WellRated? UK Product Reviews

This Toshiba external hard drive is mainly designed for desktop computers and uses fanless technology - making it nearly silent when in operation. It can be postioned stood up or laid flat and with a high-speed 500 GB drive inside, it makes a very attractive storage/back up solution.

500 Gigabytes

This is enough to store around 8,000 hours of music or 150,000 photos or 500 hours of video. So there is plenty of space for your media and/or backups from your main computer’s hard drive.

Sleek styling

The drive is housed in a compact silver alumunium case and feels very solid. This can be positioned either horizontally or vertically. There is also a very bright blue LED on the front that can be a little distracting. The fanless aspect of the drive means it runs pretty much silently - yet doesn’t get warm like the Maxtor 1TB Basics desktop hard drive.

Plug ‘n’ Play

You may find that you have to format this to NTFS, depending on your system. But this is easily done and then you are away. It is suitable for both Mac and PC setups.

Power

Power comes through the supplied A/C lead, not like many of the very lastest hard drive which are now powered through the USB cable. This isn’t really a major issue as it’s designed for the desktop, rather than portabilty. It has a power on/off switch on the rear. Turning off the hard drive when not in use will both prolong it’s life and save you energy.

Summary
This is designed as desktop hard drive rather than a portable one. It’s very solid in construction and transfers data at high speeds. Importantly, it’s very quiet - almost silent. Overall, a great looking, great value, storage and backup solution.