Price : Too low to display
Verbatim USB Portable Hard Drive 96531 Hard Drives - External
This review is from : Verbatim 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 96531 (Silver)
Rich Lefko MyMac.com Review . It seems like every company that sells hard drives are coming out with "portable" hard drives. These drives are usually promoted as "pocket" drives, or drives that are easy to carry around. For the most part, they are, but some just don't fit in a pocket, and I'd have to wonder why you'd carry one around in your pocket anyway.
The Verbatim Portable Hard Drive (VPHD) bills itself as "Palm-sized, durable, and stylish." We'll examine each of these adjectives.
Palm-sized:
As you will see in the video below, the VPHD is a little too wide to be called "Palm-sized." I tried to stuff it into my pocket, but it was a tight fit. It does slip into a back pocket easily enough. I can't see myself driving around town with any drive in my pocket, unless it fits in my top shirt pocket. This is a bus powered drive, so no AC adapter is required. The only thing you need to carry with you, besides the unit itself, is the included USB cable.
Durable:
The drive housing looks like metal, but it is not. It feels like a hard plastic material. The VPHD is very light weight. If I squeeze the housing, it gives a bit on the bottom. I don't think the housing will hold up over time if you put it under pressure in your pocket.
Stylish:
I think the VPHD has a "Star Trek" kind of look. I think it looks very nice. The drive also comes in a variety of colors and sizes. The 320 GB model comes in red, pink, blue, green, and silver.
Check out the video:
The VPHD internal drive has a rotational speed of 5400 RPM, making read and write operations average for a USB only drive. Verbatim sells this drive with a combination Firewire/USB connection option as well. The drive comes formatted in Windows format and with Windows back up software included on the drive. There is no Mac software included. This drive will work with any Mac that has a USB connection, including OS 9.X.
Bottom line:
The VPHD is a capable hard drive. I don't like the lack of indicator lights and I am not confident that the housing will hold up well over the long term. The unit comes with a three year limited warranty. Verbatim sells a rubberized black drive dubbed the "Premier" that looks like it will wear better. The VPHD is simple to use- just plug in the included USB cable and go. Reformatting for Mac use may be desirable. Launch "Disk Utility" from your "Utilities" folder, click on the drive you want to format in the left hand column and then click on the "Erase" tab. Using the drop down menu labeled "Volume Format" use "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" and then give your drive a name. Remember, formatting a drive erases its contents completely. This link offers a more in depth tutorial.
MyMac Rating: 3.5 out of 5
[...]
Rich Lefko MyMac.com Review . It seems like every company that sells hard drives are coming out with "portable" hard drives. These drives are usually promoted as "pocket" drives, or drives that are easy to carry around. For the most part, they are, but some just don't fit in a pocket, and I'd have to wonder why you'd carry one around in your pocket anyway.
The Verbatim Portable Hard Drive (VPHD) bills itself as "Palm-sized, durable, and stylish." We'll examine each of these adjectives.
Palm-sized:
As you will see in the video below, the VPHD is a little too wide to be called "Palm-sized." I tried to stuff it into my pocket, but it was a tight fit. It does slip into a back pocket easily enough. I can't see myself driving around town with any drive in my pocket, unless it fits in my top shirt pocket. This is a bus powered drive, so no AC adapter is required. The only thing you need to carry with you, besides the unit itself, is the included USB cable.
Durable:
The drive housing looks like metal, but it is not. It feels like a hard plastic material. The VPHD is very light weight. If I squeeze the housing, it gives a bit on the bottom. I don't think the housing will hold up over time if you put it under pressure in your pocket.
Stylish:
I think the VPHD has a "Star Trek" kind of look. I think it looks very nice. The drive also comes in a variety of colors and sizes. The 320 GB model comes in red, pink, blue, green, and silver.
Check out the video:
The VPHD internal drive has a rotational speed of 5400 RPM, making read and write operations average for a USB only drive. Verbatim sells this drive with a combination Firewire/USB connection option as well. The drive comes formatted in Windows format and with Windows back up software included on the drive. There is no Mac software included. This drive will work with any Mac that has a USB connection, including OS 9.X.
Bottom line:
The VPHD is a capable hard drive. I don't like the lack of indicator lights and I am not confident that the housing will hold up well over the long term. The unit comes with a three year limited warranty. Verbatim sells a rubberized black drive dubbed the "Premier" that looks like it will wear better. The VPHD is simple to use- just plug in the included USB cable and go. Reformatting for Mac use may be desirable. Launch "Disk Utility" from your "Utilities" folder, click on the drive you want to format in the left hand column and then click on the "Erase" tab. Using the drop down menu labeled "Volume Format" use "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" and then give your drive a name. Remember, formatting a drive erases its contents completely. This link offers a more in depth tutorial.
MyMac Rating: 3.5 out of 5
[...]
Good product . Despite the reviews I have read I owned this product and have had no problems. I opted to buy a second. Good value.
Verbatim 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 96531 (Silver) Reviews
Great product . I would buy this again any day. Well i learned that if you pull apart the two pieces of plastic that you could remove the hardrive and use it as a ps3 hdd.
