Long story short, the average storage on a console or PC is 500 gigabytes to 1 terabyte. Simply put, that’s not a lot of storage if you want to have games downloaded on hand. This is where portable external hard drives come into play. They have gotten quite popular over the years, as people like to take their gaming devices with them on the go. Furthermore, they are also more intuitive than installing a new internal drive. Similar Reads: Best External Graphics Cards
Design, Specs, and Features
The Toshiba Canvio Gaming drive arrives in a neat small box. The packaging is quite simple and straightforward. The front of the box shows a picture of the drive itself, along with some of the features. Inside the box, we can find the drive itself along with the USB cable. This USB cable has a Type-A connector on the end and a micro-USB connector on the other end, which goes into the drive. So, let us talk about the specifications briefly. This specific drive is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB options. The exterior of the drive has a satin finish and comes in a simple black color. It is compatible with Windows PCs, PS4, Xbox, and even tablets. The drive will work fine with either a USB 2.0 or 3.0 port on your device. You can also use this drive with a Mac. However, you will need to reformat it, as is the case for most external hard drives for Macs. Now, let’s talk about the design. The satin finish of the drive means that it has a surface that feels cool to the touch. This satin finish has the company’s logo present in the top left corner. In terms of weight, you can’t feel it with this drive. The size is pocketable, and you can throw it into a backpack and forget about it. It is also quite slim at around 8mm. It’s the same size as Toshiba’s Canvio Flex and Canvio Slim external hard drives. Needless to say, carrying around this drive is never going to be an issue. After connecting the drive, you might not notice that the directory contains the instruction and user manual in various languages. There’s also a link to download free password protection and storage backup software.
Performance
The Toshiba Canvio slims perform just as well as we expect. It’s one of the best USB 3.0 external hard drive, so the performance was well within reason. Of course, it is not going to outperform any SSD, but it also does not cost as much and has a higher capacity at a low price. The main aspect here is convenience and overall value. We have the 1 terabyte version on our hands for this review. If you’re going to back up some files/games, this should be enough. If not, you can always go with the 2TB and 4TB options for peace of mind. So, the drive works well with consoles too. A lot of external hard drives malfunction with consoles, and cause issues such as crashing and stuttering. Corrupted save files are also common with cheap, low-quality drives. Fortunately, the Canvio Gaming works well with consoles and will not cause you any issues. It is extremely reliable in that regard. We mostly did our testing on PC, so here are some numbers for you to get a relative idea of performance.
Conclusion
All in all, the Toshiba Canvio Gaming accomplishes what it set out to do. It’s an excellent all-rounder and performs as well as we hoped. The design is sleek and modern, and the satin black finish means it does not draw too much attention to itself. It works with consoles, Windows, and macOS without any issues at all. You get a bunch of storage options, and it even looks aesthetically pleasing. It also comes with password protection and backup software as good bonuses. Overall, we recommend this to anyone looking for an affordable external storage solution.
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