If you need much faster speeds, you’ll haver to stump up for a 2.5in SSD. But for the price of a 2TB Toshiba Canvio Advance you’ll only get a ~250GB SSD.

The drive that Toshiba used is likely to be the MQ01ABB200 which was launched in 2013; it is a 15mm model that has four 500GB platters, a 5,400RPM rotational speed, 8MB buffer and an average seek time of 12ms/22ms in read/write. The main difference between the two Toshiba drives – other than the price and the design – boils down to the bundled applications.Toshiba includes a one-year limited warranty with your Canvio Basics drive, and though that’s half the time Western Digital includes with the Elements drives, Toshiba makes it clear that the warranty is included. As mentioned, the only file on the drive when you plug it in is a .pdf detailing the warranty. One Gigabyte (1GB) means 10 9 = 1,000,000,000 bytes and One Terabyte (1TB) means 10 12 = 1,000,000,000,000 bytes using powers of 10. A computer operating system, however, reports storage capacity using powers of 2 for the definition of 1GB = 2 30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes and 1TB = 2 40 = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes, and therefore shows less storage capacity. Available storage capacity (including examples of various media files) will vary based on file size, formatting, settings, software and operating system and other factors. Actual formatted capacity may vary. Does it work with game consoles? We tried the Toshiba Canvio Advance with both an Xbox One and PS4. It was successfully recognised by both. However, to use it with a PS4 you’ll need to format it to the FAT32 or exFAT file formats. The Xbox One does the job for you.

Hard drives may be relatively slow, but they still have their place. And unlike old hard drives, the Toshiba Canvio Advance’s read/write noise is barely noticeable, particularly if there’s a laptop/desktop/console fan whirring away nearby. Gbit/s is the interface transfer rate per the specifications of the Universal Serial Bus 3.0. Actual transfer rate will vary depending on your system configuration and other factors. Because it’s a limited warranty, there are many stipulations contained within. In short, if Toshiba can justify any misuse on your part that caused the drive to fail, your warranty request won’t be honored. Plus, missing items, such as the included USB cable, won’t be replaced under the warranty.

Slim and sturdy storage

The cable ends in a standard USB port —bear this in mind if you have a new laptop that only has USB-C connectors. Software and compatibility That compares poorly with the Samsung SpinPoint M9T drive, released this year that has a higher platter density (three 667GB platters), four times the cache size (32MB) and is way thinner (9.5mm versus 15mm). As a side note, not surprisingly, Toshiba's bare drive costs about 25% more than its external version. Verdict We also ran a test by copying a 2.3GB folder filled with photos, videos and documents to the drive and measuring the time it took to copy. The Canvio Basics drive we tested hovered around 140 megabytes per second throughout the transfer, resulting in a time of only 16.61 seconds, which is impressive. Its corners are slightly rounded with two glossy sides and a white LED on the front that lights up when the drive is on. Getting it to work requires a free USB port (USB 3.0 preferably).