Toshiba's Canvio for Mac external HDD family makes OS X backup a cinch
By Darren Murph 
posted July 13th 2010 12:12PM
posted July 13th 2010 12:12PM
Toshiba's All-New Canvio™ for Mac Portable Hard Drives Deliver Quick, Simple, and Secure Digital Backup Solutions for Mac Users
Providing Piece of Mind and Expanded Storage in a Stunning Design, the Canvio™ for Mac is Now Available In 1TB, 750GB, and 500GB Capacities
IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With consumers across the country constantly amassing more "digital valuables" – from photos, videos, and favorite music to important personal documents – Toshiba is proud to offer Mac users the compact, easy-to-use Canvio™ for Mac Portable Hard Drive lineup. Continuing Toshiba's commitment to make backing up and recovering data simple and easy, the new Canvio for Mac line provides Mac owners 500 gigabytes (GB1), 750GB, or one terabyte (TB) of storage space, with pre-loaded Mac-customized backup software.
"Toshiba develops personal storage devices that combine the latest, high quality designs with top-notch performance and an intuitive, easy to use interface"
According to a February 2010 survey conducted by Impulse Research2, 70 percent of Americans have lost some type of data on their computers. Unfortunately, the majority of consumers surveyed (89 percent) are aware of the importance of regularly backing up their computers to avoid losses but less than half (43 percent) regularly do so, leaving many computer users vulnerable to data loss that could include digital photos and movies, important financial records, or professional documents.
Recognizing that many users do not back up their data because they believe it's a complicated process, the Canvio for Mac line makes data backup simple for everyone, from novice users to the most tech-savvy consumers. The included NTI® Shadow 5 for Mac software allows for fully-customized backup and synchronization, including the backup of specific folders, certain file types, or even a complete system backup and recovery of everything that is saved on the Mac3. Selected folders on the Canvio for Mac and the Mac computer can be merged and synchronized, while the frequency of backups can be adjusted to different periods (from weekly to continuously) for greater convenience. Complete password-protection with up to 256-bit data encryption prevents unauthorized access to data and a special Drive Space Alert monitor sends an onscreen update when storage space is running low.
The Canvio for Mac's plug-and-play usability and full customization are matched by its small size and elegant, simple styling. Available in either Radiant Silver with silver accents or Infinite White with glossy white-gray accents on the top cover, both feature an anti-slip design and anti-slip side, making the Canvio for Mac an excellent companion to the full line of Mac computers. On the inside, an Internal Shock Sensor and Ramp Loading Technology keep data safe during day-to-day movement from a desk, pocket, bag, or beyond. Despite being smaller than a postcard and boasting a featherweight (six ounce) frame, the Canvio for Mac – in 1TB form – can hold up to 285,000 digital photos, 263,000 digital music files, or 820 digital movies4.
"Toshiba develops personal storage devices that combine the latest, high quality designs with top-notch performance and an intuitive, easy to use interface," said Manuel Camarena, product manager for consumer storage at Toshiba Storage Device Division. "Our Canvio for Mac products give Mac users a safe, convenient, and truly portable solution for backing up their digital entertainment, documents, and other content instantly."
Continuing its commitment to environmental friendliness, Toshiba developed the product packaging with 100 percent recyclable materials.
The Canvio product line is available now at http://www.toshibadirect.com/canvio_mac or through major retailers and online outlets. For a complete list of retailers offering the Toshiba Canvio, please visit www.wheretobuy.toshibastorage.com.
Suggested retail prices by capacities are:
* $119.99 for the 500GB Canvio for Mac
* $139.99 for the 750GB Canvio for Mac
* $189.99 for the 1TB Canvio for Mac
@A25i
Really? So all Time Capsules don't work? Interesting. Care to prove that? Or is your head up your ass too?
@Jack
This*?* from the douche that just found out they were failing...
LoL!!!!1one
Why would anyone with OS X who wants to back up not use Time Machine? And it's not even Firewire... why?
@Ben64
firewire is only useful for the initial backup, assuming for some reason you're unable to let it run overnight. After that, it's only incremental and USB is fine.
@TomSawyer I put my computer to sleep whenever possible. Save a lot of energy.
@Ben64 One master backup every few months, if that, ain't gonna wreck your power bill. Besides, it runs in the background, so it will back up while you have it on anyway. I did the wife's machine a few days ago (I swapped in a bigger drive for Time Machine, too much video filled the old one), and the master backup of 300+ GB took a few of hours, over USB 2 to boot. I won't need to do that again for probably a year. 300w X 3 hours is not even 1kWh (btw, hew notebook only draws 60w). My power bill is over 2K kwh, 1 more might have cost $0.10-15...
