Saturday, July 23, 2011

Toshiba Canvio 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive for Mac E05A050MAU2XW (Infinite White)


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Toshiba Canvio for Mac Portable Hard Drive. Canvio for Mac products have been designed and manufactured in accordance with Toshiba’s high quality product standards, incorporating the latest technology and user-interface, while ensuring best-in-class performance, quality and workmanship. With Toshiba’s Canvio for Mac Portable Hard Drives, you’ll enjoy portable storage space for even the largest digital libraries. Our 500 GB Drive is capable of storing up to: 142,000 digital photos, or 131,000 digital music files, or 410 downloaded digital movies. Each Canvio for Mac Portable Hard Drive includes an internal shock sensor and ramp loading technology to help keep your drive safe.

This review is from : Toshiba Canvio 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive for Mac E05A050MAU2XW (Infinite White)
Great Product . 12/17/10 Important edit. This works for both mac & pc out of box, you do not need to format. Not one problem with this device.

The product comes with a Dmg file within the main drive that can be deleted. It is not required to be installed as this is a plug and play drive, but the program that is included can clone the mac incase you ever need to transfer files to a new mac, back up folders and sync folders. Problem is, you need to use these options to have files encrypted and thus you cannot delete files on the mac without deleting the encrypted ones on the HD. Otherwise, all you can do is copy and paste which is what some people want in a HD

The drive's color matches that of the Macbook pro 2010 and the usb 2.0 cable that is included matches or exceeds the whiteness of Apple's magsafe cord and iPod touch recharging wire. The cord is a bit thicker, feels sturdy but looks bulky for the rather short length, which is about 8 inches.

When the Hd is in use, the light blinks extremely rapidly so this may cause distraction to some people who are easily bothered.(not really a problem, but I don't see the point of why the light must be flashing so quickly I covered the light with a sticky note)

There is a slight hum due to the 5400 rpm of the drive and is not as noticeable as the Western Digital Mybook essential 7200 rpm which had a roaring sound. The transfer speed of the two drives is not really noticable. (I returned it for the canvio) I think you would need an ssd to really notice transfer speeds. The drive vibrates somewhat but when placed at an uneven angle, and I can hear strange sounds at an angle.

Updated after a month or so of use.
I highly recommend that you get a portable HD as price is not too big of a difference. The speed might be a little slower, but 7200 and 5400 do not really seem a large difference in transfer speed. (I transferred 400 GB to both drives on the day that I got them) A portable drive is much thinner and lighter and does not require an external power supply. The Canvio drive has been reliable and has a reasonable transfer speed. If you want encryption for the HD then just create a sparse disk image through disk utility of however much size you want on the disk. You can then just place your files in the folder that will expand up to whatever size you set.
Toshiba Canvio 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive for Mac E05A050MAU2XW (Infinite White) Reviews
Great . I plugged it into my laptop (MacBook Pro, purchased 02/2010) and it immediately opened Time Machine and asked about backing up my laptop. It worked like a charm!
Toshiba Canvio 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive for Mac E05A050MAU2XW (Infinite White) Opinions
Great results so far . I have two of these little drives, both 1 TB capacity. So far, they are both trouble-free. For both drives, I have done a 1 terabyte write (20 hours) followed by a 340 GByte write/read (17 hours). No problems.

The drive can be formatted for Windows or Linux if you don't use Macintosh. There is nothing Mac-specific about the hardware. There is Mac-specific software present on the disk called Shadow 5. I blew it away, since Time Machine suits my needs.

These drives use a standard mini-USB 2.0 connector. Similar products are moving to either micro-USB 2.0, or USB 3.0. From personal experience, and from reading reviews, I see that these newer connectors fail when jiggled, even gently. Bad.

I suggest stocking up now. Toshiba might have the most reliable drives of this type, but they too are moving to newer, defective connectors.

