The supplied USB cable is of a short length and seems to be of an ordinary thickness. The sides are relatively feature-less except for the USB micro-B connection which provides power and data connection. The drive has rounded corners and a slightly angled edge. The label on the rear isn’t even put on straight. The underside is even simplified, omitting the rubber feet on the Canvio Ready for a plain underside. Unlike the previous 2TB Canvio Ready drive I reviewed, this one has a relatively plain matte black top with the Toshiba logo impressed on it and a spot for the LED activity indicator. I think that’s a pretty neat solution which might help keep costs low. This unit appears to be from the July 2019 batch.Īs promised, the contents are shown above, but instead of having a bespoke plastic carrier for the drive, they’ve opted to use an air-channel style packaging similar to what is often used with toner cartridges. The underside has a label with the model details, serial number and barcode. The top of the box has a plastic hanger for retail display, but the weakness of the cardboard can be seen in the way it seems to have bowed outwards to either side of the self-adhesive plastic seal which keeps the package closed. The sides of the box don’t say much, besides showing the content of the box being the drive, leaflet and cable.

The rear claims that the drive is formatted NTFS for Windows compatibility and is Made in Philippines – which seems to be an increasing trend. It showcases the drive in a plain matte black, advertising a three year limited warranty. Regardless, the Toshiba Canvio Basics hard drive comes in a rather cheap-feeling thin-cardboard box with green-coloured print. This is perhaps not the best way to ship a fragile item such as a hard drive. Unfortunately, they packed the drive into a cardboard box without any void-fill, thus the drive was free to rattle around in transit. Officeworks shipped the drive to me next-day, using TOLL.

When it comes to bus-powered storage, the Toshiba Canvio Basics 4TB bus-powered USB 3.0 external hard drive seemed to be a good deal, being AU$139 at Officeworks including delivery, so I picked one up and subjected it to the regular commissioning test regime. It’s that time of year again – a kind of “buying” season where discounts haphazardly seem to come out of nowhere.

Toshiba external usb 3.0 drivers