcutter to gently pry/’slice’ open the seam between the 2 pieces. Once you get it ‘started’ it will be quite easy to pop apart the rest of the fasteners.
3. From here it is simply a plug-and-play situation. Disengage (‘unplug’) the drive from the circuitry. Be gentle (use the wiggle method). Then ‘plug’ the drive into your new enclosure and, *Voila*.
There are several Youtube videos showing this as well.
Now, there are several sites/Youtube videos that claim this is not a permanent solution, due to the ‘delicate balance’ of the rubber bumpers in the original drive. I smell bull-manure, but only time will tell… maybe this new setup will last until the expected life of the drive, maybe it won’t. Also, the $3/6 new enclosures will not support USB 3.0; you’ll indeed have to shell out extra money for that. Regardless, this process will almost certainly buy you enough time to find another place for your data.
All is not lost! Hope this helps.
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|Saved my bacon! UPDATE: FAILED @ 16 DAYS,
UPDATE: Got this drive December 6th and as of December 22nd it is dead. My review below is still sound advice. Sound advice which I failed to heed 100% and I lost a week’s worth of valuable stuff because I didn’t have enough layers of backup. Oy vey. I’m demoting this drive to 1-star from 5 because, solid warranty aside, this is clearly a very poor drive. DO NOT BUY. Forget USB 3.0, bring back the old USB 2.0 Toshiba Canvio that actually worked! I should have trusted the reviews but I was desperate. If only it had lasted 3 more days…
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I’m traveling and my client’s ol’ iMac hard drive decided to go out to pasture.
I had the novel idea of ordering one of these Toshibas, having her hook it up to her computer, then use the Seagate backup drive I had for her to essentially restore her system onto the Toshiba! This way she could have a fully functioning machine while she waits for me to come back to town and do a proper hard drive swap.
So this is a weird review in that what I’m saying is: it’s good enough to run your entire Mac off of, over USB, should you find yourself in a similar, unfortunate situation.
Now, caveat: you normally want these hard drives to have better ratings but desperate times called for this purchase. With Thailand having flooded, hard drive prices soared in some instances and drives that I used to get with 3-year warranties, now have 1!
You really need these hard drives to have 3-5 year warranties. They’re either going to die on arrival, in the first 30 days, in the first 4 months, or after a couple years :p Lol I know. 500GB drives are the most I would personally go with in this 2.5″ form factor. 1TB in this size squeezes more platters or density into a smaller size… it’s just too new for my tastes (with 3.5″ drives I’ve been happy up to 2TB but am starting to look at 3TB ratings). The new USB 3.0 feature isn’t necessary for me — I don’t have any clients that can access that speed yet … and, ironically, this new “improvement” makes me the most worried… any time they mess with something that works, you should worry… USB 2.0 works fine! But whatever, since USB 3.0 is about the little board inside this enclosure and not the hard drive, maybe they can’t screw it up so much.
Here’s the deal, anything important to you should be in two places — at least. Main drive and backup. Archive and archive backup…. CD and DVD backups only last like 5 years when you burn them yourself… I mean, they may last longer but sun, temperature, time means they can’t be your primary backup. If it were me, I’d have all my important stuff in 3 places! That way if one hard drive fails, then my stuff is still in two other places. What are the odds of two places going at once? I’ve seen it happen; I’ve had it happen….It’s rare but sometimes you can screw up your backup drive while you’re using it to recover your computer! Oh this wily universe.
So that’s why you do something like have your main stuff on one drive, an active backup drive, and then you have a third drive that’s in your lockbox or firesafe or whatever. It may be healthy to let things get destroyed every so often but that’s not my style… 80 to 160 bones (for two) is cheap data insurance without futzing with or trusting the Cloud to CYA.
Oh, and should your drive die, just go online and find the RMA/warranty process… all these hard drive manufacturers make it fairly straightforward because, honestly, drive failures happen all the time …. 3-5 year warranties mean you get a replacement drive for the price of shipping. So worth it.
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|Good basic portable HDD,
Toshiba Canvio 1.0 TB USB 3.0 Basics Portable Hard Drive – HDTB110XK3BA (Black)
I have this drive for only one day.
This review is for people who are thinking about a portable USB 3 drive.
A few reviewers has posted problems with a different version of this drive.
I was concerned about having trouble with my computers’ USB 2 ports not able to support this drive.
I found out that it has no problem with USB 2 ports on my 1 yr old desk top and 3 yr old laptop.
It came with 15 inch long USB 3 cable which works fine.
I was also able to use my old 3 feet USB 2 cable for my Logitech Harmony just fine with this drive. That saves me one cable as I hate to have too many cables on my desk. It does not accept standard mini-USB jack that I use for all other portable HDDs that I have because USB 3 jack is of different size/shape.
Amazon product description says something about pre-loaded backup software, but I do not find any. I am not surprised as this is a basic version. I do not like to use included back up softwares anyway as SyncToy is the only backup program that I need and use.
Some reviewers report loud noise. I do not notice any excessive noice levels and the noise is about per with my prior portable HDD drives from WD and Toshiba. It became warm after writing ~ 200 GB, again, about same as other drives.
So far, I am happy with this HDD.
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4/12/12
Working fine with light use as a back up drive after about 4 mths.
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