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Toshiba HDTB410XK3AA Canvio Basics 1TB Portable External Hard Drive...
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Customer reviews
- Toshiba HDTB410XK3AA Canvio Basics 1TB Portable External Hard Drive...
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- Customer reviews
Top positive review
MAC compatible, easy peasy
October 9, 2017
PERFECT!
I was looking for a MAC time machine backup drive and noticed the external drives labeled as MAC were $10 - $15 more. I then read the Q&A on this drive and someone gave the most perfect instructions:
"right out of the box it's not Mac ready, but the solution is real easy. You go to Utilities and open up Disk Utility. With the drive plugged in, select it and go to the Erase tab and there should be a drop down menu with Format. Select Mac OS and click erase and after that's done, the drive should be formatted for Mac and you can save to your heart's content."
I might only add where to find Disk Utility in case you didn't know ... in finder go to the applications folder and in that folder is utilities and in that folder is disk utility.
I did just as the person in Q&A said and the second it was done reformatting a box came up asking if I wanted to use this drive as a time machine backup drive. I said yes, and within 107 seconds I was done. Color me impressed!
We got the 1tb drive because we have a 1tb 21.5" iMac from Nov 2013.
I hope this helps someone. I will update this review later as to longevity of the drive.
UPDATE: May 6, 2018
7 months later and this little backup drive does what it should do. We have never needed to utilize the files it stores, but it is nice to know the files are there. I periodically check to make sure my Mac is recording on this drive and it functions perfectly as a time machine drive.
I was looking for a MAC time machine backup drive and noticed the external drives labeled as MAC were $10 - $15 more. I then read the Q&A on this drive and someone gave the most perfect instructions:
"right out of the box it's not Mac ready, but the solution is real easy. You go to Utilities and open up Disk Utility. With the drive plugged in, select it and go to the Erase tab and there should be a drop down menu with Format. Select Mac OS and click erase and after that's done, the drive should be formatted for Mac and you can save to your heart's content."
I might only add where to find Disk Utility in case you didn't know ... in finder go to the applications folder and in that folder is utilities and in that folder is disk utility.
I did just as the person in Q&A said and the second it was done reformatting a box came up asking if I wanted to use this drive as a time machine backup drive. I said yes, and within 107 seconds I was done. Color me impressed!
We got the 1tb drive because we have a 1tb 21.5" iMac from Nov 2013.
I hope this helps someone. I will update this review later as to longevity of the drive.
UPDATE: May 6, 2018
7 months later and this little backup drive does what it should do. We have never needed to utilize the files it stores, but it is nice to know the files are there. I periodically check to make sure my Mac is recording on this drive and it functions perfectly as a time machine drive.
638 people found this helpful
Top critical review
Glacially slow. Returned it.
July 4, 2018
It shouldn't take several seconds to backup a 4-megabyte photo. So I recorded how long it took to write a thousand files, each containing 100 megabytes of random numbers. For comparison, I did the same thing on the old Acorndata drive that this Canvio was bought to replace, and here are graphs showing the differences (mind the different vertical scales). Writing to the old Acorndata never took so much as 5 seconds, while writing to the Canvio took over 20 seconds about 1% of the time, and once took over 80 seconds. (The mean times were 2.8 seconds for the old Acorndata and 3.7 seconds for the new Canvio.) If you Google "why is my canvio so slow" (without the quotation marks), you'll see that other people have this same problem.
340 people found this helpful
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May 25, 2019
Turned my desktop off and then plugged in to USB 3.0 …. desktop would stop booting and gave different messages on each startup attempt such as 'invalid format' 'drive contains no OS' ( why would it ? It's a new drive doing it's first bootup right out of its box ) Finally I tried a compromise. I didn't want to ignore the short install instructions but this Toshiba was not going to install if its plugged in to a turned off computer and they both start together. I check that it was shipped in ntfs format, then with the Toshiba not connected I let Windows boot only to the seashore startup page where it wanted my personal windows created pin .... thats when I plugged the Toshoba in and inserted my pin to the seashore pic screen . It booted, showed up in the 'this pc' check. I went straight to the 'Create System Image' routine and it worked fast and after checking its contents found the entire computer save was done . After seeing that the disk goes into a sleep mode I've decided to keep it plugged in until I once again need a computer turn off,turn on scenerio .... then will have to wait for the pin screen opening again before plugging the Toshiba in.
UPDATE: I'm too much a stickler for 'no surprise' electronics that I think I'm going to switch a 250 GB SSD Amazon sells … This Toshiba now add its existence into the computer device index TWICE which just bothers me to no end … I've tried everything to get rid of the phantom listing and couple- ing that error with the no startup until plugged in at a specific segment of the start up , I'm giving up and I ordered the Kootion 240 GB SSD and praying it will not be another 'adventure' of any kind ….
UPDATE: I'm too much a stickler for 'no surprise' electronics that I think I'm going to switch a 250 GB SSD Amazon sells … This Toshiba now add its existence into the computer device index TWICE which just bothers me to no end … I've tried everything to get rid of the phantom listing and couple- ing that error with the no startup until plugged in at a specific segment of the start up , I'm giving up and I ordered the Kootion 240 GB SSD and praying it will not be another 'adventure' of any kind ….
