Toshiba Canvio Gaming 2TB test. External HDD for gamers

“External Gaming Drive.” When a phrase like this is used, it is hard to imagine what this “gaming” equipment does with the equipment. For example, the Toshiba Canvio Gaming 2 TB drive tested below owes its “gaming” quality to its proudly sounding compatibility with PlayStation and Xbox consoles and computers, which boils down to the fact that it is preformatted to the exFAT file system.

The first moments with Toshiba Canvio Gaming

The tested Toshiba Canvio Gaming drive takes the form of a thin cuboid with dimensions of 80 × 111 × 13.5 mm and a weight of 149 grams. This dark-colored housing boils down to two components – the lower, black, hard plastic and a graphite “cover” on top with the manufacturer’s name in the upper left corner. Between these elements there is a modest plastic groove finished in gloss… and that’s it. The rest is completed with a micro-B input on the short edge and an accompanying blue longitudinal function LED integrated directly in the housing.

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The workmanship of Canvio Gaming is apparently good and the appearance is pleasing to the eye. The durability of this disk, however, is a completely different story, because it is enough to crush the disk in your hand for the plastics to crackle and bend a bit. In addition, the mere undermining of the graphite shows our eyes a small gap, although there is no question of breaking it. The included, approximately 45 cm long, USB 3.2 Gen 1 cable (Type-A to Micro-B) in a rubber braid is difficult to attach. Just a simple cable, which, apart from the disk and the information booklet, is the only element to be found in a modest cardboard packaging, which cares for Canvio Gaming in transport thanks to foil and cardboard linings.

Fortunately, Toshiba has muted these drives appropriately, making it difficult to feel the vibrations that Canvio Gaming could transfer to your desk even without the plastic pads. The same applies to noise during operation, which comes down to a quiet hum, or low temperature, which you do not have to worry about. You have to remember that inside this disk there are no NAND memory chips, but a traditional set related to small-format HDDs, i.e. a combination of ferromagnetic platters with heads. It uses the full speed of the USB 3.2 Gen 1 port for operation, while maintaining backward compatibility with USB 2.0. On the warranty side, the manufacturer provides you with a full three years of possible repair of the equipment.

Methodology and test platform

All tests were performed on a 64-bit Windows 10 Pro operating system and exFAT file system with an allocation unit of 4096 bytes. The results shown are the best result of three readings performed under identical conditions.

Also read: XPG Gammix S50 Lite 1TB Drive to PCIe 4.0 Test

Don’t be fooled by the occasional gaps shown in the charts, and take a peek at the scale before drawing conclusions.

• Synthetic test software:
  • Anvil’s Storage Utilities 1.1.0
• Files / programs for real tests
  • The Witcher 3 game files weighing 54.7 GB

Canvio Gaming benchmarks

Nowadays, external HDDs are performance monsters in this bad sense. Although they are cheaper than SSDs, it’s hard not to complain about their very low performance. However, it is one of the cheapest ways to expand your data warehouse, and not only with one hardware in mind. In practice, this model will give you 1.81 TB of free space, and after connecting it you will find a pre-installed user manual:

First, let’s take a look at this model’s performance in benchmarks:

Pre- and post-full tests have confirmed that the HDD is not tormented by a drop in performance when full, and no wonder, because the way they save data is significantly different from the way SSDs, which often lose performance significantly when full. How will the Toshiba Canvio Gaming 2 TB perform in practical tests and compared to other drives? The results are suspicious below, but before reading them, take a look above at how the drive dealt with The Witcher files and a single large file:

Also read: Plextor M9P Plus 1 TB test, i.e. a PCIe 3 × 4 drive

Here is the most important comparison that is so clear that you can surely draw your own conclusions. In short – if you mainly care about speed, an external drive in the form of Toshiba Canvio Gaming (and not only it) should be your final choice.

Toshiba Canvio Gaming Drive Test – Summary

Currently, you can buy a Toshiba Canvio Gaming 2 TB drive for PLN 279, guaranteeing yourself a mobile data storage that can be connected to any personal computer, and even a mobile device. The most important features of this model come down to its wide compatibility, which is ensured by the two included cables at the factory.

Defects? A bit too thin plastic casing, which could have been better made, but which still looks friendly to the eye, and in addition suggests a higher-end model.