[PC World] Toshiba 320GB External Hard Drive - £99.99 free delivery

[wozwebs]

Picked one of these up today, down from £159.99 then £129.99 to £109.99, now £99.99

Needed one to back up all my files and is USB2 so will suit me fine.

Not bad considering the 250GB is £10 more ;)

Direct Link (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://tracker.tradedoubler.com/pan/TrackerServlet?p=1078&a=60823&g=19560&url=http://www.pcworld.co.uk/product.php?sku=023695)

[ravi_1979]

Saw this which isn't bad for the dosh! It's on the home page as it's a current special reduced by £60!

Maplin (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-582776-10297371)

[captaineyecatch]

The Offer is now back at a even better price - Now £99 with free delivery :thumbs:
See Here....
PC World (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://tracker.tradedoubler.com/pan/TrackerServlet?p=1078&a=60823&g=19560&url=http://www.pcworld.co.uk/product.php?sku=023695)
Can a mod please update the title to show the new price

[Alan b]

Can a mod please update the title to show the new price

Done :)

[dali]

Great price, I bought one of these a few weeks ago for 109.99 :(

[mburton2]

Reserved one....collect it tomorrow, so that will give me a chance to collect my £25 vouchers I have from ipoints...

Total cost of 320g Drive to me: £75 :)

[bisoner]

How does the speed of a UBS2 drive compare to a SATA drive? I've got an external DVD Writer and this seems to work very well.

Thanks

Brad

[RabbiDreed]

Whose drive is inside? Hitachi? Maxtor? Seagate? WD?

I don't think Toshiba do 3.5" drives and even their 2.5"/1.8" drives are probably somebody elses re-branded.

[richieuk]

Whose drive is inside? Hitachi? Maxtor? Seagate? WD?

I don't think Toshiba do 3.5" drives and even their 2.5"/1.8" drives are probably somebody elses re-branded. According to this thread (http://www.thedvdforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=409335&highlight=toshiba) it has a Western Digital hard disc.

[jodennis]

Thanks, picked one up earlier. Good deal!

[RabbiDreed]

Reserverd for collection later... Ta OP! :thumbs:

[thrakkie]

oNLY WORKS WITH xp AND ABOVE!

[cheapskate58]

oNLY WORKS WITH xp AND ABOVE!

Caps lock :D

Nice price tho :thumbs:

[KeyserSoze]

Does it have auto power on and off?

[RabbiDreed]

For those interested, the exact drive inside is:

WD Caviar SE EIDE 320 GB Hard Drive (http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=117)

:dork:

[Superstar P.J.]

Picked up one of these badboys today cheers!

[cybergen]

Does it have auto power on and off?

Dunno... http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=117 it mentions a standby and sleep mode power specs. :?:

[dali]

I've got this HD working on my Win 2000 machine if that helps anyone, plug and play no drivers required.

[lewie]

Popped in store and they also had some 300gb internal ones for £95

[billyflem]

Had one of these for a year now, excellent HD would recommend to all :thumbs:

Yep it has power off and on.

[jush]

reserved one. Ta to op

[DMC]

Had one for a few months now - can't fault it. The case gets a bit warm though.
I have just bought another thanks to this thread - If I stack them on top of each other will the heat produced cause any problems?

[Mark]

I've reserved one too. Cheers wozwebs!

[la_folie]

Just been down to the Leeds store to get one. Looks good.

[acmoore]

Bought one!
Its magic!! The light on the front is a bit bright, be able to turn big light off and have a disco as it changes state during a large file copy!!

[mburton2]

I just collected mine....& picked up an UPS for £20 too...... :)

[nigel_williams]

Dabs just sent me an e-mail with a 250GB Iomega drive for 78.47:
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=3R1C

Might be a good alternative if the Tosh one sells out at PC World.

[potatohead]

I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago at £109. It died yesterday so just been into PCWorld and got a refund. Suspect it was something in the enclosure rather than the WD drive itself. Guy behind the desk said he'd seen hundreds sold and very few problems, but I didn't want to take the chance of another one failing. :(

Casing looks and feels good, there's an on-off switch on the back but I wasn't aware of any auto power on/off while I had it working.

[riaz]

Can't see its size specs on the site - any pics?

[Jimmyboy]

Can't see its size specs on the site - any pics?
My mates one is about 24cm x 16cm. It's not this tosh model but the cases are roughly the same size I think. I guess they make the cases quite bulky due to them being designed to be picked up and moved around.

