Toshiba Canvio Plus 640 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive E05A064CAU2XK (Raven Black)

by Toshiba

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 3.1 x 0.5 x 4.7 inches ; 8.3 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B003ICWB6I
• Item model number: E05A064CAU2XK
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (461 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 14, 2004

Product Description

Capacity: 640 GB | Color: Raven Black

From the Manufacturer

Toshiba Canvio Portable Hard Drive

Simple Backup, Portability, and Reliable Toshiba Quality. All Rolled Into One.

Toshiba’s new Canvio Portable Hard Drives offer portable storage up to 1TB of capacity for your photos, music, videos, and more. Enjoy peace of mind with a comprehensive yet simple-to-use backup software that lets you backup and restore your entire system. Each Canvio Portable Hard Drive includes an internal shock sensor and a stylish, anti-slip design to help keep your drive safe while on the go.

Features & Benefits:

Simple-to-Use NTI Backup Now EZ Software Included On Drive:

• File & Folder Backup — Finds all movies, pictures, and music to backup
  

• Simple Restore — Click the Restore button to recover a file or folder
  

• Complete System Backup —Keeps a copy of everything on your computer, including the OS
  

• System Recovery — Boot to the drive and restore your entire system
  

• Data Encryption — Secures your backup with a password with a data encryption up to 256-bit
  

• Customized Backup — Customize your backup preference and schedule
  

• Drive Space Alert — Alerts you when running low on backup space

What's In the Box

• Toshiba Canvio Portable Hard Drive
• Preloaded Backup Software
• USB 2.0 Cable
• Quick Start Guide
• Three Year Limited Warranty

Product Description

Toshiba’s new Canvio Portable Hard Drives offer portable storage up to 1TB of capacity for your photos, music, videos, and more. Enjoy peace of mind with a comprehensive yet simple-to-use backup software that lets you backup and restore your entire system. Each Canvio Portable Hard Drive includes an internal shock sensor and a stylish, anti-slip design to help keep your drive safe while on the go.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

130 of 142 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nice, new model, May 16, 2010

By 

JE (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Toshiba Canvio Plus 640 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive E05A064CAU2XG (Komodo Green) (Personal Computers)

I've had the previous version of the Toshiba portable hard drives, and this model makes nice improvements. The case is smaller with textured rubber all along the edges. Also, this drives gets recognized faster than the previous Toshiba models, and data transfer seems faster, though I haven't done any concrete tests. The colors are more appealing to me.

The only thing I don't like, which others may or may not agree with, is that the LED light indicating power and activity is much, much brighter than the previous model. The previous model was a small, dimly lit dot, and this model has a larger rectangular LED that's annoying. I won't detract any stars from that because it's very fixable with a small bit of electrical tape.

Overall, this is a very good purchase.

246 of 274 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Least Expensive Notebook Hard Drive Upgrade (External or Internal): But Needs Reformatting for Mac, June 5, 2010

By 

SanjeevP "Bottom Line" (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Toshiba Canvio Plus 1.0 TB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive E05A100PBU2XK (Raven Black) (Electronics)

As of June 2010, this Toshiba is the best value for money amongst 1 Tb portable hard drives. The competition includes Western Digital My Passport SE for Mac 1 TB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive WDBABW0010BSL-NESN (Silver) and Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1 TB Ultra-Portable External Hard Drive STAA1000100 (Black) both of which are more expensive than Toshiba Canvio.

Out of the box, it comes as NTFS formatted drive and works only on Windows computers. It even comes with Windows backup software, which I have not used.

For just Mac use, you have to reformat the hard drive as Mac OS Extended (Case Sensitive Journaled). Once reformatted, it works flawlessly as an external drive or Time Machine.

Here is the formatting summary:

FOR WINDOWS ONLY USE - format as NTFS - the format it comes in.
FOR BOTH WINDOWS & MAC USE -format it as MS DOS (FAT 32) but then it does not work as a Time Machine.
TO USE AS MAC ONLY & TIME MACHINE - format as Mac OS Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled) - which does not work in Windows.
TO USE FOR MAC TIME MACHINE & WINDOWS - partition the drive using Disk Utility and format one partition as Mac OS Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled) and other partition as NTFS (Windows 7) or FAT 32 (Windows XP)

The drive is big enough that you can partition it and format it anyway and have it all. It is small, sleek, light, quiet and as of June 2010 the biggest capacity portable USB drive. Over the years I have used numerous portable hard drives, most of them Western Digital & Lacie, and they all worked well; only one Fantom hard drive died. This is my first Toshiba hard drive and I have not used this Toshiba Canvio long enough to comment on its longevity but it seems to be functioning well and as of now it is the best value for money.

UPDATE (August 18, 2010): As of now, this is the only 1 Tb 2.5 inch drive available out there and it can be taken out of the enclosure to replace the drive in unibody aluminum Macbook Pros. Phillips 00 screwdriver, T6 TORX screwdriver and a sharp knife (or long nails) are the tools you need. All the steps can be discovered by searching h Google or YouTube for "open Canvio" and "clone Mac hard drive". I followed the instructions and video from owmacsales under sparedrive on their web site and did fresh mac OS install. Macinstruct webs site has detailed descriptions of hard drive cloning and YouTube, several videos uploaded by generous folks. MacBook Pro hard drive is slightly thinner than this Canvio, but it fits snugly and the battery cover can be closed. This is the cheapest way to upgrade MacBook Pro (or notebook) hard drive!

Inside MacBook Pro, I partitioned this drive: one for Mac OS, one for Bootcamp Windows 7 and third as FAT32 where both can read and write. Canvio is a 5400 RPM drive and I am not sure 7200 RPM, 1 Tb is even available in 2.5 inch drives as of now. The only other internal 2.5 inch 1 Tb drive available as of now, Western Digital 1 TB Scorpio Blue SATA 5200 RPM 8 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Notebook Hard Drive WD10TPVT is 5200 RPM and 12.5 mm and people have said it fits MacBook Pro unibody but is more expensive. It is a little noisier inside the MacBook.

UPDATE (10/9/2010): The bigger drive really slows down the Mac OS boot up. On my 320 GB drive the Mac OS boot up time was 1:49 minutes and now on 1 TB drive the Mac OS boot up time is 5:43 minutes! But the drive size does not appear to effect the boot up time for Windows 7, which is 2:17 minutes.

51 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good drive, poor software, lousy manual, September 10, 2010

By 

Craig S. Russell (NY) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Toshiba Canvio Plus 640 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive E05A064CAU2XK (Raven Black) (Personal Computers)

I bought this to have an emergency backup/recovery solution for my daughter's laptop at college.
I selected this particular drive because it was available with a Gold Box discount.

I say "lousy manual" because the only printed material in the box was general stuff about the mechanics of the drive, in about 7 or 8 languages, but no quick start guide or anything to tell someone how to set it up.

So, I plugged it in (just usb, no seperate power plug, which was good), and it immediately proceeded to install backup software without giving any choice. The software was ok, but it installs by default as a service, which is always running to do regular backups. It wasn't what I wanted, so I uninstalled it in favor of a commercial product. I really would have preferred to be allowed to say "no thanks" to the installation.

Once I uninstalled the software, and had the drive set up the way I wanted, it worked fine.

2115|RUDKUQG7NMH7S;2115|R1P2R2DLNL6FG;2115|R3359M4MC2OW6P;