Works for Linux

Bought this for my Linux laptop. Works right of the box. Changed the file system to ext3. The bottom rubber strip is a plus which prevents the drive from sliding down on my slanted desk. Beautiful exterior finish.

So far, so Good

I purchased this external hard drive to back up files on my computer. I like Toshiba products and this hard drive got some great reviews so I decided to go with this hard drive. I have to say that I am pleasantly satisfied with its performance. I like the look and the size of it. The shadow software that came with it is not the best but it gets the job done. Overall, I give this hard drive 5 stars because I have no complaints.

P.S. I use windows vista so for anyone who has windows vista and is thinking about using this hard drive, be assured that it is fully compatible with vista.

Easy to use, reliable

I've been using this for only a few months, but I travel with it frequently, and I've dropped it twice; and still have had no problems at all. I use it with a MacBook and an "old" (~2001) Toshiba laptop with no compatibility issues. I find the speed acceptable, the price was right, and the convenience great.

A note for non-laptop users: the USB cord included with this harddrive is very short (very 6 inches?). This is fantastic on a desk with my laptop and my USB drives right there, but if you have to reach in back of your computer to plug things in, you might want a longer cord. It uses the standard USB cable that seems to come with about 95% of my computer electronics, so you probably already have one.

Portable Hard Drive

A very easy to use affordable high storage portable hard drive. Just plug into the USB port and go. No need for external power supplies or AC cord. It is a must have.

Does not work with many laptops, shows up as unknown device, poor tech support

Bought this hard drive to backup my laptops, did not work with 3 different laptops all had a problem with the power draw and gave an error message. The work around is a powered USB hub, and/or disable the warning notification in the control panel under system, Hardware,Devive Manager, USB hardware, Advanced (click on "Don't tell me about USB errors"), also plugging the laptop computer into wall power seemed to help. Who would know? I also tried all the different updates for the computers. Eventually the drive worked intermittently on one laptop. Called and emailed tech support, useless! The usual solution is blaming everyone else, and that it's not a problem with their drive. Their solution is to send it back under warranty, which is not the issue because the drive worked fine on a desktop computer, so it is a driver issue. When its works, it's OK, but an older 60Gb fire wire/USB hard drive is quicker, and works with every computer I have used it on through the years. My suggestion is that  more

Fast, light weight and silent

I purchased this external HD mainly for backups of my HP laptop and my wife's Mackbook. The main reason for choosing this model was that it is one of the few units that can startup without a 2-1 USB cable for extra energy. Macbooks strictly follows the 500mA current limit standard for USB ports so a lot of external drives that are powered directly from the USB cannot spin up without using two USB ports. This model works flawless with only one standard USB port.

Pros:
- No external power adapter (powered by the USB port);
- Small form factor;
- Light weight (light like an iPod);
- Beautifull design;

Cons:
- None so far, worked fine since I bought it one month ago;

Works with WinXP and Macbook Air

I bought this item a month ago as a backup storage for a Dell desktop running Windows XP Home and a Macbook Air. It works great for both Win and Mac. No problem getting power from the USB ports of the two machines.

I especially like such portability of this item that I can bring it to my office on weekdays and take backups. It provides enough storage for my office PC and two home computers.

It's shipped with Fat32 and I needed to reformat it with NTFS so that large backup files, say, 40GB, can be saved. For Macbook Air, I spared a partition and formatted it with HFS. I don't keep it connected to one of the two machines as I don't run daily backups. Instead, I connect it to one of them once in a while, say, once in two weeks and run Windows Backup manually. As for the Air, Time Machine is smart enough to start backup automatically when the Air recognizes the drive.

For safety, I also use the bundled NTI Shadow to backup music files and pictures from my digital camera. File based backups  more

portable, bus-driven, inexpensive, compatible

this drive currently represents the top tier in a new three-drive lineup of portable, bus-driven, inexpensive and compatible USB hard drives from Toshiba... the drives are lightweight and pocketable - perfect for out-of-the-way storage or easy transport of loads of data... each drive comes loaded w/backup software for OS X and, if you unfortunately use it, the OS from the monopoly in Redmond. Linux users will just plug in the drive and go to work (GNU gzip, cp, dd, cpio, Amanda, star, glastree, etc.)... no CD of the backup software is included, so make any copies before repartitioning or reformatting the drive...

in my case, i plugged the unit into my 20" iMac, then clicked to reformat and use the drive as a Time Machine backup unit under OS X 10.5.2 - works great! a small blue led in a top corner of the drive flickers as data is being transferred... the drive is silent and stays cool, despite being a sealed unit (no visible screws, and obviously, no internal drive replacement intentionally  more