Toshiba unveils new external 3.5-inch drive

Toshiba has introduced its first external 3.5-inch format disk product, and it probably uses a third-party drive. It holds up to 1TB of data and comes with USB 2.0 and eSATA connectivity. Bundled software backs up and restores files, and also the entire attached PC system. The drive comes with a USB cable and an AC adaptor and …

[Man Outraged]

Erm, what about just opening up the box?

Shurely if it was worth speculating about the manufacturer of the drive then it would be pretty easy to open up the case and tell the readers something about the disk within? If you did that and there were no markings then at least report this to the hw/curious amongst your readers!

[Sampler]

Why bother?

It's significantly cheaper to buy a case and drive separately so why pay more for this - not like it's rocket science to fit a drive in an external caddy.

[mlo0352]

Doesn't Matter

I don't know anybody who would want to pay 160 dollars for 1 TB when they can get that same TB (albeit a little slower) for 100 dollars (or less!) elsewhere. It looks nice, but that's not enough.

[MattyB]

@ Man Outraged

Where does it say that El Reg have one in their office to test?

[AlgernonFlowers4]

@Man Outraged

But it might be a Quantum drive so that when you open the box, all you find inside is a dead cat!

[Adrian Jones]

@Man Outraged

Presumably if ElReg had one that they could prise open, then they would have described it themselves, rather than reporting "Toshiba says the product's design has a sleek high gloss finish with a vaporized metallic silver rim and LED activity light with white glow effects."

[Rik]

"First" only in a very limited sense

Its first external 3.5" drive? Then why have I been seeing rectangular aluminium boxes with "Toshiba" on them, an USB connector on the back and presumably a hard disk inside, of capacities surpassing even the most recent 2.5" drives, for the past two or three years already? Is this because I'm in Europe, and it's the US where they only now introduced them in the 3.5" form factor?

[thomas k.]

@Algernon

Isn't there a 50/50 chance the cat is alive?

[Chris Mellor 1]

The first external 3.5-inch drive from Toshiba???

Toshiba's release about the 3.5-inch external drive says this is : "marking Toshiba’s first entry into the 3.5-inch external HDD business." Apparently not as several readers have said. A 1TB Tosh external drive is on ebuyer here : http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145041. The description talks about a UK localisation and it could be that Toshiba America Information Systems just doesn't know what's been going on in Toshiba outside the USA. Amazon has the same drive here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-External-Desktop-Hard-Drive/dp/B001BG4QS4. The part number is PX1396U-3T01 and the drive spins at 7200rpm, better than the new oproduct's 5400rpm.

Chris.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got an external Toshiba 3.5" drive...

...I'll let you have it cheaper than this one. Of course, it's the floppy adapter for my 1997 Libretto 50CT, but hey...

[James O'Brien]

A few rebuttals:

@Sampler: not like it's rocket science to fit a drive in an external caddy.

Yes it is....you havent met my parents....

@thomas k.

No, there is no chance of it being alive....it is from the land of Sweet and Sour Ca....Chicken

[Justin Case]

@ Chris Mellor 1

Yeah! I've got one. And it's pretty good. That is it does what it should. So far. Ain't that fantastic?

[spam 1]

Probably WD

I have one of these http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145041.

It has a WD10EAVS drive in it.

[scottboy]

@thomas k

The cat is either 100% alive or 100% dead - there is no 50% chance.

[Chris O'Shea]

Toshiba external 3.5" HDD

As others have said, Toshiba have been selling such drives in the UK for several years now.

I bought my first two from PC World maybe three years ago when getting an external 250Gb drive for under £100 was cheaper than buying a 250Gb uncased drive from my local cheap parts supplier. Since then I've bought a few more on ebay, originally to get a spare power supply (as one had failed) but the "dead" drive I bought turned out to have a simple physical connector problem so I repaired that and bought another, repaired that too, and now have five that I rotate as my backup drives (when you can buy an external drive 500Gb for £30 it makes a fine backup drive)

One ebay purchase did arrive with a *dead* drive in it, but as has been said, dropping in another disk is simple. And the aluminium cases are excellent for head dissipation so very quiet in use (only the drive spinning and head clicking noises) ... and aside from that one power supply issue, I've never had a problem with either the case electronics or the drives within.

Early ones were PATA, more recent ones have been SATA. (And the PC World ones used a round four pin connector, while the ones from ebay have all used a standard barrel connector)

But they have all been USB2.0 *only* so this new drive may be the first with the eSATA connector.

[Rik]

@scottboy

There's a 50% chance you're joking (decreasing to 0% if you're American); if not, there's a 100% chance you don't understand probability calculations.

[Doogs]

Quantum cats

IIRC it's both 100% alive and 100% dead until you open the case. Of course I could be anywhere up to 100% wrong on that...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's odd....

.... because I could have sworn blind I have a Tosh USB external 3.5 drive that Ebuyer had on offer about 9 months ago.