Verbatim 500GB USB 3.0 Store ‘n’ Go Portable Hard Drive Review

Verbatim Store ‘n’ Go

Since 1969, Verbatim has been providing innovative data storage solutions, and to this day they remain one of the most known names in the industry. Verbatim recently announced a series of portable hard drives called the Store ‘n’ Go. These external portable hard drives are ideal for those that want to have large amounts of data on a storage drive that you can take with you. Verbatim offers these storage on-the-go drives in both FireWire 800 and SuperSpeed USB versions, so they have both PC and Mac users covered.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 is the only way to go for PC users as it ensures you’ll have faster transfer speeds and when you have a 500GB or larger drive, it can shave a ton of time off your data transfers and data backups. USB 3.0 is also moving ever closer to being the norm, with more and more manufacturers adopting it. For those of you who are unsure what the difference in USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 are, its all about performance. SuperSpeed USB 3.0 increases transfer speeds up to ten times faster than USB 2.0.

The Verbatim Store N Go SuperSpeed USB 3.0 series is available in the following configurations:

• 1TB Piano Black 9.5mm – $159.04
• 1TB Piano Black – $121.00
• 500GB Hot Pink 500GB Priced at $103.99
• 500GB Caribbean Blue – $99.95
• 500GB PianoBlack – $88.99

The drive that Verbatim sent us for testing is the Store ‘n’ Go 500GB SuperSpeed USB 3.0 drive in piano black that is sold under model number 97397.

The front of the packaging lets us know right off the bat that this is a USB 3.0 device, with a capacity of 500GB. It also tells us that the product carries a seven year warranty, which is crazy good and a key selling point to this portable drive. We can see that there is a software bundle included, Nero BackItUp & Burn Essentials.

The back of the box shows us a graphic of the portable hard drive, a chart showing the speed gains that are possible with USB 3.0, and the same information that was listed on the front. We can see that as a bonus we have a free 60 day trial of Norton Online Backup, up to 5GB. This is Nortons cloud backup system. It allows you to upload up to 5GB of data, and retrieve it at any time within your active subscription.

Here, on the side of the packaging, we can see the system requirements and package contents in English and in French. You will need either a PC or a Mac, with an available USB port. This drive is backwards compatible so either SuperSpeedUSB 3.0 or High Speed 2.0 can be used.

Inside of the outside packaging we found a simple brown box which contained the hard drive and a USB 3.0 cable that measures one meter, or 33 . The hard drive came wrapped in a protective film to prevent scratching the outer shell. You may want to keep this plastic on your drive if you dont want to have to wipe fingerprints off constantly. The glossy shell of the enclosure is definitely a magnet for fingerprints.

Once we got everything opened up this is what we found. The hard drive itself as well as the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 cable that was included with it.

Looking at this cable you may notice that it has a blue connector on it, as opposed to the standard white or black that youre probably used to seeing. This is because it is a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 cable. Its designed to be compatible with the newest USB 3.0 technology and the blue is to let you know that if possible you should connect it into a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port on your computer, which are also blue color coded. If you don’t have one, it is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports, although you’ll be stuck at USB 3.0 speeds of around 30MB/s.

This is the main attraction here today. The Verbatim 500GB USB 3.0 Store N Go portable hard drive measures just 4.72 x 3.11 x 0.72 (HxWxD) and weighs 10.7 ounces. As I stated before, the enclosure has a glossy finish, which is a curse and a blessing. It makes the drive look nice and elegant, but at the same time it shows fingerprints horribly bad.

Once we plug the drive in, you see that there is simple blue LED that glows to indicate power. This LED also flashes to let you know when the drive is in use. For those of you who dislike the illuminated LED, the only real option would be to cover it up with perhaps electrical tape. Youll notice that there isnt any secondary power cable needed as all the power is pulled from the USB interface. Inside the housing is a 2.5-inch notebook hard drive. Specifically, it is a Seagate Momentus 5400.6 ST9500325AS 5400RPM SATA 3GB/S drive. This Seagate hard drive runs $88 shipped by itself and only comes with a 2-year warranty. The Verbatim Store ‘n’ Go 500GB USB 3.0 portable drive is just $93.98 shipped! That means for an extra six dollars you get a 5-year longer warranty, the USB 3.0 enclosure, USB 3.0 cable and all the backup software!

Let’s take a look at the included software as we haven’t checked that out yet.