[Cockeye]

Went to my local store today - they wouldn't sell it to me at anything less than 139.99

But I wasn't too unhappy as they agreed to sell me an ipod video 30GB for £160 and I got a 160GB HDD which is all I really need for £70

[thelocalman]

You need to ring and reserve from the website for it to be £99. Shelf price is £139, scans at £109.

Tonight I brought my 4th. Great piece of kit.

[ps2user]

Jusrt brought one and light (LED) is way too bright - got a postit note to cover it and its still bright. ANyway its a good buy and now to consolodate all my files to one place :D

[RexMundi]

blu tak (or generic 'tac' of any kind) is your friend for all bright LED problems :)

[joker3001]

The led doesnt work on mine :( .. should I take it back :D

[gelhead]

Got mine from the PC World in Old Trafford, asked the manager why it was 139.99 instore and 99.99 on the website. He went over to a pc and then reserved it for me .. gave me a ref number to go to the til. Bingo ... 99.99 at the til. Thankyou mr manager at pc world Old trafford

[Simes123]

Would someone mind telling me what voltage range the supply transformer will accept? I'm moving to the US soon, and would only buy this if it would take 110V. Thanks, Simon

[Prav]

The voltage is 110-240V - it does come with a UK 3 pin & European two pin cables but no US plug.

[Tastydirt]

Thanks, good bargain :).

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Just ordered one, after an outbreak of hard drive failures in my student house has got me spooked. Looking forward to backing-up my stuff. Great price, cheers op.

[Tastydirt]

The led doesnt work on mine :( .. should I take it back :D

Count yourself lucky! I find it too bright to look at!

[Jimmyboy]

Picked up one myself. Thanks op.

Did someone mention something about setting it to turn itself off when the PC goes off or something?

Also mine came with little sticker things inside. I wonder if these are too dim the led light?

[mburton2]

The Little stickers (I think) are stick-on feet if you place it on its side (Unscrew the base stand 1st) to stop scratchin up you desk/underside of the drive.

[Jimmyboy]

ah right makes sense.

For the bloke who wanted to know the size it's roughly 20 x 14.

[bossnas]

Why not get a separate HDD and case and save yourself a bit of cash?

You can get one of these for £69.91 from ebuyer: Seagate 300GB 7200.9 ATA100 8.5ms 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM -- which is faster than the WD and has a longer warranty (5yrs?). Throw it in a firewire/usb2 case from SVP for less than £20 and bob's ya dad's brother. Anyway, that's what I did. YMMV :-)

Cheers

[Simes123]

The voltage is 110-240V - it does come with a UK 3 pin & European two pin cables but no US plug.

Excellent - many thanks. Simon

[KeyserSoze]

So it doesnt have auto power off ? :(

I ordered one, hasnt been shipped yet though.

[Jimmyboy]

So it doesnt have auto power off ? :(

Just a standard on and off position I think.


Mine comes up as 298g drive and not 320g, is that normal?

[Tastydirt]

Just a standard on and off position I think.


Mine comes up as 298g drive and not 320g, is that normal?

It is a 320GB drive, but after space used/reserved by the file system (NTFS by default), it's 300GB.

[KennyVader]

Cheers wozwebs, picked up a couple today. Now I can do a decent backup.

[jimmyjammy]

Do these work with apple macs?

[Mark B]

Do these work with apple macs?

Works fine under Linux so I imagine it should do the same under Mac (though you'll be wanting to format the drive to something else than NTFS).

[Tastydirt]

Does anyone else find this drive quite loud? It's louder than my Dell 5150, and it sounds kinda like my fridge :|.

[Mark B]

Does anyone else find this drive quite loud? It's louder than my Dell 5150, and it sounds kinda like my fridge :|.

Very low level throbbing is all I hear - pretty quiet overall

[snowball]

Why not get a separate HDD and case and save yourself a bit of cash?

You can get one of these for £69.91 from ebuyer: Seagate 300GB 7200.9 ATA100 8.5ms 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM -- which is faster than the WD and has a longer warranty (5yrs?). Throw it in a firewire/usb2 case from SVP for less than £20 and bob's ya dad's brother. Anyway, that's what I did. YMMV :-)

Cheers

sounds good. But for £99 I can't fault the PC World deal. I've ordered it from the web site and hopefully should be with me in the next few days :)

[KeyserSoze]

Does anyone else find this drive quite loud? It's louder than my Dell 5150, and it sounds kinda like my fridge :|.

Is it like a constant noise or only when the HDD is being accessed?

I mean my PC is pretty quiet, any noticable extra noise would really annoy me.

[Tastydirt]

Is it like a constant noise or only when the HDD is being accessed?

