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Toshiba unveils slim, lightweight Stor.e Alu 2 external hard drives

By | June 8, 2010, 3:06am PDT

Summary: Toshiba Europe has rolled out the Stor.e Alu 2 collection of external hard drives, available in two sizes with a variety of storage capacities to choose from.

Toshiba Europe has rolled out the Stor.e Alu 2 collection of external hard drives, available in two sizes with a variety of storage capacities to choose from.

Style is as essential to these portable devices as much as internal specs. Toshiba has packaged the Stor.e Alu 2 external drives in simple yet semi-durable aluminum cases (resistant to dust, water and mechanical shocks), and buyers have a choice between silver and the deliciously-named cappuccino brown.

Following up the equally uniquely-named Stor.e Alu portable HDD series, the new Toshiba hard disks will be available in 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch versions. Both are compatible with Windows 7/Vista/XP and have a hi-speed USB 2.0 interface. But there are some differences, so let’s take a look:

Stor.e Alu 2 (2.5-inch)

  • Storage capacities: 320GB, 500GB, 640GB
  • Powered via USB
  • Weight: 6.2-ounces
  • Dimensions: 5.1- x 0.55- x 2.9-inches

Stor.e Alu 2 (3.5-inch)

  • Storage capacities: 500 GB, 640GB, 1TB, 1.5TB, 2TB
  • 24-watt 12V/2A power supply
  • Weight: 41.3-ounces
  • Dimensions: 4.6- x 1.4- x 8.2-inches

The new Toshiba external HDDs will be available in Europe, Middle East and Africa at some point during the second quarter of 2010. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet.

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Topics

External Hard Drive, Hard Drive, Toshiba Corp., Pricing, Marketing, Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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RE: Toshiba unveils slim, lightweight Stor.e Alu 2 external hard drives
Jeff Dickey 9th Jun 2010
Agree with the USB3 comment; I no longer pay attention to drives that don't have FireWire 800 and/or ESATA. Price differences over USB 2 will pay for themselves (in time saved) in a ridiculously short time.
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RE: Toshiba unveils slim, lightweight Stor.e Alu 2 external hard drives
ITOdeed Updated - 8th Jun 2010
Buyer beware. Above website is virus infected.
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RE: Toshiba unveils slim, lightweight Stor.e Alu 2 external hard drives
WareWolf801 8th Jun 2010
While it is nice to see some products along this line..I say too little too late. Pros: Decent namebrand, known for quality, attractive cases (wd my/book/etc/whatEver=yuk). I've bought a couple SSD's so far, which ROCK for performance (Runcore=uber; Wintec=good), but for big qty storage: rotational media [like this from Toshiba] is going to be around a few more years at least. Cons: There are tons of ext. drives out there tho already! The fact that these are missing eSATA FW400/800 is NOT acceptable. With the costs of the interfaces on the slide, a high-end mfg like toshiba should give all the interfaces and break this barrier for their customers permanently..let me choose, not you toshiba! Likewise a soft carrying case and 2 data cables should always be included (one shorty to carry with & one longer unit permanently in-place at home, 2 power adapters would also be most appreciated), drive imaging software would be handy/useful for some (runcore gives this for free with retail packed SSD's), but these items were not mentioned. Opinion: It would be neat to see a SATA I/II interface-device that adds solid-state cacheing in, for use in existing drives, like one mfg has already put out (can't remember who it was; Silverstone? or was it Zalman??); or a hybrid drive or two (like seagate recently put out). I'm a big fan of, and long-time customer of Seagate; baracuda drives perform well & last a long time (for home) & cheetah's kick @#$ for enterprise use, with only a few models collectively having major issues.
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RE: Toshiba unveils slim, lightweight Stor.e Alu 2 external hard drives
I Hate Malware 8th Jun 2010
Usb3 ?
If this is a "new" product, why use old standards.
Usb3 is backwards compatible and Esata is even faster.
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RE: Toshiba unveils slim, lightweight Stor.e Alu 2 external hard drives
Jeff Dickey 9th Jun 2010
Agree with the USB3 comment; I no longer pay attention to drives that don't have FireWire 800 and/or ESATA. Price differences over USB 2 will pay for themselves (in time saved) in a ridiculously short time.

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