June 10, 2019
It is portable and in affordable price but all the Youtube reviews tell it has reliability issue and I did get error message already in only few months of using it (it worked after I unplug it and reconnected after few seconds). Definitely budget friendly product but if you have enough money go for something more reliable like SSD external drive.
June 16, 2017
When attempting to remove / eject the device from the computer, it does not allow you to "shut it down" for safe removal. The blue light continues to stay on with a prompt on the computer that states "removal may cause data to be lost". Although no files have been lost yet, there is always an uneasy feeling. Otherwise, it seems to work just fine.
May 11, 2019
I had to return the first unit I purchased because it became un-accessible and would lock up windows explorer. I'm not 100% sure what happened but either it was bumped while on or the data reverted to RAW when my PC reset. I was able to finally format it by booting up in safe mode and performing a elevated prompt format. It took over 12 hours for the format to complete and then the unit worked just fine. I returned it anyway and got a new one. The second unit I received has worked just fine and has over 100gigs of pictures on it. If you plan on using this for image storage turn off indexing and you may need to change the settings in windows explorer to turn off thumbnails.
August 7, 2019
Had aspirations of making this my main backup, until I watched the light flicker continuously after connecting. I could hear the clack of the heads as the drive struggled. It would seem that it's better to connect this directly to the device and not through a USB extension hub. I wanted something less susceptible to vibration that I could carry around...back to the drawing...
June 24, 2019
I needed a large capacity drive for backing up all my game files, but not the games themselves. My PS4 Pro insisted on formatting it for Extended memory before it would do anything else. The pop-up message was my data files could not be saved on the drive along with just about everything else if formatted for Extended memory. I canceled and disconnected the drive. Basically only games could be saved or installed. At some point I will need to move my games to an external drive, but none (including this one) is good enough. Will wait for a better mouse trap.
December 16, 2017
Good price. Cheaply made, very slow drive. Feels cheap. Copies files EXTREMELY slow for a USB3 drive. Seriously. SLOW!
October 19, 2017
Initial rating (as of 1 month after delivery): 5 stars
Final rating (as of 23 months after delivery and 23 months of ownership and continuous use): 3 stars
Drive worked perfectly fine for 23 months. No hardware or software issues whatsoever. However, 23 months after delivery (and 11 months after the 1 year warranty has expired), drive experienced the unfortunate click of death. Not a complete loss since my credit card extends the warranty an extra year after the manufacturer warranty expires. More a nuisance than anything else.
Timeline:
15 November 2015: Purchased (delivered 2 days later via Prime)
15 November 2016: Manufacturer warranty expires and credit card 1 year warranty extension kicks in
15 October 2017: Drive exhibits the click of death. Quick claim with credit card company and I get reimbursed for the less expensive drive (i.e. if new drive is $64.95 and old was $49.95, I get reimbursed the lesser of the two, $49.95)
Overall, you get what you pay for. Pay for it with your credit card and you'll get an extra year of warranty (obviously take a look at your TAC for the fine print). Drive didn't stutter once in the time it was in action; just sucked that it was pretty much *almost* 2 years to the day for failure.
Final rating (as of 23 months after delivery and 23 months of ownership and continuous use): 3 stars
Drive worked perfectly fine for 23 months. No hardware or software issues whatsoever. However, 23 months after delivery (and 11 months after the 1 year warranty has expired), drive experienced the unfortunate click of death. Not a complete loss since my credit card extends the warranty an extra year after the manufacturer warranty expires. More a nuisance than anything else.
Timeline:
15 November 2015: Purchased (delivered 2 days later via Prime)
15 November 2016: Manufacturer warranty expires and credit card 1 year warranty extension kicks in
15 October 2017: Drive exhibits the click of death. Quick claim with credit card company and I get reimbursed for the less expensive drive (i.e. if new drive is $64.95 and old was $49.95, I get reimbursed the lesser of the two, $49.95)
Overall, you get what you pay for. Pay for it with your credit card and you'll get an extra year of warranty (obviously take a look at your TAC for the fine print). Drive didn't stutter once in the time it was in action; just sucked that it was pretty much *almost* 2 years to the day for failure.
March 26, 2019
I bought two hard drives. I've been using one since I bought it, and it's worked well. The other hard drive, I intended to keep as a back up for my laptop. A few months after buying it, I try back up my laptop and it won't work! It keeps saying it can't access the drive. So I try to reformat it, won't work. I try to reformat it on a Windows computer, won't work. Now, my computers don't even recognize it!
So the reason for 3 stars is because one of them doesn't work. I still recommend the product, but make sure you check it immediately after receiving it.
So the reason for 3 stars is because one of them doesn't work. I still recommend the product, but make sure you check it immediately after receiving it.
July 15, 2019
Piece of junk right out of the gate. Plugged it in, failed to install, and then, it just clicked a bunch. Tried it again a few minutes later and it installed. The drive showed up, but then started clicking and disappeared. Don’t they test this trash before it leaves the factory?
Edit: seems to work ok when not plugged into a USB hub. Wish I had known they don’t work with hubs, though, as I only have one working USB port on my laptop. Would be nice if there was also a separate power supply.
Edit: seems to work ok when not plugged into a USB hub. Wish I had known they don’t work with hubs, though, as I only have one working USB port on my laptop. Would be nice if there was also a separate power supply.
