Toshiba 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive HDDR320E04XW (Vivid White)

I have half a dozen Toshiba portable drives and some of them have served me well for several years. They are reliable and fast -- with the 500GB portable drive I get about 20MB/s read and write speeds (tested on two recent HP laptops, one with Intel and the other with AMD both running Vista), which is half of USB 2.0 high-speed's theoretical max throughput. The drives can be used with the PS3 and Macs out-of-box, but for best results with XP/Vista/Win7 you can convert it to NTFS without reformatting or losing existing data via a DOS command: convert g: /fs:ntfs [where g: is the drive letter, or you can use a volume name like "tosh_500g" if your drive is already named tosh_500g].

Because this drive (like other portable drives) does not use a separate power line -- it draws power directly from the USB port -- your computer must have a powered USB port to use this. Almost all recent desktops and laptops have this feature, but if you experience any problem, it may be due to...Read more

I've only just received this, listed as "Toshiba USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive" in the 500GB size. It has a very cool design, the case is similar to my 5G 30GB iPod - a smooth, flat front/top with a rounded back. It has a nice discreet blue activity light in one corner of the top (i.e. front) surface that is on for power and blinks for activity. The USB2 connection is a micro style and contrary to another review is a standard cable - this micro style is quite common, I have it on my GPS and camera so can use the same cable for all 3. The cable supplied is a short single cable (i.e. not a "Y"), and my Asus netbook powers it with a single USB port. The drive (like all of them) is just plug & play - plug it in, the computer sees it, and you're off. I reformatted it to a single large NTFS partition, 465GB (drives are always sold with powers of 10 "GB", i.e. 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes (10 to the 9th power), whereas computers use powers of 2 "GB", where 1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes (2 to the 30th...Read more

This hard drive is great! I had a previous clunker that took up a lot of space. The Toshiba 500 GB easily plugs into a USB port and doesn't require an additional power source. It is very small and easily fits into my computer bag. I recommend this hard drive for anyone looking for a way to store a lot of material and not take up a lot of space.