These drives are fairly slow, but extremely compact and convenient (no power cord). You have to decide for yourself. Do you want slow, compact, and convenient, or do you need speed. If you need the speed, find a 3.5 inch drive (7200 RPM). Otherwise, get this one.
Toshiba Canvio . The Toshiba Canvio is an awesome hardrive for my Mac. I was worried on buying a backup hardrive for my Mac since there arent many out there and some have to be reformatted to work with the Mac, but I wanted it to be completely compatible and made for a Mac. With some advice, I bought the Toshiba and it is fast and easy to install.
like it love it gotta have it . Loved the price. love the color (silver, matches my mac). LOVE that I can just drag my files right into its folder on my desktop w/o any software involved.

only thing I would recommend would be a case, I didn't get one and now it's all marked up from being my bag, but that's my fault

I don't notice it getting hot or anything like that
So far OK . I bought two of these and encountered the same problem with both, so there is a strong probability that you will encounter the same problem too. I describe below how I fixed the problem (on Windows Vista platform) and, while I offer no guarantee that this will fix yours, I hope it will help.

The problem is that, unlike any external memory (disk or flash drive) I have purchased before, when either of these was plugged into a USB port, no drive letter was assigned although Windows clearly was aware of it. The safely remove icon appeared but the drive was displayed without a drive letter.

After flailing around unsuccessfully with the advice on a number of web sites, I fixed my problem as follows:
1. Insert the drive into a USB port.
2. Go to Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management.
3. The drive should show up with two partitions and a small amount of unallocated space.
4. Select the second, larger partition (which occupies almost all of the disk.)
5. Delete it.
6. Add a new partition with the characteristics you want including a drive letter.

So far (three days) the drives have behaved well. I will update this review in a month or two to report on their reliability.

Because of this problem, I have assigned four stars rather than five.

After a couple of months, these drives are working well.
Great drive . The Toshiba Canvio Plus is a good USB 2.0 portable hard drive. It requires no external power, just whatever it draws from the USB port it is connected to.

Pros : 750x10^9 Bytes (decimal) of space (= 698.49 GB binary).
Nice white color matches my Wii perfectly.

Cons : Must be re-formatted a special way to get rid of the GPT partition that it comes formatted with.
See : [...]

After that you will be able to use this hard drive however you like.

I have generally had a good experience with it. If using a Fat32 partition, be sure to run chkdsk /x /f about once a week, or when you notice any problems.

Cons Review
worked fine for 8months then broke . Bought this to hook up to a MacBook. As others have noted, TimeMachine recognized it and ran backups just fine. However, about 8 months later, it said the drive was not readable. We reformated, and backups worked for about 1 week, and then failed again. Apparently, there are known issues with this drive.

Have had other Toshiba drives before and no problem. So far, Toshiba is of no help, and not offering to replace it. Will not be buying Toshiba again.

For these reasons, I cannot recommend this drive, or others in the Canvio line.
doesn't work . I don't know if I just got a lemon, but this doesn't work very well. It takes about 20-30 minutes "preparing backup" before it actually starts loading, then it takes forever to do that, too. I don't know how to get support/another one either - I can't find the model on the Toshiba support website. I'm pretty pissed.
Bad choice . I purchased the Toshiba canvio 500 GB USB 2.0 to have an easy option for backup on my MacBook. It worked like a dream for a month. When I tried to return it to the vendor, they said I had to return it directly to Toshiba. Toshiba gave me a coupon code to redeem a replacement, but they do not have a comparable replacement that works for Mac, are not willing to refund me. I have spent hours on the phone....not worth the hassle.

Product Image


Feature Toshiba Canvio 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive for Mac E05A050MAU2XW (Infinite White)

  • High speed USB controller and Dual Memory Channel for ultra fast data transfer speeds
  • Data transfer rates of up to 21.1MB/sec. read and up to 10MB/sec write
  • Internal dampening system for shock protection
  • Slim, Compact & Stylish Retractable design - Pocket-sized for easy transportability and no more lost caps
  • Computer backup made simple; Canvio Portable Hard Drives are preloaded with software to make backup simple




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Product Details

EAN : 0883974519958
UPC : 883974519958
MPN : E05A050MAU2XW
Brand : Toshiba
Color : White
Weight : 1 pounds
Height : 2 inches
Length : 7 inches
Width : 6 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
Manufacturer : Toshiba
Model : E05A050MAU2XW
Publisher : Toshiba
Size : 500 GB
SKU : DHE05A050MAU2XW
Studio : Toshiba

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