Hitachi Touro Mobile Pro (750 GB, HTOLMNA7501BBB)
We previously tested the 500 GB Hitachi Touro Mobile Pro, and it proved to be one of the fastest 2.5” drives we've seen. In fact, it claimed a ranking in the top third of our USB 3.0 Storage Charts. The 750 GB version (HTOLMNA7501BBB), which sells for less than $100, is slightly faster still.
The piano black Touro Mobile Pro sports a USB 3.0 interface like its smaller sibling, and it also boasts a 7200 RPM drive inside. But that's where similarities to the 500 GB model end. The 750 GB version is the fastest external 2.5” drive we have ever tested. Its maximum sequential read rate of 125.6 MB/s and its maximum write speed of 125.5 MB/s make it the new speed king, pushing the previous winner, Samsung's S2, down one spot, even though the S2 is still better with small files.
It's also worth noting that, while Samsung's S2 loses out to Hitachi's Touro Mobile Pro in synthetics, it remains faster in real-world metrics, such as the copy test.
Hitachi's drive is positioned as a professional product for backing up data. Although it can be used to save information from the cloud, the Touro Mobile Pro is also capable of putting data into the cloud through a bundled application called Hitachi Backup. The software includes 3 GB of online storage space, and is upgradeable to 250 GB for $49 per year. The box also contains a quick-start guide and a USB 3.0 cable.
Hitachi Backup may not be feature-rich, but this Flash-based application is easy to use. By default, it copies the logged-in user's data to the external drive or the cloud either at pre-defined times or on demand. You can specify different folders for the two backup targets, and also define the number of revisions to keep. The latest backup is available in a folder named “Current,” and older backups are found in “Archived.” With a slider, you can specify the bandwidth usage of the cloud backup function as “Low,” “Medium,” or “High”.
