Toshiba HDDR500E04ER_CS StorE Art 500GB 2.5-inch Portable External Hard Drive, Red

Very, very impressive. Small, solid build, nice design. Almost completely silent in operation. Decent speed - slightly faster than my 1Tb Western Digital 3.5in HDD, in fact. Running off a single USB port for power is a real boon for laptop use.

Despite what the description implies, this drive works perfectly well with a Mac. The bundled software won't, obviously, but it's just the usual pointless crapware and can cheerfully be deleted.

This is such a smart piece of kit.
Take it out of the box, connect it to your USB2 drive, and use!
There is a fair amount of 'stuff' already on the drive - known as 'bloatware' I am informed by a chum of mine in IT - samples of anti-virus software and so on, but I just deleted it all and started saving my stuff.
500Gb is plenty big enough for all but the most dedicated film maker or video downloader, and should even keep them happy for a good long time. For most average users I reckon you will be able to keep adding stuff to this for a few years to come before it is full.
It took just over a hour to back up my existing external 40Gb hard drive onto this one, using the USB2 cable - supplied - with both the drives running in the background.
It is very quiet - pocket sized - and quite snazzy looking in bright red and black plastic.
It has two rubber ridges on the base, to stop it slipping along the desktop, and also I suspect to help keep it cool. That said, it runs very cool indeed, with no sign of heat at all from this model, even after a long, hard transfer.
I would certainly buy another one of these - if the one I've got ever gets full.

This HDD has obviously been designed with style and portability as a priority. Very small and light and with a striking graphic on the top of the case, it certainly has the 'wow' factor aesthetically and when you realise that it holds 500GB and can easily fit in your pocket,it looks all the more impressive.'Funky' said CC junior and I must agree it is the most stylish external HDD I have seen.

Style is however useless without substance but I am pleased to say this little unit is also a very good performer.

OK, it actually holds slightly less than that (showing 465GB free when installed but that also includes the 'free'software (McAfee, NTI, pdf of the manual etc.)but is essentially ready to plug and play on Windows.

Installed on a W7 machine, it was recognised straight away. No power supply (takes its power from the host machine via the short USB connector cable), my one concern would be that laptop users recognise that it will draw power from your host machine's battery. I have tested it on a desktop so cannot honestly comment as to whether that is an issue.

Personally wish manufacturers would stop bundling so called free trial software with hardware and I deleted the McAfee but many might welcome its inclusion so very much a personal choice as to what to do with it. NTI backup is also provided although I haven't used it, personally preferring the W7 and conventional back up methods.

Manual is on a pre-loaded pdf but frankly there is not a lot of interest in it other than noting the warning to utilise 'safely remove hardware' before disconnecting from the host machine's USB port.

Very quiet and hardly any noise audible even when working hard.No heat build up obvious and with two rubber 'ridges' on its base which stop it sliding around (essential when it is so small and light), I can see this sitting easily on any workspace and getting a lot of favourable comments on its size and appearance. Add the impressive performance, obvious portability and it seems a winner, save the comment re it using the host machine's power.

If physical size,style and portability are not key buying issues, better value external HDD drives would probably be best looked at but given that proviso, I would give this 5/5. Well done Toshiba....