SimpleTech by Hitachi SimpleDrive 500 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive SP-U35/500 (designed by Pininfarina)
by SimpleTech
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List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of SimpleTech by Hitachi SimpleDrive 500 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive SP-U35/500 (designed by Pininfarina)
Customer Review: Black 120 Gb flavor, owned for one year, no problems, picks up as XP drive plug-n-play.
Summary: 5 Stars
I have two of these SimpleTech Pininafarina portable devices in the solid black (no blue ring) 120 Gb flavor.
I have had one of them for about a year and so far no problems. But I only use it to backup my data files once every couple of weeks or so - it's not getting 'heavy' usage. (Some of the reviewers around have lodged some failure complaints.)
Looks very cool. Simple to use. Red light for power, blue light for read/write. Comes with some software on a disc that I trashed. XP recognizes it as a drive no problem-o. I didn't do any formating nor did I have to install any drivers. I can't speak to speed since I am actually running USB 1.1 on my machine right now. No case provided, but I picked up black Case Logic PDHC1 Portable Hard Drive Cases for about $10 each. The drive and the cable fit easily.
The thing runs off of USB plug (just as advertised, not requiring AC current as one reviewer says). They have a plug in the back for a 5 VDC, 1.0A external power adapter (not provided) if you want to use that. The USB 2.0 to mini-B wire that does come with it actually has TWO USB 2.0s on it, strung in series. The instructions say that if the first USB is not giving up enough power, then plug the second one in for additional juice. I used wire ties to tie off the second USB plug. It is power only and if you use it by mistake as the primary plug, you'll be wondering why the thing is only working halfway. For me, the thing runs just fine powering off the one primary USB.
Perhaps the earlier reviewer bought a larger capacity version of this drive that requires AC adapter use. Or perhaps the reviewer bought the non-portable version and it requires AC usage. That version is physically larger, but the style/shape is exactly the same. SimpleTech has a website, so anyone unsure can go check the specs on any flavor of the product.
I respect Seagate quality, but it comes with software and I couldn't tell from the box whether I HAD to use it or not. It sort of reads as though I might. I just wanted an easily recognized drive to burn my data folder onto. (I rotate 'em - one off site, one on site, so if one fails, I basically still have another set of backups spread over time on the other one to fall back on.) That - and the fact this drive was about half the price - caused me to pass on the Seagate. If I were using the drive on a routine basis or for critical application, I would have tried to rely on Seagate quality first (and hoped the software was non-essential) without price being a concern.
But, again, so far this thing has worked without a hitch.
Customer Review: If you're a gambler, then this product is for you I suppose.
Summary: 1 Stars
Given the fact that there is nearly a 50/50 split between 5-Star and 1-Star reviews of this product, I suppose the chances of any one individual being happy with this device could be modeled by the flip of a coin. Unfortunately, I chose heads and the coin turned up tails.
I have owned a 160GB SimpleTech SimpleDrive external HDD for three years now and have transported it to two continents, worked with it outside, in vehicles and everywhere in between and it has never once caused me any trouble.
Feeling the need for storage space, I assumed that the 500GBs offered by this product would be a welcomed addition. After unpacking the hard drive, I was very satisfied with the simple "plug and play" installation that these drives are renowned for. I was able to rename the drive, drag a couple of music files to it and then....it was GAME OVER.
The PC I was using sounded the ever-familiar chime when an external device is unplugged -- only I did not unplug a thing. Ever since I have been undable to get that particular PC or any of my other two computers to recognize the drive. I have used a variety of USB cables plugged into a variety of USB ports.
A call to customer support reaffirmed my notion that I should never do business with SimpleTech again. After a 24 minute wait time, a customer service representative (and I use that title quite loosely)was about as informative and helpful as the night custodian would have been. In fact, I would have much rather spoken to the latter -- I certainly would have learned more.
Sadly, when one purchases an item from amazon.com, one is not offorded the luxury of returning said item for a refund necessarily. So it seems that I have to go muddle through a virtual mountain of red tape to return said item back to this company for a replacement that, quite frankly, I feel will give me nothing but more trouble according to many of the reviews I am starting to see regarding this device.
Yes the price was right, but unfortunately the item was not.
If you really want this device ask yourself...."Do I feel lucky?"
