Review on 💽 Toshiba Canvio Advance 1TB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive in White - HDTC910XW3AA by Patrick Matin

There is a lot of nonsense in the reviews, so I'll give you some facts. Feel free to do a little research to verify what I'm saying. This is already a wall of text, so I won't go into detail. (At the end there is an update on my only problem with this particular model and an easy way to recover data while the internal drive is still good.) 1) EVERY hard drive manufacturer fails. every last one Some are DOA, others take a month or more. It depends on your usage. Moving parts break. The ventilation openings are clogged. The fries are fried. Crack the boards. I tried to find good data but [statistics lingo]. Commonly reported failure rates across the industry are in the 2-5% range, with some lines doing better or worse. I personally have had very good experiences with them. 1b) No matter how good they are, all hard drives die sooner or later. Consider it a win if you can use it until it becomes too small and slow to be worth keeping. (In this case, remember to securely erase the disc before recycling.) 1c) People tend to complain rather than praise. Each drive you explore has fewer good than bad user reviews. (See #8 and 9 below.) 1d) Smaller producers are bought by larger ones. Last year's high-end product can now include a low-end drive. Serious. KIA. Find manufacturers you trust and give them your loyalty. 2) Any USB hard drive, flash drive, etc. works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. There are some specialized proprietary devices, especially for professional and enterprise devices, but consumer devices work on both. Reformat it if you need it. Test it on all your devices before using it (due to technical reasons). 2b) ExFAT is usually a suspect in cross-platform file sharing. It's not great. There's nothing in it to prevent data loss (e.g. logging) and in my experience Macs sometimes choke on it. Consider a reliable cross-platform file driver and stick with NTFS or HFS+. Test your drive on all platforms before using it (technical reasons). If you use it for backups, only use it for backups. If it's for TimeMachine on a Mac, let TimeMachine reformat it and take over completely. 2c) Check the options when purchasing and check again in your shopping cart. There are different sizes, styles and "support" options. Make sure you order what you think. Serious. I've seen a lot of reviews from people really complaining that they ordered the wrong thing. And keep the price in mind when switching options. Please double check this in your shopping cart before placing your order. 3) Don't move your data - copy it. And keep your old drive until you're sure the new one is good. Feel free to abuse your new device, do surface scans, etc. as many times as you want when you receive it. That's called burnout. If the drive mechanics are good, the software will track bad sectors later (look for SMART). 3b) This particular drive is not an SSD, but I pretend to tell you all about hard drives. Solid state drives do not need to be scanned and should not be defragmented. It's actually bad for her. 4) Get an online backup service, preferably a reputable one with a zero-knowledge policy like SpiderOak or Carbonite. This means that the provider cannot access your data even if they wanted to. It's called security. Keep your old drive until your files are backed up (in case it fails). Depending on your service, this may not take that long. (Some services will check your data to avoid uploading the same data again.) 5) Electronic devices, no matter how durable or tough they claim, no matter what the advertising says, are not meant to be thrown, thrown, planted. magnetized, electrocuted, immersed in water, burned, heated in a microwave oven, or implanted in living beings. It should definitely not be thrown, left in the rain, dropped in a pool, etc. You do it and it breaks. You lose data. Products designed to behave this way are expensive. Waterproof, not submersible. Dive boat has restrictions. Shock resistance doesn't mean it can be dropped. 6) Do not use the provided backup software, backup service or built-in password protection. You don't pay for these things. If they were that good they would be sold separately. If so, then you have ads designed to lure you into using a service that you will not refuse. Get your own service. (See #4.) 6b) The first thing you should do is reformat the drive, even if it has been formatted. It doesn't take much time. Just do it. 7) Portable is good, but if your laptop comes with an external mouse and keyboard, two external drives, and a hub. it is no longer wearable. SD cards are quite cheap and more durable for travel. They are faster too. Keep the drive safe and bring copies with you. Unless you need a lot of space. In this case, take the second disc and bring copies with you. If your data is that important, protect it. 8) Think about the dumbest person in your job and assume that every review is written by them. Seriously, I've known professional technicians I wouldn't trust to hook up a keyboard. Some of them made a lot of money. I have decades of technical experience. I also have a number of educational and professional credentials. Of course I can also be a little pink rabbit. You know. Don't listen to people on the internet, myself included. Look for reputable tech sites (I don't think I'm allowed to list them here) and find a consensus. Ask what the worst outcome would be if the author is an idiot or a troll. 9) When checking reviews, check what the 1 star ratings are saying. Are they bitter or factual? Hard drives not working? Were they treated well by the company? Are they really complaining about Revain or a third party? 9b) 12% of the ratings here have 1 star. A quick poll tells me that at least half of these are written by people who don't know as much about computers as their friends tell them. Half of the others are actually complaining about other things. Toshiba's return policy seems to require a bit of work, so use your 30 days to write it down and back it up. . I've used them professionally, as have people I know in a variety of fields. I personally owned at least six and knew many others with them. All this time I had exactly one problem (see below). If asked for professional advice, I agree. I've been looking for a larger capacity drive lately (Macs and laptops don't have ports), but I keep coming back here. UPDATE: I had my first problem, an old 1TB that I've had for so long I can't find a record of when I bought it. The light was on, but the system didn't even know it was there. Correction? I opened up the case and removed the piece of electronics connecting the internal drive connector (SATA) to the external connector (USB-B). Then I plugged it back in and reassembled the drive. FWIW, this is called a clean install. It works with anything wired and tops the list with a system reboot for magical fixes. BONUS: No guarantees, but if those electronics fail, you can access the drive inside with a new case or SATA to USB. adapter kit. I think I paid about $40 for mine. Carefully opening the case is probably more difficult than using the mechanism, but there are a number of reputable forums where you can get help on how to use it.