At first we would like to thank Toshiba Corporation for offering a sample of their Canvio Flex 1TB Portable HDD for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About Toshiba Storage Products:

 

“Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage Corporation and its affiliates (Toshiba) supply a wide range of innovative hard disk drive (HDD) products to meet the varied demands of the diversified storage marketplace. Products include high capacity power-efficient storage for Cloud Data Centers, capacity and performance HDDs for Enterprise IT, client HDDs for PC/Desktop, and specialty drives for Surveillance, NAS systems, set-top box video, gaming and external storage. Toshiba aims to continue to advance HDD technologies and innovation to meet and exceed customer requirements across a broad spectrum of storage market segments.”

 

ONE DRIVE. MANY DEVICES.

You may have collected a lot of devices and want to explore more in the future. The last thing you need is a hard drive that can't keep up with your progress. The Canvio Flex offers storage in its most compatible form, enabling you to seamlessly store and access your data on Mac, Windows PC and tablet devices* interchangeably with a simple one-stop solution.

CONNECT AND GO

Connection where it counts. The Canvio Flex is preformatted for Mac, Windows PC, as well as iPad Pro and other compatible tablet devices with USB-C® port*, enabling seamless file access and sharing right out of the box. Simply unpack and connect to any of your compatible USB devices.

FUTURE-PROOF STORAGE

Stay ahead of the curve with the Canvio Flex, connecting directly to any compatible USB equipped device. No USB adapter needed -thanks to the included USB-A and USB-C® cables, allowing you to easily connect to both old and new devices. It's all about maximum flexibility.

SIMPLE ELEGANCE

Flexible storage meets flexible style with a sleek, silver high-end finish and lightweight design that complements your Mac, Windows PC and other compatible tablet devices.

 

Basic Specs:

Interface USB 3.2 Gen 1 (USB 2.0 compatible)

Max. transfer rate ~ 5.0 Gbit/s

File system: exFAT

Power: USB bus power (max. 900mA)

 

System requirements

Formatted exFAT for:

- Windows 10, Windows 8.1

- macOS v10.15, macOS v10.14, macOS v10.13

- iOS/AndroidTM devices

One free port of USB Type-C® or one free port of USB Type-A

 

Box Content

Canvio Flex

USB 3.2 Gen 1 cables (Type-C to Micro-B and TypeA to Micro-B)

User‘s manual (pre-installed on the hard drive)

 

Physical

Weight (approx.) 1TB, 2TB: 149g

4TB: 210g

Dimensions 1TB, 2TB: 80 x 111 x 13.5

4TB: 80 x 111 x 19.5

Enclosure sleek silver finish

 

The Canvio Flex drives from Toshiba are orientated towards modern, professional looks and less ruggedness. The products are quite light thanks to the plastic enclosure and come with USB Type-C interface for future proofing.

The product is shipped inside a compact cardboard packaging, showing on the frontal area the total storage space for the current SKU, the fact that it is compatible with lots of platforms and that it is backed up by a 3-year warranty:

 

 

 

These details can be spotted on the side of the box as well:

 

 

 

 

On the back we can see similar information in multiple languages:

 

 

 

After unsealing the box, we will notice that the drive is further protected inside an additional cardboard element, together with the data transfer cables; a leaflet containing the “Safety Instructions” is also available here:

 

 

 

Instead of going forward with a Type-C to Type-C interface, the Canvio Flex sports an USB 3.0 Micro-B which is considerably larger; two separate cables are supplied with the drive in order to ensure compatibility (Type-C and Type-A):

 

 

 

For even more protection, the main drive is wrapped inside a transparent plastic bag:

 

 

 

On the top cover of the drive we do have a metallic grey paint, imitating aluminum and does also hold a white Toshiba logo:

 

 

 

A look on the side does show how the top and bottom layers are sandwiched together:

 

 

 

 

In one of the corners, we will notice the drive activity LED:

 

 

 

The Micro-B port stays well hidden under the white plastic frame:

 

 

 

On the back side of the enclosure we will find a sticker with the product code name, power rating, serial number and more!

 

 

 

The activity LED will blink blue while data is being transferred to/from the drive:

 

 

 

The testbench was composed from the following hardware:

 

CPU: Intel I5 9700K Retail

CPU Cooler: Deepcool Captain 240 EX RGB AIO

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming

RAM: Patriot Memory Viper RGB Series DDR4

Video: KFA2 GeForce GTX 1060 OC 6GB

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: OCZ Vector 150

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

When powered on for the first time, we will see that the Canvio Flex 1TB has been formatted exFAT, but we will re-format it NTFS for testing purposes:

 

 

With the help of AIDA64, we will be able to extract some more information about the drive, which is a Toshiba MQ04UBF100, with a platter rotation speed of 5400RPM:

 

 

 

On the drive we will find the manual in electronic PDF format:

 

 

 

 

 

 

CrystalMark

 

AIDA64 Disk Benchmark

 

HD Tach

 

HD Tune

 

PCMark 2005

 

PCMark Vantage

 

The Canvio Flex 1TB drive from Toshiba is sporting a very light and compact casing, is compatible with new but also legacy systems thanks to the USB-C and USB-A cables supplied inside the packaging and offers good performance for its capacity. The elegant silver top cover finish transforms it into a fashion product but do not expect it to have the same protection to bumps or rough environment as we have seen with previously tested drives.

 

The appearance is preserved no matter if we do order the 1TB, 2TB or 4TB variant but we would have preferred to see an USB Type-C port on the drive as well and not a larger Micro-B variant.

 

The product is covered by a 3-year warranty and can be found online for as low as 52 Euros!

Toshiba Canvio Flex 1TB Portable HDD is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank again to Toshiba Corporation for making this review possible!