Product: Verbatim Titan XS (320GB)
Supplier: Verbatim
MSRP: $129.99     Find Lowest Price @ PriceGrabber
Author: Linas
Date: September 5, 2010

The Titan XS comes to us from Verbatim.  This drive packs a small 320gb hard drive in a shock resistant rubber casing.  This is designed to be a handy drive for people who are on the move, and possibly a little rough with their data.  Let’s see if the drive lives up to the expectations.

Construction/features

When I got the package open, I was very surprised by the size of external drive.  The enclosure is not like anything I’ve seen or used before.  Verbatim forwent the standard small, sleek, and shiny, metal and plastic cases, and instead went with a thin rubber casing.  Also included is a short black mini-USB to USB cable to attach the drive, a thin users guide, and a promotional leaflet.

The rubber casing on this drive isn’t obnoxiously thick.  In fact, I was impressed at the size of the entire package when I opened it.  The rubber coating on top and bottom has about the same thickness as an SD card, and the side rounds out to about two to three times that.  The rubber has a smooth, almost dusty or grainy feeling to it, so there are no worries about it sticking to something or attracting fingerprints, scratches, or dust.  That said, the dull black with “Verbatim” embossed into the casing isn’t the most exciting drive to look at.  So, if hard drive appearances are your life, look somewhere else.  Those of you who want a drive that won’t stick out and works, keep reading.

To test shock absorption of the casing, I subjected the drive to a few drops from about three feet from the ground (though I wasn’t able to find a USB cable long enough to simulate the ‘perfect storm’ of dropping the drive while writing data to it).  If I dropped the drive on one of the flat sides, I heard a solid thud and that was it.  Dropping the drive onto a corner or edge, where the rubber gets thicker, makes things a little more interesting.  The drive would bounce back and skip around a little bit until it fell down flat, but that was it.  Plugging the drive back in after the test I wasn’t able to notice any ill effects from my little experiment.

A concern I have with the construction is that the casing is not the most supportive.  I found that if you apply pressure to the center of the drive, there really isn’t anything to stop you from pushing on the actual drive.  My testing found that most normal items being placed on the drive won’t affect it, but if one were to press on the drive with a finger, one of the grossest sounds known to drive owners will come from the device.  This is just a bit of warning that, while this is a rugged drive capable of absorbing a spill and tumble from time to time, it is not entirely bomb-proof.

Some users may be concerned about the rather large seam in the casing towards the end of the drive.  When I first pulled the drive out of the plastic casing I was a little worried as well.  The seam comes from the way the drive is manufactured.  It seems that the drive and USB port assembly is slipped into the rubber casing (at the opposite end of the USB port).  Then the end flap is folded over and each of the edges of the seam are glued to the drive.  Thanks to the glue and the tight fit of the rubber casing, there is no worry of the drive slipping out and ruining your whole day. (Obviously this seam doesn’t help the spill resistance of this product, though the small ventilation hole at the top and the USB port don’t help either.)

The actual drive used in my Titan XS was a Samsung HM322IX.  According to a chart from Samsung, this is a 5400 RPM USB2.0 drive with 8MB of cache that sucks up between 1.2W (standby) and 3.2W (read/write).  This drive obviously sacrifices some raw speed for the sake of form factor and power savings, but because of the USB 2.0 interface isn’t too much of an issue.    The drive performs well without any drama.  The drive is near silent when in use (the rubber casing helps absorb any extra vibrations that would be present when operating), the drive doesn’t suck much power when using my laptop on battery power, and it barely gets warm to the touch.  It accomplishes all of this while maintaining an average transfer rate at around 30MB/s, which is plenty quick for transferring files on the go, or backing up the system from time to time.

Usability/Software

The drive comes pre-formatted in the FAT32 file system.  This allows the drive to work seamlessly across whichever operating systems you choose (of course, if it is not to your liking you can quickly format it into whatever system you would like).  In my use, I was able to plug the drive into both my Windows, and Linux Mint systems without any trouble..

Verbatim also includes a few hundred megabytes of data on the drive.  In this package they included a PDF of the user’s guide, a program called Turbo USB, a copy of Nero BackItUp, and some trial links for Norton Online Backup and eMusic music downloads.  It’s nice to see that Verbatim included some software that should help enhance the use of this drive, though the extra trial offers aren’t really too exciting (it is easy enough to just clear them off the drive through a reformat or just deleting them, better than some external drive manufacturers nowadays).

After installing and running Turbo USB, you are able to check a box next to the drive you wish to apply the turbo USB settings to, then hit apply and reattach the drive.  In my experience (using Windows 7 Professional), I couldn’t find much difference between having turbo mode activated and deactivated.  Using HD Tune, I tested the drive a couple times with each turbo mode enabled and disabled, and I didn’t get more than one percent of difference.

Verbatim provides a copy of Nero BackItUp & Burn essentials.  It provides some handy features to automatically backup your system, manually backup specific files, sync different folders, and restore your system.  Obviously there is room to add more features or customizations to this program, but for the average user it provides a wonderful and easy to use starting point to perform regular backups.

Conclusion

The Verbatim Titan XS is a tough little drive that performs just as advertised.  The drive isn’t the flashiest or most attractive, but it is certainly functional and built to last (the seven year warranty is testament to this).  This drive is plenty quick enough for basic uses, but if you want or need something faster you will need to look for a different interface.  The software package isn’t too thrilling, but it is actually useful.  For students and those that are constantly in a rush – with more important things to worry about than the safety of a hard drive – this drive is a perfect fit.

Pros

- Small size
- No worries about dropping or scratching
- 7 year warranty

Cons

- Bland appearances
- Rubber casing doesn’t protect against crushing
- Not completely spillproof

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Tags: Drive, Hard, Titan, USB, Verbatim, XS