Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 08 July 2008 18:26
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
Long known for making 1-inch, 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch hard drives, if not
larger too, Toshiba has finally decided it will sell its own drives to
the public instead of packaged inside someone else’s product. In
addition, it’s bundling automated backup software to make backup...
easy!
Toshiba’s press release celebrating the fact it is finally selling its own hard disk drives direct to the public says that it's “another industry leading move”. Is it? Forgive me for asking, but when was selling 2.5-inch backup drives something new?
After all, there are several brands of 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch drives in any computer store you can name, and even the inclusion of backup software isn’t new – companies like Iomega have been doing that now for years.
The software in question is a Toshiba branded version of NTI Shadow, pre-loaded onto the hard disk, and it works on XP, Vista and Mac OS X 10.3.9 and above, which is a nice little bonus for Mac users.
Whatever the pros or cons of making a big deal about getting into selling 2.5-inch hard drives at a retail level, Toshiba’s offerings are, nevertheless, very good, and the inclusion of backup software is certainly a clever move.
That’s because consumers are quite slack at backing up, so anything that makes it easier, and even automatic, is a welcome bonus.
Coming in 160, 250 and 320GB sizes, and priced at AUD $149, $199 and $249 respectively, Toshiba tout the case the drives are stored in, saying they come with a “sleek, glossy finish and contemporary design” that is “click-free, switch-free and button-free backup for easy operation.”
In addition, the drives “include an internal shock sensor and ramp loading technology to keep drives and data safe while on the move.”
The press release doesn’t mention it, but I did a search on the Internet and discovered these are 5400 RPM drives with an 8MB cache.
PC Magazine in the US says the drive will work with only one USB cable, although this surely will depend on the computer you are plugging it into, even though Toshiba says this will be the case, too.
But is this really true?
Please read on to page 2.
