Why You Can Trust CNET Hitachi External Hard Drive review: Hitachi External Hard Drive
Hitachi External Hard Drive
We finally got our hands on one of the new single-disk 1-terabyte hard drives--the Hitachi External Hard Drive (also referred to as the "Easy Hard Drive" on Hitachi's site). Hitachi packaged its Deskstar 7K1000 1-terabyte, 3.5-inch hard drive into a small and simple external USB storage device. It has one-touch backup capability, and the whole package performs quite well. It was the fastest drive we've recently tested over a USB connection, and at $400 for the 1-terabyte version, the price versus performance is well-justified. This drive is a good buy.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
| Drive type | External hard drive |
| Available capacities | 500GB, 750GB, 1 terabyte |
| Capacity of test unit | 1 terabyte |
| Drive speed | 7,200rpm |
| Cache | 32MB |
| Dimensions (WDH) | 2.5 x 4.75 x 6.75 inches |
| Notable design features | Backup button |
| Connection options | 1x USB 2.0 |
| Operating systems supported | Windows 2000/XP/Vista; Mac OS X |
| Software included | ArcSoft TotalMedia Backup |
| Service and support | One-year limited warranty; toll-free phone support available weekdays from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. PT; e-mail to tech support; FAQs; troubleshooter |
In CNET Labs' tests, the Hitachi External Hard Drive performed quite admirably. Over a USB connection, it wrote a 10GB mixed data folder in 9 minutes, 20 seconds, and read back that same folder to the test bed's drive in 8 minutes, 2 seconds--not bad for an external USB hard drive. Of the external drives tested over USB, it was the fastest. The LaCie d2 Quadra was faster in our tests, but we tested that drive over a FireWire 800 connection.
(Shorter bars indicate faster performance)
 | Read | | Write |