Review: Toshiba Portable External Hard Drives

Toshiba’s take on the portable external USB hard drive comes in an attractive black case, with backup software installed for Windows and Mac, and in a variety of sizes. We tested the 320GB model, but 250GB and 160GB models are also available.

Pros: The backup software is unobtrusive, and drive speeds for reading and writing were suitably fast.

Cons: The drive uses a single USB cable for data and power, and we found some of our test PCs simply failed to detect the drive, requiring a separate AC adaptor to give it enough juice to run.

Verdict: A great drive -- as long as your USB ports are up to it.