back to article Ten... Portable USB 3.0 HDDs

USB 3.0 has been with us for nearly two years now, not that you’d notice, as adoption and availability of peripherals has been somewhat slow. However, things are looking up now as more and more portable HDDs are coming to market featuring the not-so-new interface. Here at Reg Hardware, we've put together a round up of the …

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  1. Marvin the Martian
    Facepalm

    And there was me,

    hoping you'd include my USB3.0 Toshiba Canvio drive...

    1. Shaun Dormon

      Author Here

      Toshiba informed us that the Canvio is a US-Market only drive.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Toshiba

    No Toshiba StorE?

    1. Shaun Dormon

      Author Here

      Review samples were not available.

  3. Fuzz

    Samsung price

    Where do I buy the 1TB Samsung for £80? A quick look around shows the 640GB model at £100.

    1. Shaun Dormon

      Author Here

      According to Samsung the drive will be officially available at the RRP later this month.

      1. The BigYin

        Later this month?

        It was already the 20th when you posted! Rather than use some marketeer's future-possibly-not-true price, why not simply quote the actual price that of the thing at the time of writing? Or, at the very least, make it clear that the quoted price is in some way proposed/fictional.

        It almost smacks of false-advertising and makes me wonder what else in the review was based on PR-puffery rather than actuality.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Already got a Samsung USB3

      I bought a Samsung USB3 1TB drive over 2 months ago from Amazon (UK) for £70 (free delivery). Whilst this is an S2 not an M2 it's a good price, and it works.

      http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-S2-3-0-Powered-Portable--Midnight/dp/B004AUDO86/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1311504142&sr=8-2

  4. hitmouse
    Thumb Up

    And who has the USB 3.0 ports?

    I haven't seen a desktop or laptop that has USB 3 ports yets, and even the desktop adaptor cards are not easy to come by (listed in catalog but usually not in stock).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      My Laptop

      My laptop has 2x USB 3.0 ports

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Laptop with USB 3 ports

      Dell Precision M6600. Not budget but rather good and the USB 3 rocks.

    3. Arctic fox
      Windows

      That has been part of the problem.

      Not merely the lack of peripherals available on the market that the article refers to. Its only been relatively recently that people like Asus, Gigabyte and MSI have begun releasing mobos with native USB 3.0 ports. Any desktop that you might have (AFAIK) that is more than about half a year old will be most unlikely to have them and only a few pretty high end lappies released during the last year have them.

      Getting hold of an adaptor should in fact be quite easy, Amazon has several pci express adaptors, for example:

      http://www.amazon.co.uk/Buffalo-USB-Express-Interface-Card/dp/B002WULN98/ref=sr_1_7?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1311209935&sr=1-7

      1. TheManOnTheClaphamOmnibus
        Linux

        re: That has been part of the problem.

        Not just hi-end stuff - my £200 netbook (an Asus 1015PEM) has two USB3 ports, and very nice they are too...

    4. Stacy
      Thumb Up

      Also got two on mine

      Though I did not buy from the high street... I could have, but it was a one day delivery time and 200 pounds more than the laptop specialist that I went to charges.

      But... I called the shop, they had it in stock and I went to fetch it the same day :)

    5. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD

      RE: And who has the USB 3.0 ports?

      As you can see, quite a few of us do ;)

      I'd like to see.... 10 Portable... Thunderbolt... Anythings...

    6. Greg 16

      HP Elitebook

      My gf has just bought a HP Elitebook 2560p. Pretty sure all the USB ports are 3.0, just as they were on all her other potential choice of laptop. Having said that, they all had eSATA ports as well.

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. mivecboy

    @hitmouse

    I've had USB 3.0 ports on my desktop PC for the last 6 month. I wasn't aware this was a problem ?

  7. Marc Spillman
    Happy

    Dell Vostro

    My Dell Vostro has a USB 3 port on it. I purchased it a couple of months ago - it's a Dell Vostro 3450 (standard Core i-5 [Sandybridge]) . You can find it here: http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/vostro-3450/pd

    I haven't got a USB 3 drive yet but may well consider one now after reading these reviews - should make backing up a breeze without killing the laptop whilst running.

    HTH

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Shaun Dormon

      Author Here

      7/10? I gave the Samsung 95%. It's number 7 on the list in alphabetical order...

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
    Stop

    GoFlex USB 3.0

    Take a look at the connector to the drive.

    Take a look again :)

    I use mine on naked SATA drives, works a treat.

    I vote the GoFlex USB 3.0 *ADAPTER* as best product.

    The proprietary Seagate drives themselves appear reasonably well packaged. When connected up, the whole get up feels reasonably solid and reassuring. Sure, they are not as rugged looking as some of the offerings here, but the ability to just about grab any current SATA drive and connect it to one's USB 3.0 port cannot be underestimated, ie data recovery etc... Especially if your lappie doesn't have an eSATA.

    or if you couldn't be arsed to buy a Seagate drive and just use naked drives....

    1. mm0zct
      Thumb Up

      Not to mention the esata-p adapter

      I have a goflex drive too and I love it because my laptop has esata-p but not usb3, and my desktop has usb3 but not esata-p (it has esata but the goflex only provides an esata-p adapter); and as you said I can use all 3 adapters (usb2, esata-p and usb3) for my goflex on any other 2.5" hard disk :)

      Interface flexibility is underrated.

  10. mamsey
    FAIL

    WD Passport failure...

    Just had to return a 1TB WD Passport as it failed. I managed to get back the majority of the content on the but it fails all the WD tests (software included on the drive, luckily I'd backed that up).

    It's interesting to note that the drive within the enclosure is directly wired to the usb hardware and is does not have a standard sata style drive.

  11. Kevin7
    WTF?

    Benchmarks

    Surely you can't benchmark drives of different capacities in a comparative test? It surely goes without saying a 250GB drive is going to be faster than a 1TB?

    1. mm0zct

      And your reasoning being?

      I agree about performance disparities between different capacities, but I would expect the denser platters of the 1TB to provide higher performance than the less dense 250GB, rather than the other way around.

      1. NogginTheNog

        'Denser' platters?

        I'm not sure (so may get thumbed down lots!) but I thought for higher capacity drives the platters don't get denser (sorry: more dense) they just use more of them?

  12. Mika Peltokorpi
    WTF?

    WD My Passport 1TB

    I bought mine couple of weeks ago around 100 euros (~£90). Thus £130 sounds quite a steep to me. And it seems still to be sold around the same price point:

    http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/3322/cxbvb/Western-Digital-My-Passport-Essential-SE-1-TB-Red

    500GB version would be yours in 73 euros.

  13. Jonathan Walsh
    FAIL

    Samsung M2 1Tb

    Well it is now past the 'later this month', it now being the next month - so where is the Samsung M2 1Tb for £80?

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