I brought the Transcend StoreJet 25M3 may 2015 at 3900 rupees. Normally, I would stay away from transcend brand(Not a good history of reliability in Memory cards and Pen drives). But every now and then, even the worst company gets something done right, causing a "Disruption" of the Status-Quo. The Transcend StoreJet 25M3 is one such "disruptive" product, upsetting the monopoly WD and Seagate had in the 2.5" HDD Market.
Highlights of this model:
Unlike its fellow 1TB brothers, this drive has a silicon outer shell, which makes it shock-proof, fingerprint-proof and skid-proof(albeit at a larger dimension and weight). This means the drive won’t fail even when you may fail at protecting it from drops and shocks. The cable provided is also sturdy and you can use the cable with other Ext. HDDs you may have around too. The deal is sweetened by the solid 3-year warranty cover and availability of service outlets in all major towns.
Perfomance:
Although it was a value buy for me, the drive speeds pleasantly surprised me and my friends, who have also placed orders for this drive. I have tested this drive in legacy USB 2.0, and 1.0 Systems also with write speeds that fall between 12-42MBps(USB 2.0) and 3-9MBps(USB 1.1). But all that pales in comparison to it’s speed when I use the drive in USB 3.0 Mode with up to 90MBps write speed for larger files.
Competition:
At this price range the only competition were the ADATA and Toshiba 1 TB Models. Toshiba’s HDD manufacturing technology is a bit behind times and is prone to failure ever since WD brought Hitachi’s HDD division, which used to make Laptop HDDs for Toshiba. And do look into service availability for ADATA in your locality before purchasing it. Both those drives hover around the 3.7-4k mark, but I was sold by the Military spec. shock tolerance and build quality of the transcend model.
The drive comes in as a close second in performance to the Seagate Backup Plus 1TB Model, which costs 5.6K as on April 2014. It’s only behind by 20% in speed but is 44% cheaper than the Seagate model, for which you will have to buy a carry case also, if you gonna travel around with it a lot.
Compared to the Western Digital My passport 1TB models, this drive rocks. The My passport 1TB drives have an internal HDD that has the data controller(by Initio) embedded on the drive’s PCB, thus making them incompatible to regular SATA Ports. If the drive fails, which it does(because such embedded controller drives have lower shock tolerance(250 in place of 350) compared to regular drives), you will be left with no option to do a data recovery using the cheap(read cracked) data recovery software from the internet. You will have to sent them to Data Recovery Pros. who charge 500 bucks per MB recovered. WD use such drives because its cheaper to make and we consumers can’t break open the drive and use the 2.5" HDD in our laptops(external drives being cheaper than same capacity internal laptop drives because of the demand supply equation). But with the StoreJet 25M3 model you can open the enclosure using 4 screws and take out the 2.5" HDD and connect it to your laptop/Desktop and run HDD-Reanimator or Stellar-Phoenix Software on it, if something were to cause it to fail. Also the Transcend drive uses the same reliable J-micron Controller used in the trusty WD My-Book 3& 4TB Models, so you don’t worry about write errors with this model.
Some Tech Info:
At the time of writing the 500GB 25M3 model was around 4000-4200 price range, which is wicked. The reason being that the 500GB model uses the reliable and hi-quality WD(Western Digital) 500GB LPVT Latop Drive inside it, which you can get for 3.2k from WD, while this 1TB model uses the cheap Seagate branded Samsung Spin-point 1TB 2.5" Laptop HDD, which you can buy for 3.8k from Seagate. The same Samsung-Seagate 1TB Drive is the cheapest 1TB 2.5" HDD now and is thus used everywhere, from 1TB Portable HDDs by Buffalo, Samsung, Sony, Dell, Seagate(Backup-Plus model, not slim model) as well as all those HP, Lenovo and Acer laptops(under 50K) sporting "1000GB HDD"s. BTW Seagate had brought Samsung’s HDD division a few years ago. Those other model’s cost from 1200 to 2000 rupees extra despite having the same HDD inside!
Conclusion:
If you’re in the market for an external HDD, and is kinda irresponsible when it comes to handling your electronic gadgets(come on, you know you are;) look no further than the Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1TB External Hard Disk. Go buy it before the price is hiked up. It may be a few grams more than the others but you can do without any bulky carry pouch and that makes it the same weight.