Customer Reviews

Verbatim InSight 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 96980 (Black)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Out of the box and at first glance, I was almost sure that I had received a digital scale instead of the new Verbatim InSight 320 GB Portable Hard Drive. I am sure others have thought the same. When using a Windows based platform, the unit was up and running in no time with simple plug and play features.

My primary use for the Insight 320 is for photo storage backup. Transfer of jpeg files was a relatively smooth process. Its all about drag and dropping files. The installed and very basic Nero software package is give or take at best. Personally after reviewing Nero and uninstalling it, I came to the conclusion that its a waste of space. Its a matter of choice whether to install the Nero software on your computer or not. An optional password security feature is included too.

Encased in a gloss black, hard plastic body, this stealthy unit displays the drive's personalized name and the remaining capacity on its 128x32 pixel screen. Even when I unplug the USB cable the data is viewable. Personalization tags are easily changed when connected. A nice feature is that the unit automatically updates itself when connected to my computer. Measuring in at 3"x6"x.5" and weighing almost 6 ounces, it goes without saying that this model is compact.

The Verbatim Insight 320 Hard Drive comes packaged with an 18" USB 2.0 cable, User Guide booklet, and the installed Nero Back It Up software package. The manufacturer backs up this product with a five year warranty. Even though I found no valid telephone customer support numbers posted on the website, Verbatim does offer limited help via links, email and snail mail.

For me the most notable shortcomings of this product is the installed Nero software package, the short USB cable, and the finger print magnet finish. Even with those minuses I still find this product to be an exceptional tool. Without a doubt, the Verbatim Insight 320 Portable Hard Drive is a worthy product that holds its own.

This drive is stepping into a space that, in my mind, is owned by Western Digital and its Passport line of drives. I have two of them, a 250GB model and a 500GB one. This review will be comparing the Verbatim to these two drives.

Their weight feels comparable in my hand, so one is not noticeably lighter or heavier than the other (I would estimate the Verbatim to weigh in right between the two WD drives). However, the Verbatim drive is noticeably larger than both Western Digitals, which is important when you're talking about a drive intended to be portable. The difference amounts to 1" in length and 0.3" in width. The Verbatim is slightly thinner over the flat part of its case by about 0.1". The curved bump in the front where the display is located actually makes the drive thicker than the Passports, which are flat.

Portable hard drives aren't intended to be speed demons, so it's no surprise that the Verbatim isn't setting any speed records. It does fall in the same range as the Passports, so there's nothing to complain about. According to HD Tune 2.55, the Verbatim registered an average transfer rate of 28.3 MB/s, whereas both Passports came in at 28.9. The Verbatim's minimum rate would dip down to 23.9 MB/s periodically througout the test (the WD's dipped, but not as frequently nor as low). Access time was 16.7 ms, which was lower than the 17.1 and 17.8 readings from the WD drives.

I tested the Verbatim drive by transferring a variety of large and small files using standard Windows XP file copy tools, and the transfer rate was consistent with the tests above. I had no problems transferring over 3,000 music files, totaling about 57 GB, nor were there any problems in transferring large video files.

I connected the drive to the aforementioned Windows XP system as well as a system running Windows 7 RC and an ASUS EeePC 900A running Linux. The drive was immediately recognized by the EeePC and allowed me to browse the drive and play the videos with ease. I had difficulty getting the Windows 7 system to recognize that a drive had been connected and the drive's display was stuck on "Scanning", so I need to work with that a little more to determine what might be happening (the Passports are recognized immediately).

The display on the Verbatim drive is probably the biggest differentiator for this drive, considering that the rest of its attributes are on par. How much of a factor is this display in actual use? For my part, it's not a factor. I have no need to see how much space is left on a portable hard drive, but I can see that others might. If you're one of those people, that display might be the feature that pushes you to this product over others.

I did not install the Nero software, because I don't care to have lots of software programs cluttering up my machines. The software on the Western Digital drives is nice because it never leaves the drive. You run it right on the drive and nothing gets installed on your machine. That makes it very portable and it keeps your computer from having one more piece of software installed. That aspect alone is a differentiating factor for me.

While the physical differences between the Verbatim and Western Digital drives are small, they are still a factor. The WD drives are a little smaller, and the fact that they are flat means that they stack well (like in a bank safe deposit box), and they take up just a little less space in a carrying bag.

How about price? The list price of the Verbatim 320GB drive is $104.99 and a Western Digital Passport 320GB drive is $99.99 (according to Amazon's product pages). The current advertised prices for both are lower, with the WD drive $13 cheaper.