Great product . I would buy this again any day. Well i learned that if you pull apart the two pieces of plastic that you could remove the hardrive and use it as a ps3 hdd.
Just great . Just loved this external hard drive...
it's fast and easy to use! it's cheap
and worth what I paid!
it's fast and easy to use! it's cheap
and worth what I paid!
Verbatim 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 96531 (Silver) Opinions
It's a great bargain . After seeing the bad reviews, I felt skeptical about buying this product. After receiving it, I would like to say this item is fairly good. It's user friendly, and there's no installation needed. The only minor problem I see is that the casing. the plastic looks kinda fragile. Overall, however, a solid product.
It's a great bargain . After seeing the bad reviews, I felt skeptical about buying this product. After receiving it, I would like to say this item is fairly good. It's user friendly, and there's no installation needed. The only minor problem I see is that the casing. the plastic looks kinda fragile. Overall, however, a solid product.
Cons Review
Cheap products yeild cheap results . I bought the drive thinking I just scored a good deal on an external. The drive is simple with no added features which does not bother me at all. The problem I have and that 2 other friends have with the same drive is the USB port on the external goes loose and doesn't hold its connection well. I thought it was just the one I bought because electronics I buy love to go nuts when I touch it but then 2 other friends reported the same problem. So all in all I would say stick with the expensive ones. Don't be cheap when it comes to externals, I recommend Seagate or Western Digital, I have a few of each of those and I have had no problems.
Not a fan . I too bought this drive thinking I had scored a good deal - how wrong I was. First, I could not use it with my laptop without buying a USB "Y" cable. So that was an additional $17 and it took an extra USB port that I would have preferred to not give up.
So it worked OK like that for a couple of weeks. The night before last I was using it and it was working fine. The next morning I got up - neither my computer nor the drive had moved - and it wouldn't work. I tried several iterations of plugging it in, unplugging it, changing ports and cables, etc. Nothing worked. I brought it to the local computer shop and they say the read/write armature has crashed. I have literally thousands of documents, pictures, web pages, and MP3s on that drive and now I don't know if I'll be able to ever recover them.
Now I'm not saying EVERY one of these drives will act like this - seems like some people have had good luck with it. But I think it's kind of a crap shoot. Save yourself a LOT of aggravation and, in the long run, a lot of money, and spend a bit more moeny up front and get a better drive.
So it worked OK like that for a couple of weeks. The night before last I was using it and it was working fine. The next morning I got up - neither my computer nor the drive had moved - and it wouldn't work. I tried several iterations of plugging it in, unplugging it, changing ports and cables, etc. Nothing worked. I brought it to the local computer shop and they say the read/write armature has crashed. I have literally thousands of documents, pictures, web pages, and MP3s on that drive and now I don't know if I'll be able to ever recover them.
Now I'm not saying EVERY one of these drives will act like this - seems like some people have had good luck with it. But I think it's kind of a crap shoot. Save yourself a LOT of aggravation and, in the long run, a lot of money, and spend a bit more moeny up front and get a better drive.
Piece of junk . This thing is supposed to do one thing: work when you plug it in. It doesn't. There's also no customer support or troubleshooting section on the instructions, and the website doesn't appear to have any information for this model. Do not buy this or anything else from Verbatim, because they appear to sell Chinese-made junk and not care about their customers.
Stopped working after 8 months for no apparent reason . As typical of other reviewers, this simply stopped working one day. Of course it worked fine while transferring all my music, photos, and other files to it the preceding eight months (from my old computer!). Now I'm out $70 for this product, the time I spent transferring files to it and later searching for possible fixes/work-arounds, $40 to recover the data, more time spent shopping/researching alternatives, and finally $110 for a new non-Verbatim hard drive. I didn't think I was being cheap buying this thing: $70 isn't a small sum to me, I liked its simplicity, it was ample storage for my needs and Verbatim wasn't some off-brand (or so I thought). I won't be buying any more Verbatim products after this experience and I guess I can't trust anything I buy anymore - which is the worst part.
Inconsistent needs extra power. . After my old seagate external bit the dust a few months ago I bought this Verbatim drive, and I'm not too impressed. It's very finicky. It will plug in and be detected perfectly on my laptop using the included cord, but If I try to plug it into my desktop pc or plug it into the laptop with a generic usb cord that works for other products, it fails. I finally got it to work on my desktop by buying a usb hub with an external power supply, and it seemed to be working tolerably, but now it's not even working on that setup. It misbehaves similarly when I hook it up to my friend's computer to transfer files. This drive has been nothing but a headache, not worth the few extra bucks saved over more reliable brands.
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Product Details
EAN : 0023942965312UPC : 023942965312
MPN : 96531
Brand : Verbatim
Color : Silver
Weight : 1 pounds
Height : 2 inches
Length : 7 inches
Width : 7 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
Format : CD
Hardware Platform : Pc
Manufacturer : VERBATIM CORPORATION
Model : 96531
Operating System : Windows
Platform : Windows
Publisher : VERBATIM CORPORATION
Size : 320 GB
SKU : 69457
Studio : VERBATIM CORPORATION
Where To Buy
You can buy Verbatim 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive 96531 (Silver) on Amazon . Click here to Read More
