Toshiba 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive HDDR500E03X (Black/White)

Other products by Toshiba

Product Details

• Item Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001LK6XFY
• Item model number: HDDR500E03X
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (313 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #6,567 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 18, 2008

Product Description

Product Description

Toshiba 500GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive. The Storage You Need. Toshibas external hard drives are a hassle free, simple and easy solution to all your backup needs. Our drives help take the mystery out of backing up you most precious digital memo. Note: The part number (P/N) that appears on the packaging is used to identify all the items in the box, including the hard drive (which has its own distinct model number), color, software, cable, user guide, etc. This number is used for ordering purposes. The model number that appears on the bottom of the hard drive is used to register the device with regulatory agencies (UL, FCC, etc) and identifies a specific mechanical and electrical design.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

161 of 168 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beatiful but crappy, May 18, 2008

By	Arnie (São Paulo, Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive HDDR320E03X (Electronics)

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.

200 of 211 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disapointed., August 7, 2008

By	H. Yoneda (Rio das Ostras, Brazil) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Toshiba 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive HDDR320E03X (Electronics)

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).

66 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works with WinXP and Macbook Air, May 9, 2008

By	Ei Fujioka (Durham, NC United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Toshiba 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive HDDR320E03X (Electronics)

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.