By Western Digital
Buy new: $131.95
Customer Rating:
First tagged "usb" by Phillip Stewart
Customer tags: usb, autocad, hard drive
### PHYSICAL ###
One terabyte that fits in your jeans' pocket. we don't wish to go all "when we were immature we walked 10 miles to school, etc." on you, though my initial tough expostulate was such that we would have indispensable 50'000 of 'em to compare a capacity, occupying a plain brick 9 feet on any side and environment me behind 30 million dollars. That's mind- floating swell indeed, and while a strange advances were done by firms like Seagate and IBM, those have mostly sole off/sourced out in a meantime, withdrawal Western Digital as a Bleeding Edge tough expostulate brand.
This device looks like a cigarette hilt with a silken finish. The edges are rounded, and a usb connector is a usually opening in a case, so for my occasional ride we usually lift a expostulate in my coupler as-is. It would have been super- neat to have a rubber strap over a usb and maybe a some-more scratch- resistant matte finish, though there is no emanate here, generally given WD offers inexpensive and cases.
### USB3 ###
Finally, 10 times a speed of USB2! The USB consortium calls it Super Speed, to heed it (not) from a Hi-Speed of USB2 and a Full Speed of USB1. It's over me since they don't usually name it "5Gbit USB", a moniker that would array it agreeably opposite eSATA, Ethernet, Firewire, etc... though during slightest there's a waggish fun in there for Sci-Fi comedy fans (Google "They've left into plaid" for a reference, initial video link).
But not so fast, Dark Helmet. First, usually since a interface is 10 times speedier doesn't meant a expostulate is, and second, it's expected that even your 2010 PC needs an adapter in a form of a PCIx card. And if it does, a USB ports will be on a behind of a computer, that competence be a problem as a wire that comes in this package is usually 16" long. If we need more, you'll have to squeeze a Micro USB 3.0 cable, a connector on a expostulate finish is opposite from USB2. Currently, these cables are singular (none on Amazon!) and expensive, so be clever not to displace a one we got.
### SPEED ###
This outmost expostulate works with both USB2 and USB3, so a doubt is, is it value a additional cost of a USB3 adapter, and what accurately is a speed advantage one can expect? To figure that out, I've run dual tests, one a elementary tough expostulate exam around HD Tune, and one a filecopy test.
- HD Tune: (see screenshots for details): with USB2, a interface is a tying factor, with a send rate of 33 MB/sec over a whole range. With USB3, we get a pristine expostulate opening and adult to 87MB/sec can be achieved in a outdoor regions and still a decent 45 MB/sec in a middle regions (the outdoor regions of a spinning hoop have aloft quickness and some-more sectors, hence a aloft rate).
- File copy: we copied a collection of 7000 files behind and onward a integrate times and totalled review and write opening separately. Averaged over 5 runs, we found that a review opening advantage of USB3 was 19% and a write opening advantage was 25%. It needs to be remarkable that in this unfolding there was a lot of beyond - a duplicate module (robocopy), a record seeks, a end drive, etc.
So what to make of this? The tender review opening as totalled by HD Tune is 2 to 3 times faster with usb3 - good to see that WD's selling content "up to 3 times faster" is indeed true! However, this advantage fast comes down as we use some-more formidable operations such as duplicating tiny files. Given a choice again, we substantially wouldn't worry with an USB3 PCI label and usually wait for my subsequent PC to have it onboard. If we especially duplicate vast files (such as movies), we competence advantage some-more from USB3 than we do.
### SOFTWARE ###
The expostulate comes with some program on it (in lieu of an designation CD) that does dual things: capacitate a hardware encryption and do backups. I've fiddled with it for a while though it left me unsatisfied. Under my (admittedly elderly) WinXP a GUI had digest problems (holes in a windows!), it wasn't half as discerning as other software, and during slightest once we activated a encryption though it didn't take. It also installs a practical CD, what do we need that for!? The good news here is that WD seems to boat this program with all their outmost drives now, so it stands to reason/hope that they'll urge on it and you'll be means to download an upgrade.
Of course, if we occur to be a Mac or Win7 Ultimate user, we don't need a WD program during all, usually use a built- in stuff.
### CONCLUSION ###
This is a illusory tiny device: a full terabyte, compress and pretty future- proof; nonetheless we competence not wish to worry with USB3 for now if we don't already have it. I'm deducting 1 star for a common software, differently I'm really happy with this able tiny information vault.
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