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Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (160GB)

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The good: Durable casing and shock-resistant design; bundled with backup software; bus-powered; fast read speeds.

The bad: Write speeds are on the slow side.

The bottom line: The Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive is an attractive, durable drive for toting around, but the write speeds aren't up to snuff.

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CNET editors' review

  • CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
    Detailed editors' rating
      Setup and ease of use : 7.0
      Features : 7.0
      Performance : 7.0
      Service and support : 6.0
      Overall score: 6.8 (3.0 stars)
  • Reviewed on: 09/14/2007
  • Released on: 04/16/2007

Perhaps Toshiba's marketing department has run out of ideas, but their new portable hard drive bears a very boring name: Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive. Happily, the drive does offer an interesting, distinctive look with a rugged antishock aluminum casing. It looks like it can take a beating and is suitable for those who are constantly on the go with a little bit of roughhousing tendency. It's not the most even performer, though, with fast read speeds and slow write speeds. If you're looking for a fast, flashy drive, check out the Iomega eGo. And at $180 for the 160GB version, the Toshiba drive is a bit more expensive than the Iomega one.

Drive type Portable, external hard drive
Connection options USB 2.0
Available capacities 100GB, 120GB, 160GB, 200GB
Capacity of test unit (if applicable) 200GB
Drive speed 5,400 RPM
Cache 8MB
Dimensions (LWH) 5.6 x 3.5 x 0.94 inches
Notable design features Durable casing
OSes supported Windows XP/Vista; Mac OS X 10.3.9
Software included NTI Shadow Software CD for backup
Service and Support One-year warranty; toll-free phone support available weekdays from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT; online support via Web form; user guides available online.

On the CNET Labs' test bench, the Toshiba took 17 minutes, 42 seconds to finish writing our 10GB test folder that contains of a variety of file types. On the read test, the drive was much faster, taking only 8 minutes, 56 seconds to copy the 10GB folder back to our test bed. The Toshiba's write score makes it one of the slower portable hard drives we've tested recently, but its read score puts it on par with the competition.

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Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (160GB)

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