Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba 400 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive HDDR400E03X

IMPORTANT UPDATE: DRIVER HAS FAILED, READ THE END OF THE REVIEW BEFORE BUYING!!!!!!!!!! (Amazon doesn't allow me to change from five to zero stars)

I purchased this external HD mainly for backups of my HP laptop and my wife's Mackbook. The main reason for choosing this model was that it is one of the few units that can startup without a 2-1 USB cable for extra energy. Macbooks strictly follows the 500mA current limit standard for USB ports so a lot of external drives that are powered directly from the USB cannot spin up without using two USB ports. This model works flawless with only one standard USB port.

Pros:
- No external power adapter (powered by the USB port);
- Small form factor;
- Light weight (light like an iPod);
- Beautiful design;

Cons:
- None so far, worked fine since I bought it one month ago;

Update: And then, after six more months... I can't turn it on again, just the blue led lighten and a clicking noise, no spin up, not recognized by the Windows, nothing. At least mine lasted longer, as other people reports it failing in 2 or 3 months. Toshiba? Never more, I will go back to Seagate.

I purchased this portable HDD expecting a good and reliable product trusting on Toshiba brand. After one month of use, basicaly at home, for my surprise, it started to make some cliking noise and stopped transfering data. I always used it carefully and even though Toshiba says it has a shock sensor, I NEVER dropped it.
But the major surprise was to find out that Toshiba site say that it does not have a warranty and that they DON'T EVEN REPLY the e-mails I sent (3) asking a procedure to have it repaired since I can't get the RMA to fix it.
I recommend all you not to consider Toshiba. I used some Western Digital and Seagate HDD for long time and they NEVER failed (although some friends had problems, they had them repaired for free).

I bought this item a month ago as a backup storage for a Dell desktop running Windows XP Home and a Macbook Air. It works great for both Win and Mac. No problem getting power from the USB ports of the two machines.

I especially like such portability of this item that I can bring it to my office on weekdays and take backups. It provides enough storage for my office PC and two home computers.

It's shipped with Fat32 and I needed to reformat it with NTFS so that large backup files, say, 40GB, can be saved. For Macbook Air, I spared a partition and formatted it with HFS. I don't keep it connected to one of the two machines as I don't run daily backups. Instead, I connect it to one of them once in a while, say, once in two weeks and run Windows Backup manually. As for the Air, Time Machine is smart enough to start backup automatically when the Air recognizes the drive.

For safety, I also use the bundled NTI Shadow to backup music files and pictures from my digital camera. File based backups are quite simple and convenient and easy to restore in case of emergency. This is one of the reasons I bought this item when you could choose Western Digital's Passport. I read some reviews claiming that the software shipped with Passport doesn't work.
NTI Shadow works fine and as I mentioned above, it's file based backup and I'm 100% sure that the backup files can be restored as I can open them from this drive!

If you use different backup software, you could go for Western Digital's and save a few bucks. But I also liked the design of Toshiba's better than WD's.

In short, I'm very satisfied with this item.

I've been using this for only a few months, but I travel with it frequently, and I've dropped it twice; and still have had no problems at all. I use it with a MacBook and an "old" (~2001) Toshiba laptop with no compatibility issues. I find the speed acceptable, the price was right, and the convenience great.

A note for non-laptop users: the USB cord included with this harddrive is very short (very 6 inches?). This is fantastic on a desk with my laptop and my USB drives right there, but if you have to reach in back of your computer to plug things in, you might want a longer cord. It uses the standard USB cable that seems to come with about 95% of my computer electronics, so you probably already have one.

I am using a Dell Dimension 8400, PIV, 4GB RAM, XP Pro SP3.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS; An attractive product, thin, stylish, one happy blue "I'm Working" light on the face. Very light, overall, a very slick package. Please note; Amazon's size information is completely wrong. The unit's measurements are 0.65"(H) x 3.2"(W) x 5.0"(D).

OUT OF THE (exlicative deleted) BLISTER PAK; The blister pak is, as always, a total pain. In this case, the product was double blister paked, I assume not only to deter theft (the primary aim of this unfortunate developement of the late 20th century), but also to provide shipping protection. I am grudgingly grateful for the strong packaging as Amazon did not pad the shipping box. The pak contains the unit, a USB2 cord, and a warranty card. My two primary reactions to the "out of the box" experience were a strong feeling of irritation at the length (or lack thereof, more on this further on) of the USB cable, and a curiosity as to where the software was.

INSTALLATION; Ok, No software and a REDICULOUSLY short USB cable, 12"!? Useless to ANYONE who isn't using this unit with a laptop who wants the hard drive to be RIGHT next to their work. If you want to do ANYTHING else with this HDD other than put it on the floor next to your desktop (if it's on the floor), have it BEHIND your desktop (if your puter's on the desk), or literally RIGHT next to your laptop, BUY ANOTHER CABLE IMMEDIATELY. The short cable is an excellent example of today's engineers being completely out of touch with the user's needs. Since there was no disc, I just plugged it and played it. Installation was fast, and completely trouble free. I immediately started to copy a folder of 54.1 GB of photos. The copy took about 2 hours. Not bad. CNET lists this unit's write speed @ 77Mbps, and 152 Mbps read speed. According to CNET, the unit's write speed is slower than some of the other pricier comparable units on the market, and the read speed is about the same as the others.

NAGGING THINGS; I took a look at the drive's health using Diskeeper 2008 Pro Premier. I was surprised to see that the drive is formatted as FAT32, not NTFS. I do not know why, and I have an e-mail in to Toshiba technical support to find out if it's cool to reformat the drive. I didn't buy this HDD to do scheduled back-ups, but when I was on the Toshiba site, I noticed that their other mini HDDs have back-up software. My unit didn't come with any software. I felt robbed, but, upon futher investigation, discovered that this unit comes with Toshiba's back-up software pre-loaded. I will see how it works later, and if I don't like or need it, I will remove it.

PROS; Small, stylish unit, good read/write speed, VERY GOOD PRICE POINT.

CONS; Most users will NEED to get a new cable for comfortable use.

ERRATA; I purchased the Caselogic PHDC-1 Small EVA External Hard Drive Case that was offered as a "bundle" from Amazon. I found the case to be a PERFECT fit. A nice semi-hard case with a pocket for your cable.