I mean my PC is pretty quiet, any noticable extra noise would really annoy me.

Well, I can hear the clicking when the drive is seeking, but theres a constant low buzz/hum all the time. Is there a fan in this?

[KeyserSoze]

Oh thats disappointing.

I suppose i can hide it behind some sound proof barrier.

[mburton2]

Odd, My two make VERY little/no noise......

[Tastydirt]

I might have to take mine apart to see what hard drive it has...

[KennyVader]

Can't hear either of mine at all :shrug:

The LED does seem to have been borrowed from some chav's car headlights though :)

[mgb_dvd]

It is a 320GB drive, but after space used/reserved by the file system (NTFS by default), it's 300GB.

If you are only using for storing videos/photos/music etc you can ge tmore space by reducing/turning off the recycle bin reserved space, by default it uses 10% of the drive.

Right click on the recycle bin on the desktop, select properties then independant settings for each drive, you can turn down or disable rcycle bin for the external drive.

[KennyVader]

If you are only using for storing videos/photos/music etc you can ge tmore space by reducing/turning off the recycle bin reserved space, by default it uses 10% of the drive.

Right click on the recycle bin on the desktop, select properties then independant settings for each drive, you can turn down or disable rcycle bin for the external drive.

Only if you actually leave files in the recycle bin! It doesn't use any space if you keep emptying the recycle bin, as far as I know.

The 20gb that tastydirt is talking about is taken up by the catalogue of what's where on the drive, and lost bytes due to the way blocks are laid out, there's nothing you can do to get it back.

[Tastydirt]

Technically, it isn't "lost" space, you can't use the drive without that space being reserved. It's just the overhead of the file system.

[mgb_dvd]

20Gb on a 320 Gb seems a lot for just NTFS metadata.
Most of it is probably that the 320Gb is marketing speak
320 *1000*1000*1000 = 298 *1024*1024*1024

I though the stated free space was not including the reserved recycle bin evenif it was empty ?

[Squirrel God]

20Gb on a 320 Gb seems a lot for just NTFS metadata.
It's 6%, which is average. You need to remember the size of the drive is 320GB, therefore 6% of it is not an insignificant amount. A 40GB drive would be reduced to just a little over 37GB after formatting (NTFS).

[Jimmyboy]

Mine makes occasional clicking/crunching noises even when it's idle, or at least when I'm not actually doing anything with the drive at that moment. Does that sound normal? Other than that it's quite quiet.

[Mark B]

Does that sound normal? .
Nope - no clicking or crunching on mine. Just that low-level throbbing.

[cybergen]

no clicking on mine either. However that led is way too bright, stuck some blue tac on it.

[Jimmyboy]

Nope - no clicking or crunching on mine. Just that low-level throbbing.
Strange. It surely must make a seek noise though?, which is what I'm assuming the occasional clicking sound is on mine.

[Mark B]

Strange. It surely must make a seek noise though?, which is what I'm assuming the occasional clicking sound is on mine.

If I put my Littman to it, I can hear some whirring but nothing really audible wihtout the stethoscope. The model is supposed to be a super quiet ("fanless design for near-silent operation") so I assumed it was normal.

[Tastydirt]

If I put my Littman to it, I can hear some whirring but nothing really audible wihtout the stethoscope. The model is supposed to be a super quiet ("fanless design for near-silent operation") so I assumed it was normal.

It's a shame mines louder than my PC, and sounds like my mini fridge :(.

[KennyVader]

Strange. It surely must make a seek noise though?, which is what I'm assuming the occasional clicking sound is on mine.

Can't hear anything from mine, even when busy working.

[KeyserSoze]

Received mine today.

Was a bit concerned since the box was a bit battered. But have it running now and its pretty silent to me. Currently formatting to NTFS, boy does it take a while.

I know what you mean by the LED. I keep thinking its gonna start singing "Daisy, daisy..."

[Tastydirt]

Mine must be a bit of a dud... but I have so much stuff on it now I can't be bothered to take it back :(. Oh KeyserSoze, it should arrive NTFS formatted, if it didn't, it might be a returned one that someone formatted to FAT32.

[KeyserSoze]

oh bugger.

I didnt even check. I thought I had read on here it comes formatted as FAT32 so just went ahead to reformat :doh:

[Jimmyboy]

I noticed at the back (where the cables plug in) the casing was slightly pulled out and the power cable wasn't wrapped in any bag packaging. I popped the back into place ok and just assumed it happened in the box but now I'm wondering if these are referbs hence the price.

I'm doing a check disc scan for bad sectors now so if that comes back ok I'll forget about it and get back to being happy with the purchase.

