Whether you’re a college student who wants to save your project videos, or a freelancer who always needs more space, the demand for storage has increased in recent weeks.
[Discos SSD para smartphones ¿Cómo funcionan? ¿Me los recomiendas?]
In the market we have many options, although not all of them correspond to what we really need. A very common mistake is spending more than necessary, especially if we get carried away with top features and technologies.
Toshiba Canvio Basics, the basics
This is not a problem you will have with the Canvio Basics. We were able to test Toshiba’s simplest offering in terms of storage, and the truth is that it didn’t surprise me; but for the first time on these pages, it’s a good thing.
And it is that, when handling important data, the last thing you want is a surprise, a complication or a headache. You want to plug and copy files, nothing more, and that’s exactly what this device delivers.
Toshiba Canvio basics
The free Android
The Toshiba Canvio Basics is a laptop-style hard drive, so you don’t need to open your computer to install it; this also assumes that it is compatible with portable devices, although if you intend to use it on Android there are a few things you should take into account which we will explain later.
The appearance of the Canvio Basics very well expresses this feeling that we are not dealing with anything special, because it does not want to be. It only comes in a matte black color that easily goes unnoticed on the desktop and isn’t meant to be boring at all. It only has two exterior hallmarks: the first is the Toshiba logo, etched into the outer plastic so it doesn’t stick out too much, and the second is the light that indicates the drive is working. The essential, as its name suggests.
It’s a small hard disk, which can be carried perfectly by hand, so we can put it in the same bag or compartment as our laptop without too much problem, for example. It’s also light, although the feel in the hand is that of a simple piece of plastic, without any “premium” touches or anything like that; which is good, it’s just what I expected and in that sense you can’t ask for much more.
An outdated connection
Where I want to focus my reviews is on the choice of port. The Toshiba Canvio Basics uses a USB 3.0 connection, which is more than enough for a typical hard drive like this; if it was an SSD, I would have asked for something better, but here it makes no sense, because the “bottleneck” is in the internal mechanism of the disk itself, and it is less expensive. My issue is that it uses a micro-B USB port, which you probably won’t use on any other device, but is relatively common on hard drives; it connects to our device with a USB-A cable.
Toshiba Canvio basics
The free Android
That means we can’t use the same USB-C cables we probably already have, and if it breaks we’ll have to search for this one specifically. I would have liked to see more variety at least in the cables included, but for that you have to opt for the USB-C version of this Basics.
This will no longer be acceptable soon, when USB-C becomes the official standard in the European Union, thanks to regulations that force manufacturers to adapt it. For now, that’s just a minor annoyance, given that many laptops still retain a USB-A port, but not all.
Simple and with the performance you expected
The Toshiba Canvio Basics is the simplest device you can use. Just plug it into your computer and it will work, period. It will appear as a new disk on your system, perfectly formatted in NTFS and ready to use; You will find two PDF files that serve as an instruction manual and a user guide, but there really isn’t much to say.
The story is different if you want to use that hard drive in another type of device. On Android, you will first have to find an adapter to be able to connect it to your tablet or mobile, and format it in the appropriate format. Luckily, this is all easier than ever, and many devices automatically detect that you want to use an external hard drive. Reading an NTFS hard drive from Android is also possible without formatting it.
Toshiba Canvio Base Performance
In terms of performance, it’s exactly what we expect from a conventional hard drive. The transfer rate is the element that has improved the most with SSDs, which can be somewhat disappointing if you are used to the internal disk of your laptop, for example; but it shouldn’t.
It is a hard drive designed primarily for storing files, to keep them whenever we need them; not so much to work directly on them. I would recommend it to make backup copies, or to save video files or large images from our mobile, for example.
Of course, the big advantage of the Toshiba Canvio Basics is the price. The 1 TB version can be obtained for only 46 dollars on Amazon, and it is possible to reach up to 4 TB for less than 100 dollars on sites like PcComponentes, a very good capacity/price ratio from all angles.
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