@Jack
The drives they use in these are crappy, 5400 RPM, but if they were to go with a 3.5" drive like the new Segate or Hitachi 2 or 2.5 TB drives, that spin at 7200 RPM and have 64MB of cache, they can easily do 150 MB\s reads and writes. If you're doing regular backups, especially of media (music and HD content), speed is VERY important, you don't want it taking 10 hours when it could take less than 1.
@A25i
Just found out? What makes you think that? Also, don't sidestep the issue here. You need to prove that ALL Time Capsules are non-functioning. Hop to it, kemo sabe.
@Jack Firewire is necessary because it won't add load on the CPU, specially when it's backing up in the "background".
@HighestRanked2
Firewire might be useful to speed up the initial backup, but thereafter it's only incremental. USB 2 is plenty fine. If you're using the drive for more than backups, then yes maybe firewire would be nice. Otherwise it's overkill.
Reason i hate time machine and don't use it is that you can't *boot* from a time machine backup, only restore it. I prefer SuperDuper! or even CarbonCopyCloner (both of which i use) because these create bootable backups, i.e you can boot from the backup itself (mine are on FW drives) should your primary system drive be hosed or have no access to a DVD drive.
@merovingian
I agree, but the vast majority of Mac owners aren't going to have problems like that, and Time Machine isn't a professional backup solution - just a very, very good consumer level one. Most Mac owners have their boot dvd handy and can boot from it.
@merovingian CarbonCopyCloner takes a really long time to backup each time....
@Ben64
Not for incremental updates, i don't think so. I most exclusively use SuperDuper! anyway and have it set to do incremental backups at half past noon daily. Takes less than 20 minutes.
@Jack
Hate to say it, but as a DR admin for a decade or so, who has worked for 2 different DR firms, and a few contractors supporting hundreds of clients, and I've worked with just about every commercial DR package available; for FILE and OS backup, the pro stuff is not really different from user stuff, and as for Time Machine, it's "continuous" backup is actually superior to most commercial product offerings.
Pro suites offer enterprise features:
- Central management
- detailed reporting
- Wake on Lan
- antivirus scanning
- Native Database support (hot backups, transaction log management, etc)
- Restore to VM support (v-2-p and p-2-v)
- Management of archive data
- deduplication
- heavy duty compression.
- centralized storage
- multi-tier data protection
However, as far as backing up files, or a simple system, then later restoring them, there's no tool on the market currently both as good and as simple as Time Machine. It does multiple backups each day, using an incremental-forever model, and can restore any version of a file (provided there was space to back up multiple copies) as far back as there is storage, or restore the whole machine, all from that single appended data set. (and easily).
So long as you're not running a SQL or other database 24x7 on your mac (which you really should NOT be doing), and as long as you're only backing up a few machines, a consumer level backups product is fine, and Time Machine is the simplest I've ever used, and has never failed me.
@zelannii
Yeah - you're basically agreeing with me. That's what I said, Time Machine isn't a professional backup solution, it's a very good consumer level one. It's not a professional level solution because of the lack of options, i.e. there aren't any.
@merovingian
1) If the DVD drive doesn't work, a) you should have gotten it fixed, or b) put the OS X disk in any machine, Mac or PC, on the network, and use the remote boot option every mac is compatible with.
2) If your machine is so mission critical that you can't wait a few hours to go to Apple (or even BestBuy) and swap in a replacement drive, then you have other issues.... Keep a spare drive on hand, restore to it when you need to (no one said your restore drive had to be your internal drive...) Partition your time machine disk into 2 parts, leaving enough to drop the OS partition back on, and if your data set is more than a few hundred GB, it should already be on its own drive(s) anyway, and if that mission critical, a RAID set to boot. If it's any more important that even that recovery time it too long, you need 2 machines....
I've done 300+ GB time machine recoveries in a few hours. I upgrade often enough that I've always got a spade drive of some kind in a functional state kicking around, and I have an external caddy I can slap any drive in (IDE or SAYTA, 2.5 or 3.5) that supports USB, FW, and eSATA, so I can restore any computer at any time I'd need to. Instead of blowing $50-100 on software licenses to work around your time issue, the same money could have given you a spare drive which could have been used with more than just that one licensed computer...
@zelannii
Thanks, but i have my OS X volume backed up on a portable drive (and other drives as well) as a bootable volume with SuperDuper!, so i can plug into any system and boot from it. That's how i like and prefer it, no need to wait to restore or keep track of restore discs. You like your methods, i like mine. Time machine does not work for me the way i like.
@zelannii
No need to pass around msinformation as well. CarbonCopyCloner is free and SuperDuper is $27.95, not "$50-100 on software licenses". To each his/her own.
@merovingian
SuperDuper! is free; you only have to pay for a few extra features that most of the general public doesn't need.
@bravokiloromeo
Thanks for the reminder. I forgot about the free version. Been using it so long i guess.
@DoctarPeppar
Well no doubt these drives are way too slow anyway. But FW800 does about 100MB/sec which is more than enough for most HDDs, since even the fastest ones still average out to around 100MB/s on large copies.
