Toshiba Canvio - External Hard Drive Review

I recently just bought a Toshiba Canvio 500GB because it was on sale, and after looking up the extra features that they have packaged alongside it, I found them interesting enough to want to give it a try. After two weeks of use, here are my findings so far.

First off, I am using a Mac, and these things seem to be made more with PC in mind since you'd have to install a certain driver/program for it to work with Macs, and after a while, that program seemed to not be sufficient anymore as I eventually wasn't able to write files onto the hard drive anymore and had to look up an alternate solution online. It was a relatively easy to execute solution, though, fortunately, but I still had to transfer all the files in my HD back to my laptop so I could reformat the HD again, which I thought was a bit worrying since I was only lucky that the files in it could still fit on my laptop HD. Had I had more files at the time, I would have had a much harder time.

Also, the device itself vibrates pretty strongly as I suspect there is a spinning mechanism inside it, which I found surprising in a fairly modern product. I didn't think modern hard drives had that spinning mechanism anymore, and the vibration in this product is definitely noticeable.

As for the extra features, the device came with a program that enables you to basically turn your computer and HD into a personal cloud storage, which you can use to access your files remotely as long as your computer is turned on and is connected to the internet. While I found this feature very interesting to play with, however, I really don't see much use in it, as the HD itself is already fairly portable, and if I really needed to bring files with me, I think it would be more practical just to bring it instead of having to keep a laptop or computer on at home and even risk not being able to access files if somehow the router suddenly requires resetting.

That said, it still seems like a solid device, and again, the extra features are still pretty fun to play with and I can at least use it to stream videos and music to my tablet at home with more ease this way. I just hope it doesn't break down on me in the near future, in which case, I'll definitely be updating this post.

Any of our members here have any experiences with this hard drive? If not, feel free to share your experiences with the brand of external hard drives that you've had experience with.