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,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
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: Beware: Product details inaccurate - Not powered by USB!!
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this item based on the Product Details which state:
"Powers via USB or FireWire connection"
This is simply false! The drive comes with an AC adapter which it needs for power, and connecting the USB cable alone does not power it.
Also, while it has a USB port, I see no FireWire port.
Moreover, calling this drive "portable" is a bit of an exaggeration. This drive is comparable in size and weight to the Iomega silver series drives which are not advertised as "portable". Truly portable drives are drives such as the Smartdisk Firelite, which are lightweight and pocket-sized, and really do power through the USB with no AC adapter.
I should have known it was too good to be true - nobody is selling an external hard drive with capacity beyond ~250 GB that is powered only by USB. All 500 GB drives require an AC adapter and are well beyond pocket size.
Customer Review: Good value, somewhat slow, annoying blinkiness
Summary: 3 Stars
The drive works fine off the shelf and in dollars per byte I can't argue with the value. Transfer times are fine, what you'd expect from USB 2, but latency can be a real problem -- several seconds. If you're moving a hundred gig you won't care, if you're trying to open one file it might get noticable.
The principal design failure of the device is an incredibly annoying array of brilliant blue LED's on the top of the case, that flash in irritating procession whenever the drive is in use. Good grief, it's a disk drive, not the marquis centerpiece in Times Square. Go way and do your work quietly like a good little drive now.
One warning: I tried twice to make the SimpleTech drive a TrueCrypt-encrypted partition (all 500 gig) and both times it failed hard on the second or third day of use. Running w/o TrueCrypt I've had no trouble.
Customer Review: Unable to format drive. Poor quality.
Summary: 1 Stars
I've had this drive for several months, and it seemed to work fine. Then, I was unable to retrieve some family photos from it. System would lock up on read errors. So I offloaded all I could and tried a format of the drive. Failed 7 times. No diagnostic software provided by manufacturer. It's as if they are relying on other drive manufacturers to provide it. Only a basic user guide is provided on their 'support' CD. Poor support.
After downloading and running Seagate's Seatools, the long generic test FAILED. Why couldn't Simpletech have such a BASIC tool.
I would NOT recommend buying this drive under ANY circumstance. Poor initial quality if it won't even format. I do not even want to send it back for fear they'd send me another. Dependability is of the utmost on USB hard drives. Simlpletech is not reliable for me.
Customer Review: Hurricane Recovery
Summary: 5 Stars
I own this exact drive and during Hurricane Gustav my house flooded and it fell over into the water. The drive was unpowered at the time at least. I took apart the whole unit and let it air dry for two weeks. I purchased a new external HD case because I was scared to use the Simpletech one and I dont have a PC with a SATA interface and guess what! I was able to extract every bit and byte of data from my drive. not a drop of water entered the drive. I don't know if there are cheaply sealed drives verses well sealed drives but the one in my Simpletech External 500 USB was watertight. I had to put the data on a few different computers since it was so much and none of my PCs had that much room. I am about to order another Simpletech 500 Gig drive to put it all back on. I can't say they are all watertight but mine was. So they have my trust.Customer Review: Simpletech 500 GB is great
Summary: 5 Stars
It doesn't do tricks or get me a cold soda, but it does have a neat flashing light as it stores new data. Lets face it, storing data is what's important and this 500 GB hard drive does just that. With USB 2.0 connectivity, what could be easier! To be totally honest, I bought this one as a back-up to my first one(Identical unit) because I had to send the first one for repair of a burnt out power board inside the drive. Customer service was outstanding in that when I spoke to a representative I told him I did not want to ship the actual hard drive from inside the case, so he told me to remove it and only send the case (with the burnt board inside) and the wall transformer. After testing, he replaced the bad board and shipped it back to me free of charge.
So those are my experiences with these units.