Customer Reviews

Toshiba 160 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive HDDR160E03X

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Like all USB-powered hard drives, this one comes with a caveat that some old computers do not provide enough power; Toshiba offers a special cable that draws power from 2 USB ports, and their web site even has a special form to ask for this cable. My old computer (also a Toshiba) requires this cable, so I filled out the form but got no response. Two weeks later I tried calling but couldn't get through, so I filled the form again, asking explicitly when I would get the cable. This time they responded promptly as follows:

Hello,

Unfortunately, We do not have this cable available on stock and we do not
have a date when the cable will arrive.

Toshiba Technical Support.

The cable was not available on Amazon either, but I found one from an ebay store for $5.02 including shipping, and received it within a few days. With the new cable, the hard drive works great; it also works with the supplied cable when connected to a computer that supplies enough power. But if you have an old computer, don't count on Toshiba for providing the necessary cable.

The specifications require USB 2.0 and Windows or Mac OS, but the drive works well with USB 1.1 and Linux (just for storage, not the backup software).

This Toshiba hard drive lives up to the quality image of Toshiba, plus the included NTI file backup program will not only back up my entire cpu harddrive if I choose, but it also saves individual files or folders, which is how I use it every day. I really like the "backup files as changes are made" feature, and after I designate the files and folders that I want to backup, the process is automatic and effortless. Set and forget, so to speak.

Small, light, fast, inexpensive. I'm happy with it.

It comes formatted for FAT32. I reformatted to NTFS and it seemed to run much faster.

This drive works beautifully on my Macbook. It was really inexpensive, too. It's also the perfect size, since my Macbook is 160GB--it will backup everything on my Mac.

For those who didn't have enough power, that's not the fault of the device. It runs better than lower quality ones with less power. It works perfectly on my Mac with just the normal supplied USB cord. Instead of attacking Toshiba, maybe you should get a less crappy computer.

After doing some investigation, I decided to buy this external hard drive... It works really nicely, I am really putting it to the test and it has not failed once... it is fast, noise-less, beautiful... all you need is a 2.0 USB port... don't install the software, its useless.

In this day and age it's entirely unacceptable to make pocket drives that require more power than that supplied by a single standard USB port. This unit not only requires a y-connector USB line to draw current from two USB ports (thereby tying up two ports), it doesn't even have a power connector to give it the required current from a wall wart. Worse, it doesn't ship with the requisite y-connector! Fortunately I had one from an earlier era, so I tried this on both a high-end Dell and a high-end MacBookPro, and both required the y-connector to use this device. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

For the price, this is THE external hard drive. It works beautifully, is compact, and makes not a single noise. I backed up over 1,000 songs, 200 pictures and about 15 movie files and still have nearly 80% free space. I've heard of some issues with gaming systems, but no problems whatsoever syncing it with my toshiba notebook.

I have several computers and it works on XP, Vista, Linux (Ubuntu), and OSX Tiger. It only requires 1 USB 2.0 slot on my macbook. i was a little worried since macs are knows for under powered usb slots. i was transferring fliles for a couple hours and i felt the drive. it was still cool. the only downfall is that it was hard to use with a desktop since the usb cord is only a foot long.

I very much enjoy my new Toshiba 160 HDD, this thing is so fast and at such an affordable price for me. I've never had a portable hard drive before though I have seen many people with them I always wanted one. I'm very happy with what I purchased.

I am very happy with the product.

Read all the previous reviews regarding power use and double cables etc. I didn't experience any of those problems at all.

I just needed an external hard drive to transfer document folders / music / and pictures between my work and personal laptops and it worked great. I have a Toshiba personal laptop and Dell Latitude for work, the external hard drive plugged and played on both of them fine.

Maybe I am not very demanding, but transfer rate was fast enough for me, I transferred about 11GBs of document files in less than 5 - 10 minutes?

I didn't plug in my laptops at all, and it powered the harddrive fine without a drainage on my battery.

Looks great too.