All of these factors make the Verbatim drive compelling only if you find value in the front display. When you're challenging an established leader in this segment, you need to differentiate on size, features, performance, price, or reliability. On all but the last aspect, it doesn't. Only time will tell what the reliability will be like.

I haven't seen anything here to bother me about the Verbatim InSight drive, but there is also nothing that would sway me to purchase it over the Western Digital Passports that I am accustomed to using.

I really like this drive for all of the reasons mentioned in my reveiw subject above.

1. Size - Its a little bigger but thinner than my iphone. Its very light and eminently portable and I was pleased at the fact that a 320GB drive could be in a form factor so diminuitive.

2. Read/Write speeds are fast - I copied a 25GB iphoto library holding numerous sub-folders and images over in less than 18 minutes which is much better than some of the older drives I own.

3. Doesn't require external power to operate or run the little LCD display. I like the design and the little display is nice and the fact that you can operate with just the drive and a mini USB to USB cable is very nice.

4. It runs very quiet.

All in all if you are in the market for a portable hard drive for backup, media or file transfer or anything else, this is a good choice.

I boughgt this drive to backup my data on my old PC and should never have installed the Nero BackItUpm Essentials software. My new PC running Windows 7 had repeated difficulty installing this software, and does not recognize the files and says "Runtime Error." Plus, neither Verbatim nor Nero gives you any manual or instructions for this software, leaving you to figure it out on your own. I would warn anyone who buys this device to NOT install the Nero software!

I used this for 2 months as an external data drive and it seemed fine, so when I upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 I trusted it for all of my data. What a mistake. When I plugged into Windows 7 for the first time, the display showed "Scanning ..." and that's the last thing it ever did. I tried plugging it into Vista, XP, another Win7 and a Mac OS X. I tried using all of the disk utilities I had. No luck. I spent hours between email and worthless phone support before literally taking matters into my own hands.

I bought a Black Widow external "toaster" drive, popped the Insight case open and removed the WD Scorpio Blue drive. Data recovered to a new disk, and this drive now works fine in the toaster.

I'll never buy another Verbatim product after that poor support. I wish you better success if you buy one of these.

The Verbatin Insight is an ok Hard Drive. I have a Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive-Black which I use as my main backup hard drive. Thus, the Verbatin will be serving me as the hard drive I take when I travel.

The drive looks very sleek with it's curved, glossy and elegant exterior. It is thin and small, but the Seagate Portable Hard Drive is about an inch smaller. It comes with a small USB cable to connect to your computer. It also has a very helpful display, Always On LCD, which requires no external power source, that tells you how much free space is left in the drive. This is a great feature and a definite plus for this drive.

Something to note is that, albeit it advertises 320 GB, the display read 297 GB when I first opened the box. Further inquiry into the system, revealed that the actual hard drive space that it gives you is 297.89 GB.

I plugged in the hard drive to my computer via the provided USB cable. It would not recognize it. There was no sound coming from the hard drive to indicate that it was working and the display merely said `Initializing...' and then it would stop. It definitely took a few tries of plugging, unplugging, moving, looking at in intently and saying 'work!' for my computer to finally recognize it. When it finally did, I heard the hard drive working. I do not know why this was, since my computer recognizes everything else without a problem. So, it must have been a problem with the hard drive not "starting up."

The hard drive comes with "Nero Back It Up 4 Essentials" and you can install it in your computer. Don't. I installed the Nero Backup Software program. Honestly, save yourself the time and trouble and don't install it. It sucks. The installation of the software took forever and the backup software provides very little options. I plan to uninstall it.

I did a back up of my documents using the Nero Software. This will provide you with compressed backup files that are not immediately searchable. Instead, it is a formatted backup; I imagine that it can only be used with the Nero software. A backup of 18.92 GB took 3h:15m:50s (so, 3 hours and 15 minutes). Very slow. I then backed up a folder, My Pictures, using the drag and drop option. I did not time it precisely but it took about 56 minutes to copy 10 GB worth of pictures. Again, average speed. But, it was much simpler to use than the Nero software and your files are readily accessible for you to open, search through and use. Thus, the drag and drop is definitely the best option for this hard drive.

In conclusion, it is an ok portable hard dive with a cool LCD display feature. Considering the price, for just a few dollars more more (less than $10) you can get a Seagate Portable Hard Drive. The software is pretty bad so don't install it. It is painfully slow. Whilst I prefer the Seagate hardrive, this is not a bad alternative.

