Toshiba 640GB Portable Hard Drive Review

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Update: This giveaway is now closed and timtim is the winner. Thank you for entering, and please keep an eye out for future Gear Diary giveaways! 🙂

I was sent a Toshiba 640GB Portable Hard Drive in “Rocket Red” to review, but since this one will also be given away, I was hesitant to use and abuse it like I might a memory device I would be keeping. Therefore, in return for this micro-review, you get a chance to win a pocket-size time capsule just waiting to be filled with your important documents and digital memories.

Measuring approximately 5″ long x 3″ wide x 0.6″ thick, this Toshiba drive has no buttons and only one port – a mini USB located on the left side. Included in the box is a 12″ long USB cable, and a warranty booklet in nine languages.

Setup is simple – just plug the mini USB into the drive and connect to your computer and wait for the blue LED on the bottom left to indicate that the drive is engaged.

I was annoyed at first that I had to carry a separate cable to make the hard drive work, as opposed to one that was built into the device, but this honestly makes more sense – – cables can fail, and if the cable is built into the hard drive, it will not be easily replaceable. Sure, it’s one more thing to carry, but the cable is small enough not to be too obnoxious.

Features:

  • USB powered for easy plug and play operation
  • Small footprint for space-saving and easy portability
  • Easy-to-use Windows and Mac backup software
  • Password-protected data encryption
  • File & Folder backup and recovery
  • Drive Space Alert
  • Complete system backup and recovery (Windows only)
  • Internal shock sensor and ramp loading technology help protect your drive and data
  • Preloaded backup software provides an easy-to-use interface to make your backups effortless

Specifications:

  • Interface: USB 2.0 with up to 480Mb/s transfer rate
  • Rotational Speed: Up to 5400RPM
  • Average Seek Time: 12ms
  • Cache Buffer: 8MB
  • Preloaded software: NTI® Backup Now EZ™ for PC; NTI® Shadow™ 4 for Mac
  • Dimensions & Weight: 3.2” W x 5.0” D x 0.65” H; 6 oz
  • System requirements: Windows 72, Windows XP, Vista , Mac OS 10.4 or later; one USB 2.0 port
  • In the box: One Toshiba Portable External Hard Drive, USB 2.0 Cable and Quick Install Guide
  • Three-year limited warranty

I use a Mac, so my obvious choice for using this hard drive would be to simply plug it in and then select it for use with Time Machine, but there is also a registered copy of Shadow 4 included for those who would like to try something new. Windows users can select the NTI Backup Now EZ option; those using 7 will want to download the compatibility patch. When you first plug-in the hard drive, it will sense what type system you are using and (assuming you are on a MAc), it will ask if you would like the hard drive to be formatted for Mac only or so that it can also be read by Windows PCs; I suggest you select the latter, as every time I have set a hard drive up for Mac only, I’ve later needed to connect it to a Windows box for something. 😛

The Toshiba 640GB Portable Hard Drive in “Rocket Red” is available from Toshiba Direct and other retailers.

MSRP: $129.99, but it can be found for less than $90

What I Like: A huge amount of memory in a portable hard drive

What Needs Improvement: Having to use an external cable does mean one more thing to carry — but it also means if the cable fails it can be replaced

How To Win:

Leave a comment telling me the size of your largest external backup solution (portable or desktop) and a rough guess of what you paid for it. I will choose one random winner at Midnight, Monday March 15. I’ll email the winner and also post an announcement on Tuesday the 16th, so keep an eye out …

I’ll ship anywhere in the world, so good luck to all who enter! 🙂

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About the Author

Judie Lipsett Stanford
Judie is the co-owner and Editor-in-Chief of Gear Diary, which she founded in September 2006. She started in 1999 writing software reviews at the now-defunct smaller.com; from mid-2000 through 2006, she wrote hardware reviews for and co-edited at The Gadgeteer. A recipient of the Sigma Kappa Colby Award for Technology, Judie is best known for her device-agnostic approach, deep-dive reviews, and enjoyment of exploring the latest tech, gadgets, and gear.

10 Comments on "Toshiba 640GB Portable Hard Drive Review"

  1. My largest external backup solution right now is a 1TB Seagate drive, and I’m using CMS Products BounceBack Ultimate to sync it in real-time with my internal drive. Price? It was a prize I won.

  2. Portable? I removed a 40Gb laptop drive and put it in a cheap USB converter. Desktop? Just bougth an 500Gb WD hard drive after the old seagate that was on the LACIE external drive failed and lost everything in there 🙁

  3. Largest external backup right now – Crashplan. I don’t know if that counts or not, but it does save my data off site and not on my computer. To me, it’s worth the $55 or so per year. If I had an external drive, I’d probably pair it with Crashplan – backups to that drive AND offsite. That way I don’t lose everything if our house burns or the drive dies, or whatever.

    Outside of that, I think my largest is an external 4GB USB Flash drive.

  4. geocacher1 | March 12, 2010 at 4:42 pm |

    Have a 1 TB Simple desktop drive. Portable is only 8GB thumbdrives so this could be a handy solution.

  5. Chris Magnusson | March 12, 2010 at 4:44 pm |

    I have two 500 GB drives – a generic brand external 3.5″ drive that iirc I paid $250 for, and a a Western Digital passport 500GB drive that I paid $125 for. I also have a Mozy subscription which is essentially infinity GB and costs $4.95 x however many months I use the service.

  6. Thanks for offering this giveaway! My husband and I share a 2TB Western Digital desktop drive over our home network for the Time Machine back-ups for both of our Macs. We paid around $200 for it.

  7. My backup solution of choice is a 160GB WD Hard Drive. I bought it four years ago for about $160, which seemed like a good deal at the time. Unlike your Toshiba giveaway HDD, mine uses AC power adapter, which makes it hard to use on-the-go.

  8. My largest external drive is 160gb drive through a USB caddy. I paid $90 for it few yrs ago. As you can see, I need more storage as she canna take it captain!

  9. One 500GB Logitec (not Logitech). Acquired for the princely sum of around $100. But not by me.

  10. My current solution is an old 160GB drive in an external enclosure. All together new prices for the 2 parts was about $250… give or take.

Comments are closed.