Review on Toshiba 2TB Canvio Basics USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive - High-Speed Storage Solution by Lloyd Rodriguez

I have 23 portable hard drives from different manufacturers. 16 of them are USB 3.0 and 7 of this particular model (HDTB220XK3CA). Over the years I've had 3 drives that failed. It happens. One was Maxtor, one was Western Digital and this one was from Toshiba. I use the discs solely to store my Blu-ray rips, plug them into a media player and watch them. I purchased this drive from Amazon on May 25, 2014. I have no idea when I started using it. I always keep 2 unused hard drives. (I never want to experience data loss again, so I mirror every drive). I ended up using about 900GB of the 1.8TB available on this drive. Writing data to disk has never been a problem. However, when I tried to play the movies on my media player, all files were skipped. I tried another media player and had the same problem. I then moved the files to the same Toshiba drive and the skipping stopped. So I reformatted the problem drive and put the files back on it. The pass has been saved. Neither Windows 8 nor Windows XP could find any actual hard drive errors, but the hard drive was clearly defective. It was still within the Amazon return period so I had to contact Toshiba directly as the drive comes with a one year warranty. It was an incredibly easy process. Here's how it went: On May 25, I ordered a Toshiba 2TB USB 3.0 drive from Amazon for $104.11 including tax. On August 25th, I submitted a three-step online claim to Toshiba. I was offered a replacement or credit option to use on the Toshiba website. I chose voucher. They indicated how much the voucher would be at that point. I received an RMA number in my mailbox immediately. On August 25, I shipped the defective drive to Toshiba for $16.24. Toshiba preferred UPS, but I was able to ship using whichever method I chose. Today, August 29, UPS reported that Toshiba received the package at 10:36 am. At 6:14pm I received an email from Toshiba saying the claim was closed and a coupon code worth $218.33. They claim that the coupon amount is calculated considering the cost of replacement and shipping. The $218.33 coupon minus the original $104.11 cost of the disc minus the $16.24 I paid for shipping gives a net profit of $97.98. It should be noted that they tell you that once you use a coupon code for any amount, it will expire (so you must buy at least the amount of the coupon). I turned around and bought two 2TB drives from Toshiba's website. (I bought a higher model screen than the original). The grand total from my pocket was $52.26. But remember, I bought an extra 2TB drive. If I just wanted to replace one hard drive, I'd win. That's pretty efficient customer service from Toshiba. I didn't take anything from Amazon as I clearly went past a reasonable return window. The bottom line is that with enough drive purchases, regardless of manufacturer, drive failure will occur. You must ensure that your data is backed up. The simplicity of Toshiba's return policy is reason enough to use it.