Toshiba ships Canvio Connect portable drive with Pogoplug

Many portable drives come with a limited amount of free online storage included. The Canvio Connect, which Toshiba introduced today, offers that and more.

The new USB 3.0 portable drive comes with 10GB of free online storage space. When you plug it into a computer, you can access its contents, as well as those stored on another computer, be it a Windows or a Mac, via the Internet.

This is because the Canvio Connect comes with a lifetime subscription to the Pogoplug PC cloud engine, a software product that works similarly to the Pogoplug Series 4 adapter, which makes possible remote access to another computer's contents as long as the machine is running and connected to the Internet.

You don't have to get the Canvio Connect drive to use the same personal cloud feature, since the Pogoplug subscription can be purchased separately for abut $30, but the new drive includes it for free. On the other hand, you can also use the new portable drive, just like any other portable drive, without installing Pogoplug at all.

All that aside, the new Canvio Connect drive is a very compact portable external storage device. The drive is bus-powered and works with both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports. The drive is reformatted in NFTS and comes with NTI Backup Now EZ software for Windows. It also includes software drivers that enable Macs to have full (read/write) access to its contents without reformatting.

The Toshiba Canvio Connect drive is available for purchase mid-May in 500GB, 750GB, 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB capacities that are slated to cost $99, $110, $130, $170, and $190, respectively. Check back soon for its full review.