Quick Review of Hitachi HGST Touro Desk 2TB External Drive

I recently purchased two Hitachi HGST Touro Desk USB 3.0 2TB External Drives – and did so with a bit of trepidation because of a few bad reviews. I’d just like to add a few of my own opinions to the mix – because I’m actually surprised that my initial impressions of the device are so positive.

Wait, though… before we go any further, I’d like to preemptively dismiss the “Deathstar” nicknames from a decade ago and mention that Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Western Digital for some time now.

Alright then, on to more specific thoughts regarding this particular model of external hard drive:

The first thing you’ll probably notice is that this thing is BIG. It’s roughly the height of two standard 3.5″ drives stacked on top of each other. This is a con for most people, because they would rather a sleek sexy box on their desk than a monolith. This drive falls flatly in the latter category. And besides being large, it’s matte. That just seems like an aesthetic taboo anymore, doesn’t it? I don’t mind, but then again, that’s probably only because it kind of matches my ThinkPad.

If you can forgive its aesthetic transgressions, the next thing you’ll notice is that you don’t really notice it. That’s because its basically dead silent. No spinning up or spinning down, no head parking noise – not even a sound when you’re writing GBs of data. Nothing. Silence.

Drivers weren’t an issue under Windows 7 – I’ll update you if driver issues pop up under my other OSes.

Oh, yes, of course you’d like to know about the speed. Well, I’m getting about 70 MB/sec between two external drives. The other drive may be a bottle neck, as it is a bit older. Either way, I think it is a respectable speed for a backup drive. I may update with benchmarks later.

Lastly, this drive stays cool! Even after transferring over 500GB worth of data, the case is completely cool to the touch.

I’m going to update this post in about a month or so – after I’ve been able to stress test the drives a little more. Until then, I recommend taking the negative reviews with a grain of salt.

In my book, the Hitachi HGST Touro Desk USB 3.0 2TB External Drive has more pros than cons.