[Tastydirt]

I noticed at the back (where the cables plug in) the casing was slightly pulled out and the power cable wasn't wrapped in any bag packaging. I popped the back into place ok and just assumed it happened in the box but now I'm wondering if these are referbs hence the price.

I'm doing a check disc scan for bad sectors now so if that comes back ok I'll forget about it and get back to being happy with the purchase.

I got mine from a store and its definatly brand new, the box was sealed at both ends with big clear stickers and a security tag.

[KeyserSoze]

My box was sealed, everything was bagged.

But the stand was already attached when in the manual it says we supposed to do this ourself.

Anyway, mine is up and running after the long format. Transfer is very fast.

Oh you know you are supposed to remove the drive safely before turning it off, what do I do if there isnt an icon in taskbar?

[Tastydirt]

But the stand was already attached when in the manual it says we supposed to do this ourself.

Mine can with the feet attached too.

Oh you know you are supposed to remove the drive safely before turning it off, what do I do if there isnt an icon in taskbar?

If you don't have write caching on (look in the Device Manager, it's under the Policies tab), then you don't need to eject it. However if you want it to be a bit faster you can choose "optimize for performance" but you'll have to eject it first.

[Jimmyboy]

Mine came in a box too and all sealed although that's not an entire guarantee that something is brand new.

You can safely remove the HD by shuting down the PC if need be and turning off the HD once the PC is off.

[Mark B]

Just remembered - I'm using ext3 as a file format so that may have some influence on the seek sounds (doubt it but you never know).

[Sarah7]

But the stand was already attached when in the manual it says we supposed to do this ourself.
Don't worry, this is normal. I've got 2 of these; from different batches and both manuals only say the stand *might* already be attached. I rather suspect it always is.

[Johnk1]

Slightly off-topic but if I wanted to store all my music on a drive such as this (rather than taking 500+ cds with me when I move abroad in the near future) - what format or software should I use? I have an ipod mini so would iTunes be OK? If I used some other software to convert to say mp3 would iTunes be able to recognise them?

Any help appreciated.

[Tastydirt]

Slightly off-topic but if I wanted to store all my music on a drive such as this (rather than taking 500+ cds with me when I move abroad in the near future) - what format or software should I use? I have an ipod mini so would iTunes be OK? If I used some other software to convert to say mp3 would iTunes be able to recognise them?

Any help appreciated.

iTunes is pretty good for this as it organises your music well. Just import everything into iTunes, and set the iTunes music folder to somewhere on the HD, then click "Consolidate Library" and it'll copy everything over, if it's not already there, and also put them in the right folders and give them the right file names.

[mattmu76]

Cheers op picked up two tonight

Matt

[riaz]

does it come with the USB2 cable?

if so how long is the cable

TIA

[snowball]

does it come with the USB2 cable?

if so how long is the cable

TIA


about 1 - 2 meters i think. more than enough for the drive to sit/stand besides or on top of your PC or tower. And besides you can pick up a longer USB cable for a couple of quid from Amazon, ebuyer, or ebay.

Just got the drive today and its fantastic. Straight plug and play. Wish it didnt have its own power though.

[Johnk1]

iTunes is pretty good for this as it organises your music well. Just import everything into iTunes, and set the iTunes music folder to somewhere on the HD, then click "Consolidate Library" and it'll copy everything over, if it's not already there, and also put them in the right folders and give them the right file names.

Thanks - thinking the other way around, if I wanted to stream my music wirelessly from my PC to a receiver would the tracks be recognised in iTunes format or do they have to be mp3?

Anyone any experience with wireless digital music players?

[Tastydirt]

Thanks - thinking the other way around, if I wanted to stream my music wirelessly from my PC to a receiver would the tracks be recognised in iTunes format or do they have to be mp3?

Anyone any experience with wireless digital music players?

iTunes does play MP3s, just set it to encode CDs as MP3s instead of AAC, which is the default format but not recognised by as many players. Otherwise, as long as all the files are MP3, I don't see why another player couldn't read it?

[T4V]

Collected one today and was handed a 250gb model so watch out.

[Jimmyboy]

Mine's doing something else which seems slightly odd.

The hd makes a notably higher pitch noise as though it's just started searching for something and it continues until I click on a file and then it stops. I seem to recall my normal pc internal hd did this on occasions when extracting achived files. Haven't extracted anything on the external tosh though, just standard cut and past of files.

[KennyVader]

I accidentally ripped the power cord out of mine today while it was connected to the PC, plugged it back in, seems to have survived OK :thumbs: