Toshiba Canvio Flex portable hard drive review

If you want a large amount of portable storage capacity for the minimum possible price, then a portable hard disk drive is the obvious choice. These are noticeably cheaper than a portable SSD (solid state drive) of an equivalent capacity, yet are just as convenient, with no separate power supply required. The Toshiba Canvio Flex is a portable hard disk drive available in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities. It's designed to be compatible with a range of devices, including Windows and Mac computers, as well as iOS and Android mobile devices. Consequently you're able to use the drive to back up files directly from your phone - no separate computer required.

Pricing

At around £85 for the 2TB version, the Canvio Flex is priced in line with the equivalent competition from Western Digital and Seagate. The 1TB capacity is cheaper at around £68, but the 2TB is clearly better value, with a lower cost per gigabyte of storage. The 4TB option has an even cheaper price per gigabyte, but it's a physically thicker and heavier drive, making the 2TB version the price:portability sweet spot.

Build & handling

The Canvio Flex is basic but sleek design. The satin 'metal' top panel is actually plastic, as is the bottom, but the fit and finish is good and there's only minor flexing if you squeeze the top and bottom together. The plastic exterior also helps to keep the drive's weight down, although at 155g for out 2 terabyte review sample, this is still noticeably heavier than a portable SSD of the same capacity. That's inevitable though, as inside is a 2.5-inch mechanical hard disk drive with complex moving parts, rather than just some solid state memory chips as you'd find in an SSD. That said, it's a long way from being heavy. Go for the range-topping 4TB version and weight jumps to 212g, and thickness increases from 14.3mm to a rather hefty 19.5mm, but that's because 2.5-inch hard drives larger than 2TB need more physical data platters, which stacked together increase the thickness of the drive.

Arguably the most noteworthy thing about the Canvio Flex's exterior is its USB connection. Rather than an almost-ubiquitous USB-C socket, Toshiba has selected what's officially called a 'USB Micro-B SuperSpeed' connection. This pre-dates USB-C, and was designed to be a faster revision of the old (and more common) Micro-B connector type, able to support USB 3.0 transfer speeds. It's an obvious indicator of the somewhat dated technology Toshiba is using here, but this is far from the only portable hard disk drive to still make use of this USB connector, and does it really matter? With a maximum data speed of 5Gbit/s, it's still more than fast enough to let the hard drive run at its fastest. Toshiba includes two cables with the drive - a USB-C, and a USB-A - so the drive can be used with any current computer or phone, so there should be no connection or compatibility issues. The only potential drawback with using this rarer version of USB socket is if you do happen to lose one of the supplied cables, you'll be unlikely to have a spare lying around (though replacements are still readily available to buy).

Performance

Unlike portable SSDs, where manufacturers often put their maximum speed potential front and center, Toshiba's product page for the Canvio flex doesn't list the maximum read or write speed anywhere. The only mention of the device's performance in the specs is "max. transfer rate", which is rather cheekily quoted as ~5.0 Gbit/s. This is the theoretical maximum speed of the USB connection, not the speed of the actual hard disk drive behind the USB interface, which will be far slower. To find out how much slower, I broke out my usual storage benchmarking software, CrystalDiskMark. I tested the Canvio Flex using a fast Windows laptop with a USB4 connection - this offers enough bandwidth to comfortably max out the speed of the portable hard drive, ensuring no testing bottlenecks.

A maximum read speed of almost 150MB/s and an even faster 156MB/s write speed is actually very respectable for a budget portable hard drive. Obviously it's nowhere near what an SSD could achieve, but unless you're transferring hundreds of gigabytes of data on a daily basis, the Canvio Flex's speed should be quick enough for most. Around 20 years ago I owned what was then the fastest consumer (internal) hard drive money could buy - a 74GB Western Digital Raptor, which spun at a blistering 10,000rpm - yet that was actually slower than the little Canvio Flex. The good old mechanical hard disk drive has come a long way, even if SSDs have stolen all the limelight.

Storage benchmarks are all well and good, but to determine the real-world performance you're likely to get when using the drive to read and write files, I took a single large video file, as well as a folder full of small images, and moved both to and from the drive to see what sort of read and write speeds you can expect during typical use:

When transferring a single large video file, the Canvio Flex performs almost as well as in benchmarking software, which is very impressive. Where its hard drive innards struggle is with multiple small files, dropping to just 58MB/s write speed, though read speed reached an more brisk 91.31MB/s average, peaking at 127MB/s.

Verdict

Conventional portable hard disk drives have long been a compelling value alternative to an SSD for anyone wanting the cheapest possible price per gigabyte of portable storage. The Toshiba Canvio Flex is a prime example. Performance, though undeniably slower than an SSD, is actually pretty decent: it's fast enough for casual users who aren't shifting large amounts of data on a daily basis, and at no time was I ever frustrated by its relative lack of speed compared to an SSD.

Really there's only one problem here, and it's an existential issue that affects all portable hard disk drives. A few years ago portable SSDs used to be three or four times more expensive per gigabyte than an equivalent portable hard disk drive, but now the price gap has closed significantly. Today an entry-level 2TB portable SSD like the WD Elements SE will set you back around £130 - just £45 more than the Canvio Flex. It's far from the quickest portable SSD, but even its relatively modest 400MB/s max speed is way beyond what any portable hard disk drive can muster.

If you're on a tight budget, then the Canvio Flex is definitely worth shortlisting. Its build quality and performance won't disappoint, and though its USB micro-B connection may seem dated, it has little practical disadvantage. However, with the price gap between portable hard drives and SSDs continuing to close, the days of the traditional hard disk drive are numbered.