At first I would like to thank Hitachi GST for sending a sample of their Touro Desk Pro Black 3TB External USB 3.0 HDD for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

 

About Hitachi GST:

 

"The vision of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) is to provide storage devices and systems that inspire, lead and enable customers worldwide to engage in the escalating environment of a digital lifestyle. The company provides a wide range of products that includes advanced hard disk drives, enterprise-class solid state drives, and innovative external storage solutions and services that store, preserve and manage the world’s most valued data.

 

Hitachi drives are used by students and families; small-office/home-office workers; leading-edge, high-transaction enterprises and major computer, consumer electronics and automotive system manufacturers throughout the world. The Hitachi storage products integrated into these personal and business lifestyles safeguard everything from a family’s personal photo legacy to critical business transactions and documentation, data-intensive, creative digital filmmaking files and hours of personal and family entertainment captured in video, music or gaming files.

 

Hitachi GST was formed in 2003 from the strategic merger of the storage technology businesses within IBM Corporation and Hitachi, Ltd. Since that time, the company has built on the heritage of both industry pioneers to grow profitably as a major contributor in the global storage industry. The company has worked to bring a customer-focused and full-service approach to its storage solutions. In doing so, the company has set a high standard for product and service excellence with world-class operations, substantial technical knowledge and a comprehensive customer support infrastructure."

 

Product Features:

The stackable Touro™ Desk Pro external drive provides superb ease of use, two levels of protection and 3GB of cloud storage. Enjoy two levels of data protection, with both local and cloud backup, to help keep your photos, movies, music and documents not only safe but available anytime, anywhere, from any smartphone or computer web browser. You can even share your online content with others by simply sending a web link. Includes fast USB 3.0 interface. Need more online storage? Upgrade to a paid account and receive 250GB of cloud storage along with iPhone and iPad mobile digital device apps. More than an ordinary hard drive, available in 1TB, 2TB, or 3TB.

 

Stackable desktop design looks great in a style-conscious workspace

Two levels of data protection, with preloaded local and cloud backup software to help keep your content safe

Cloud backup enables anywhere, anytime remote access

Upgrade to a paid account and receive 250GB of cloud storage along with iPhone and iPad mobile digital device apps

USB 3.0 interface + 7200RPM HDD delivers fast transfer speeds

 

Product Specifications:

 

The Touro Desk Pro USB 3.0 External HDD from Hitachi is shipped inside a medium-sized cardboard box, with a photo of the product in front, along with the total drive capacity; here we can also find out that 3GB of Cloud Storage are also offered for free:

 

 

 

Some of the product features are presented on the back side of the packaging, in 9 different languages:

 

 

 

Both ends of the box are fully sealed, to prevent unauthorized access inside:

 

 

 

The product is backed up by a 2 year limited warranty:

 

 

 

Right after opening up the box, we can see the drive casing sitting in cardboard, for additional protection:

 

 

 

Besides the main product, inside there is also an Users’ Guide, a Warranty leaflet, the USB 3.0 cable, one power supply and a second adapter plug for people living in UK:

 

 

 

Inside the manual, we can find the necessary instructions on how to connect the product to our desktop or laptop computer, but also how to use the provided Hitachi backup application:

 

 

 

The power supply is pre-fitted with the European adapter and it’s rated on the output 12V, 1.5A:

 

 

 

 

Besides the cardboard protection on the sides that we mentioned before, the drive is also wrapped in a transparent plastic bag:

 

 

 

Because the enclosure laterals are made of shiny black plastic, the manufacturer needed to protect these sides with transparent thin film:

 

 

 

Both sides of the product are designed the same and feature the Hitachi logo:

 

 

 

On the bottom, we can find some of the ventilation holes; the metallic grey body is made of plastic, not aluminum:

 

 

 

In the same area, we can see 4 small rubber feet, which also tell us that the product is meant to be sit vertically:

 

 

On the front, we can see the same metallic grey texture, along with the activity LED:

 

 

The back of the enclosure comes with additional ventilation holes:

 

 

Here there is also one sticker with the product serial number, the drive capacity, a Kensington lock, the USB 3.0 port and a DC-IN port:

 

 

After the product has been turned on, the frontal LED starts to light up and blinks according to the activity that is performed on the drive:

 

 

The test bench was composed from the following hardware:

 

CPU: Intel I7 Retail @ stock

Motherboard: Foxconn BloodRage with G42 BIOS

RAM: 3x2GB Patriot PVT36G1600LLK 1600MHz

Video: Sparkle GTX 470 with stock and OMNI A.L.C.

Power Supply: Nexus RX-8500 850W modular

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11

Case: Thermaltake Armor+ LCS, stock cooling

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate x64

ASUS U3S6 Adapter Card

 

The drives comes formatted, with only one NTFS partition:

With AIDA64 Ultimate software tool, we can extract more information regarding the HDD inside:

 

Preloaded on the HDD we can also find the Hitachi Backup application, for both Mac and Windows:

 

 

 

The program can be installed by following the written instructions:

 

 

 

 

Hitachi Backup has a simple interface which is split in two; on the top we can specify the folders we want to make a backup to and they will be copied to the Hitachi drive; on the bottom we can enter the same settings, but this time for the free 3GB cloud storage space:

 

 

 

If we click on Local Settings option, we can find the area where we can specify the folders that should be backed up, along with the Schedule and History Settings:

 

 

 

The Cloud Settings menu holds some extra options that we can modify, like the one to skip files larger than 200MB or can specify Bandwidth allocation:

 

 

 

 

 

Test Results

CrystalMark

 

AIDA64 Disk Benchmark

 

HD Tach

 

HD Tune

 

The Hitachi Touro Desk Pro comes in three different flavors: 1TB, 2TB or 3TB and for delivering high performance transfer speeds, the product is delivered with 7200RPM drives. Compared to the older XL3000 model, the Touro Desk Pro is no more limited by the bus speed and the necessary cable is supplied, to be able to connect it to a spare USB port.

 

For an added product value, Hitachi also gives us 3GB free of storage data (upgradeable to 250GB by subscription) in the cloud along with a backup application, which can make copies of the data we need on the drive, but also on our free “in the cloud” storage space.

 

Also, the enclosure has been redesigned and now comes with a Kensington lock, but still does not have an On/Off button. Also, it would have been better to include a longer USB 3.0, because the provided one is quite short.

 

The enclosure features ventilation holes on the bottom, in the back but none on the top side; the temperatures we obtain after two hours of usage are near the ones we have seen with the XL3000, so it would be good if we place the product in a well ventilated place:

 

 

As a comparison, with active cooling, the Hitachi HDS723030ALA640 drives we can find inside the 3TB versions of the product can idle at 35 degrees Celsius and in Full Load we can see temperatures between 37 and 39 degrees.

 

The product can be found on online shops for about 170 Euros.

 

Hitachi Touro Desk Pro 3TB USB 3.0 External HDD Recommended For:

 

I would like to thank again to Hitachi for making this review possible!