I was eager while waiting to get this item. Was disappointed when I finally got it. Here are my Negative points.
1 - The drive did not fit the case that Amazon advertised for it. The drive was too long for the case - DOH!
2 - I could not get the drive to initialize without a lot of effort - the lcd screen kept flashing some message about cannot initialize or some such thing. Did some Googling and found that this was a problem when the drive was formatted on a Mac - I'm a PC. Why this would occur I don't know. I eventually got the drive to work by plugging it and plugging it in several times on different computers until it finally worked.
3 - When you plug it in it takes an inordinate amount of time to "scan" the drive (says so on the display). during which time it is inaccessible from the PC.
4 - It seems to always need my 'double plug' USB regardless of which PC I use - can only think it needs a lot of juice - in fact it does run pretty hot.
5 - The display it pretty useless. I never refer to it except to see it it says "scanning". I guess if you had a stable of drives you would want to be able to pick the one with the space you need.

Positive Points:
1 - It is quite 'pretty' to look at - nice shape, very thin.
2 - File transfer is quicker than my other externals. Of course that is a relative measure.
3- It was not expensive.

I hope this was helpful.

This portable hard drive was an issue from day one. Some files would transfer to the drive and some would fail. I attached the drive to three different computers, and the drive failed on all three desktop computers (one with win2000 and the other two with winxp professional). I decided to reformat the drive. The results were the same. I then determined that perhaps if I bought a Y cable to provide adequate power the drive may be stable. The results were the same. Eventually the drive failed to connect.

I e-mailed Verbatim that the drive failed and they did not respond to my e-mail.

At this point I have a door stop.

Think twice about buying this drive.

I PURCHASED THIS EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE ON 4/6/2010 AND WHEN I RECEIVED IT THE WARRANTY INFORMATION WAS NOT AS THE WEBSITE DESCRIBED (IT CAME PACKAGED AT 5 YEAR INSTEAD 7 YR.). SO I CALLED AMAZON AND THEY GAVE ME THE NUMBER OF THE MANUFACTURER, VERBATIM. THEY ASSURED ME THEY WOULD MAKE THE WARRANTY GOOD AND TO DOWNLOAD THE ACTUAL WARRANTY ON THEIR WEBSITE. GREAT COMPANIES TO DEAL WITH- AMAZON AND VERBATIM. I ALMOST SENT IT BACK. GLAD I DIDN'T. IT IS AWESOME; SILENT RUNNING, LIGHT WEIGHT, COMPACT, TELLS YOU HOW MUCH DISK SPACE IS LEFT AND ALLOWS YOU TO DO THAT WITH NO POWER RUNNING TO IT-- NO BATTERIES. IT'S SLEEK DESIGN IS SO THAT IT BLENDS IN WITH MY LAPTOP. I RECOMMEND IT TO ANYONE WHO IS ON THE GO OR WHO OWNS A DESKTOP. I USE IT ON BOTH MY COMPUTERS... A DELL LAPTOP AND A GATEWAY DESKTOP. I'VE USED IT EVERY WEEK ON MY COMPUTERS EVER SINCE I RECEIVED IT WITH ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEMS.

I think I am becoming a HD collector. We have several Macs and a recent HP netbook that appeared one day apparently it was needed to improve X-Box playing potential for certain people. This drive works okie dokie with the Windows computer.

Pros:
Sleek
Screen

Cons:
No power cord
Formatting issues?

I waited a few months to write a review, because I almost always love externals when I first get them. Then things go wrong. This is no exception.

Like my Passport, this requires a Y adapter to draw enough power to run the device from my laptop, which diminishes portability.

Like the Passport, it is sleek and about the same size. However, I think construction is slightly better on the InSight.

I was really in LOVE with the screen at first - nice because it shows even when not in use. Since we are constantly portable storage devices around and flash drives are not always big enough - this is GREAT. Love it. Until it stopped working. After a months use, I got an "unreadable" error device although the drive still worked. I reformatted, and after another month or so, it occurred again. The drive still works fine although it is not always recognized by the computers right away (need to plug and unplug).

Bottom line: okay drive - but has its flaws. It is attractive, but not the rugged portability I need. I may have received a faulty one, but the lack of the screen not always working (which was its one big selling point for me) frustrates me immensely. I think LaCie Rugged All-Terrain 320 GB USB 2.0/FireWire 400/800 Portable Hard Drive 301832 may be what I need. However, it is well-priced and sleek.