Customer Review: great piece of hardware
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this because I am a torrent user and the files I download are extremly large for my current HD, and because of the fact that I can take it to skool and download my files there. It works great on any computer I have tried it on and I am really pleased with this buy,
I rated it four stars for some obvious reasons which really do not take away my love for this product anyway but these reasons are why this product is not the most perfect portable HD
1. this is not what I would call the most portable portable HD for an external this is quite large(not too large I suppose) and maybe bulky for some
2. the usb cable is quite short but really that is to be expected most of the standard USB cables that come with other external HD'S are rather short
3. the ac adapter may be a turn off for some buyers but really nothing to complain as long as you have a handy electric socket atanding by
4. Not really a complaint at all but I guess you would call it a very minor gripe contrary to the advertisement this drive is not 500 gigs it is actually 465 gigs and really this is not a big deal at all as it is more gigs than I could ever use anyway. This is another standard thing. Hard drives are to to my knowledge NEVER the advertised size its always less than what it says on the box which I think is only s matter of rounding up on the manufacturers part.
5. Now to my biggest complaint which really was my own fault when picing this HD. This does not have any credo(or is it creedo?) capability. That is where you have the funtion of a mini desktop or start menu folders like
all programs, my documents,internet explorer, my music ect.........
which like I said I should have known when buying this Hard Drive but in the scope of things really does not matter anyway.
I highly recommed this product its nicely made, stable and most importantly it works
Customer Review: Big, but very capable
Summary: 4 Stars
First of all, you should understand that SimpleTech makes two size drives with the same name (and virtually identical appearance). They have drives based on 2.5" drives (the 120,160,250) and the 3.5" based larger hard drives. I own one of the smaller (160gb) drives and I like it and have had no problems with it. It's portable and seems rather sturdy.
This drive is large and only portable in the sense that it's not difficult to pick up and plug it in somewhere else. It's not a notebook drive that powers off the USB. I wouldn't know about the long term reliability as I've only had it a couple of months. Also, I haven't tried rolling it down the stairs or anything, so I can't comment on its toughness.
That said, I've got 2 other external USB 500MB drives and one 1TB drive. This one is by far the fastest. Why that is, I don't know. I haven't changed any setting on anything. Just plugged it in the way they came out of the box, and there they went. This drive came with NTFS. 2 of the others did not. Was that the difference? Anyway, out of the box, this worked much better and faster with XP and Vista than my Iomega 500GB or my LaCie 1TB. It worked a little faster than Seagate Free Agent 500GB, but the Seagate stands upright on a wobbly stand.
Finally, I gave it only 4 stars because of the design. Yes, it's slightly prettier than some other drives, but I don't like the tapered front end. And also, this drive won't stack terribly well. If you're like me, you don't have too much desktop space (of course the other 3 drives don't help). If I can't stack external hard drives, at least it would be nice to be able to occansionally pile a few DVD or something on top of the as emergency desk space. The top of this drive is too rounded to utilize its surface.
UPDATE:
I rolled it down the stairs (not deliberately). It still works.
Customer Review: Be careful what you buy
Summary: 1 Stars
Ref: SimpleTech 500 GB external hard drive.
I'm not a very happy camper. I bought the hardware with the CD install disk. Started to install using that disk and received a message that the disk had a Trojan Horse virus on it and my machine would not open it.
Then I emailed Simpletech. Got a link to install software from their internet site, which I did. After installing, tried to hit the back up button and was informed that I had to create a backup folder first. This I did and then did a file dump. It took over 2 hours for the file backup and compare, for about a 1.1 Gig backup. I don't know if that is long or short, but that is the time it took.
Next, I tried to access my Palm Pilot calendar software, only to find out that all my calendar data had disappeared. Emailed Simpletech again to find out why and they stated that their product did not back up or deal with any scheduling software, so their product had nothing to do with the mysterious disappearance. (Note, in fairness, I had not been able to back up my PC scheduler to my handheld device since March of 2008 because of a software glitch with the palm software.)
So then, I called PalmPilot software support. They corrected the glitch that would not allow hotsyncing of the handheld and the PC, but were unable to find the missing calendar files. I was on the phone with them for 3 hours. And they charged me a fee for the technical support.
Bottom line, if you are going to back up your files on a Simpletech device, you should back them up somewhere else first, like a network backup source if you have access to one, so if the software messes with your other programs, you are protected.