The drive is brand new and has the latest firmware installed. Let’s start our tests. The CrystalDiskMark software offers a good indication of the drive's possible performance. Toshiba doesn't state any kind of performance figures, so we hoped for at least 120MB/sec reading/writing sequential speed, and the results are even better with around 155-160MB/sec reading/writing speeds. With normal HDDs, you cannot expect high reading/writing speeds with small-sized files.

The ATTO Disk benchmark gives us more details with different file sizes and above 16kb sized files you will get good performance:

- Conclusion

The Toshiba Canvio Basics series is mainly offered for entry-level users, who wish affordable storage and corresponding price levels. The retail of the Toshiba Canvio Basics 4TB is nicely designed, nothing fancy, it includes a printed manual and a USB cable for connecting to full-sized USB ports. The issue here is that many laptops nowadays don't include normal USB ports but TypeC ports, so making a universal microB to TypeC/A cable would sound like a better idea.

Toshiba doesn't offer any kind of information about the expected performance levels you can get with the Canvio Basic lineup, and from our tests, you can expect at least ~150MB/sec reading/writing speeds with bigger than 16k sized files. That is a very good performance for a 5400rpm 2.5" HDD. The temperature levels were kept normal with our tests not showing above 35 Celsius, even in the summer time. Toshiba backups up the entire Canvio Basics series with 2years of warranty and is on par with other manufacturers. If we had to nag about something is that we feel it is time for storage manufacturers to move away from the microB USB port and move all their cables to Type C. Mac users will have to also format the drive to be able to use it and probably buy a microB to TypeC cable as well. Lastly, the retail price is also very competitive with ~90 Euro (including VAT).