Under no circumstances will I buy an external drive that does not support Firewire 800. At least the Seagate FreeAgent Go Mac that I bought a year or so ago gave me Firewire 800 and a docking cradle, plus the ubiquitous HFS+ formatting, for my "Mac" money.
@HighestRanked2
Well, this one hasn't failed yet. That said, there is always the chance of failure so the simple thing to do is never put all your eggs in one basket.
@Kelmon
I won;t buy an external drive, PERIOD. Why bother, when for $10-40 less, you can buy an internal drive, and an external drive caddy??? Further, buying an internal retail drive guarantees you the make/model/performance/quality of the drive, such that youi can select an enterprise grade drive with more platers, better seek times, and most importantly, a 5 year instead of 1 year warranty. The external caddies are MUCH nicer than the stock generic stuff Seagate and others throw out there. I've got a rocketfish that has FW800, 400, eSATA, USB2, and an 11-in-one memory card reader, and it takes both IDE and SATA drives in 2.5 and 3.5 form factor. I paid $40 for the chassis, and have a 1.5TB Seagate in it that specs faster than any external they offer at any price, and it was (total) $25 cheaper than buying the external pre-made.
If you're talking PC, the 3rd party backup software will almost certainly be better than what Windows 7 has by default (especially since the image backup system is STILL broken, as it has been since Vista SP0, unable to restore D2D backups after it runs a second one), but good backup software can be found for $20-30, and great software for $50-60 (which is far superior to the generic stuff shipping with basic drives anyway, and you SHOULD get a real backup product for your PC). For OS X? Time Machine IS the best product.
@HighestRanked2
Depends on the model, use rating, intended use, power stability, and how the drive was/is treated; but in reality, that's true of all the manufacturers.
Fact is, if a drive is being sold with a 1 year warranty, you probably should not be buying it.... I always buy internal business or enterprise class drives, then stick them in the caddy of my choice (and buying the drive and caddy, both of better quality and with more options on the caddy for connections, it's still often cheaper than a retail external drive), and they have 5 year warranties.
Years ago, seagate had some bad runs, some recalls, a couple years before that, Maxtor was the bad one. WD has also had some bad model years. New drives are typically a non-issuer today, with very few failing from poor manufacure, most fail because they're in a case with a sub-par power system, or you have a good system hooked up to a bad power line (YOU SHOULD USE A USP WITH AVR ON ANY SENSITIVE ELECTRONICS!!!!!)
@zelannii
> I won;t buy an external drive, PERIOD. Why bother, when for
> $10-40 less, you can buy an internal drive, and an external drive
> caddy??? Further, buying an
That's nice as long as you've got an accomodating case. The resulting technological terror is far less usable than a simple bus powered external drive though.
USB is everywhere. Your brand of hot swap rack isn't.
@jedi
USB is also SLOW. Hence the desire to either use an internal drive or an internal drive in an external case that has something faster than USB, like FireWire.
@Jack
A more generic WD USB hard drive makes this sort of thing entirely redundant. So does the Mac's built in software. Perhaps this drive has the added feature of allowing fanboys to brag about how they spent more to get less.
@jedi
You are really just not paying attention to anything that's being said here, are you?
You know...I'm still baffled by the fact that any HD manufacture can offer a "Mac" harddrive without incluing FW800 on it.
Honestly. If you had to pick between FW800 and USB2. Which one would you take?
@NeoXY Can you give me a hint?
@DoctarPeppar Yeah, seriously. You don't know shit about hard drives do you? 35 MB/s is pretty much par for the course. That equates to 280 Mbps which doesn't even cover the theoretical speed limits of USB 2.0. Anything faster, such as USB 3.0 or gigabit ethernet, is simply overkill not to mention that if you want to back up over ethernet or WiFi, you have to run everything through the TCP/IP stack which is not ideal for lots of file transfers. In reality, backing up over gigabit ethernet can be slower than USB 2.0 depending on your configuration.
You know, I love these people with their "FW800" isn't necessary because HD's don't go that fast. I'm pretty much betting that those people don't actually use FW800 drives as compared to USB 2.0 drives. Because anybody who does know that is a completely false and let's face it idiotic response. As long as the drive is made properly and it's accompanying FW chipset is up to snuff YOU WILL notice the difference, PERIOD. The first time I used a FW800 drive was like the difference between USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 HD's. It's noticeable.
@DoctarPeppar no usb 3.0 on macintosh is actually intel's fault. true, if apple pushed intel, i'm pretty sure they could get them to do a custom mobo with 3.0 onboard for anything, just like nvidia's custom gfx cards :P
@DoctarPeppar no usb 3.0 on macintosh is actually intel's fault. although, if apple pushed intel, i'm pretty sure they could get them to do a custom mobo with 3.0 onboard for anything, just like nvidia's custom gfx cards :P