I was looking for a good portable external hard-drive for sometime (only online and not only at Amazon.com). Eventually, I basically slimmed my options down to wanting a Toshiba. User specs seemed about the best to me and recommendations were all good. I found different variations from various sellers. Amazon had the latest and newest version, which appears to be the one I am writing the review for, at a lesser price than what the other vendors were selling out-dated-models of 500Gd Toshiba hard-drives for. That I liked. Be careful not to buy the old models from on-line sellers, they usually do not specify between the older models and the latest released models. Service was very prompt too, and shipping was handled well.
I really don’t know a lot about hard drives, space, or even computers. The drive itself works well. The instillation process was confusing if one does not understand the difference or benefits between using the drive as a FAT32 or NTFS. Even without formatting it to NTFS apparently it still can be used FAT32 on Windows. Sometimes when I plug unrelated external storage units into my computer, like my 1Gb Flash disk, the BackUp Now EZ software attempts to use them to backup my computer. Maybe, their is an easy way to make the software function only with the external storage units that I select, that I simply have not yet discovered.
I purchased the Caselogic brand hard-drive case that Amazon recommend along with the drive. The drive does fit with some extra room. The small elastic type material strap inside the case keeps the drive from moving. After looking at the drive I am happy I bought a case. I would recommend that anyone who does travel, to get a case for it.
I consider it a good investment made and money well spent.