SimpleTech SimpleDrive External Hard Drive (500GB, Pininfarina)

• Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 12 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 1 stars

  Not worth the money.

  by reluctanthero on March 23, 2008

  Pros: Hard to find pros with it.

  Cons: Extremely unreliable.

  Summary: I saw this at a store, it was highly advertised, and I thought, "hey, why not?" And bought it. I used it, and it worked great. It did backups somewhat ...

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  Summary: I saw this at a store, it was highly advertised, and I thought, "hey, why not?" And bought it. I used it, and it worked great. It did backups somewhat quickly, had good amount of storage, didn't cost too much. I was happy with it.
  2 days later it stopped working. So, after I put all of my information onto it, it just stopped working. I took it back to where I got it, and asked them to move the information onto another one, of the same model. They started moving the information...it broke while they moved the information. In the span of 2 days, 2 had broken. The tech support at the place where I got it told me that when he took it apart, it was barely held together, and it was obvious that it was a piece of garbage. I agreed, obviously. One broke in 10 minutes, even. I ended up getting a different brand, and the new one has run into no problems.
  
  
  Basically, it's an extremely unreliable machine, that is advertised as something amazing. Two broke in 2 days, and I've heard nothing but horrible things from other people I know who've bought it.
  
  Tech support said that a lot are recalled, and a lot are taken back all of time, having broken.
  
  It creates backups, claiming to have a better security on your information. Claiming "safer than a computer, as a computer may crash." I've had my computer for a year, it hasnt crashed once. I had 2 of these in 2 days, both of them crashed.

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  6 out of 6 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 7 stars

  Good buy at 149.99 CAD

  by Yoyaner on September 1, 2007

  Pros: Simple to use

  Cons: You don't get the 2Gig advertised on Myfabrik but 1 Gig

  3 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 1 stars

  NOT DEPENDABLE

  by jwwhisnant on September 26, 2008

  Pros: 1T for less than $100

  Cons: You get what you pay for. Drive worked for 6 weeks as external drive dedicated solely to Time Machine backup. Then died - "I/O error". Apple support very helpful but could not find any other problem than the external drive was now malfunctioning.

  Summary: AN EXTERNAL DRIVE NEEDS TO BE DEPENDABLE FOR BACKUPS. THIS ONE IS NOT.

  Summary: AN EXTERNAL DRIVE NEEDS TO BE DEPENDABLE FOR BACKUPS. THIS ONE IS NOT.

  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 1 stars

  Basic design flaw?!?

  by gollaruff on July 23, 2008

  Pros: Lots of storage room. Easy to use -- When it's works

  Cons: Continued outages.

  Summary: After simple installation, I was pleased.
  It worked for about 10 days or so.
  The drive came up missing on "my computer"
  
  I immediately went to the VERY SMALLISH power
  
  
  
  ...

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  Summary: After simple installation, I was pleased.
  It worked for about 10 days or so.
  The drive came up missing on "my computer"
  
  I immediately went to the VERY SMALLISH power adapter. Checked the specs and found a power adapter with the same specs and replaced the factory unit.
  
  It worked again for about 3 months and now it is dead again. I dislike the drive. I now have about 200GB of info on the drive.
  
  2 power problems within 100 days.
  
  I would not recommend this product.
  
  While we are talking about arc soft merchandise, Why would I want to try some of the video and audio products they are trying to market. Build quality products and word of mouth will sell the rest of the line.
  
  GIGO baby. It is still a fixture of manufacturing, programming and logic in general.

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 8 stars

  So Far So Good

  by POL080 on January 21, 2008

  Pros: Easy file transfers, Burn Disc Software, Decent Size, Good Price

  Cons: None as yet

  Summary: Just purchased this external hard drive to transfer close to 1,000 songs from my desktop computer to free up space. Also, to use with my laptop to conserve space. ...

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  Summary: Just purchased this external hard drive to transfer close to 1,000 songs from my desktop computer to free up space. Also, to use with my laptop to conserve space. Laptops can only handle but so much. It's very easy to use. Just cut & paste any file, music, photo onto the drive as you would on your computer. The size is decent enough to still carry around as a portable hard drive. Has a sleek design, black glossy finish. The price ($119.00) was great for 500GB. Can't get any better than that. The transfer speed is good, not that slow at all. So far it's running very well. Liking It!!!!!

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 10 stars

  Best Value Out There for an External Hard Drive!

  by rockinroller on May 28, 2009

  Pros: Sleek design. Quiet running. Fast uploads (2.5 gb in 4 min.).Totally brainless connection process. Basically plug and play. Oh, and a totally rare feature not found on higher priced "big name" models: An ON-OFF switch--all for under $70!

  Cons: Vacuum packed packaging requires a knife or utility blade to open.

  Summary: I researched external hard drives for a couple of months--even made several bids on Ebay for what appeared to be "good deals" for Western Digitals and Seagates. After continuously being ...

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  Summary: I researched external hard drives for a couple of months--even made several bids on Ebay for what appeared to be "good deals" for Western Digitals and Seagates. After continuously being outbid and the items going for close to retail, I decided to purchase "locally" and found this SimpleTech model at Costco, at $79.99 less a $10 instant rebate. I hadn't researched this particular 500gb model but I knew enough about SimpleTech from reviews online to recall that it was a highly rated brand of external drives. I figured that, coupled with Costco's unbeatable return-whenever policy, I couldn't lose so I brought the unit home, plugged in the AC adapter and found an empty USB port on my Dell desktop and fired it up. Within a few minutes I had my entire data files backed up and ready to access in the event my 5 year old desktop decided to stop working. What peace of mind, and all for $70 and 5 minutes to open the container and plug it in.
  
  Best deal for a great product--hands down.

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• 2 stars

  no good product. Please don't buy

  by golfista2000 on March 4, 2009

  Pros: I don't like a lot

  Cons: Brakes very easy

  Summary: twice I lost everything that I have on.They replace for me once and worked for few weeks and broked again. I lost all my data.

  Summary: twice I lost everything that I have on.They replace for me once and worked for few weeks and broked again. I lost all my data.

• 2 stars

  OK performance but USB jack broke loose.

  by Sean_Oliver on February 8, 2009

  Pros: Good price for 500GB - $80.00. Nice design.

  Cons: Very shoddy construction on the inside.

  Summary: Very nice design, 500 Gigs for less than $100.00...BUT...the USB 3.5mm jack on the back panel broke loose inside the unit after only 3 mos. of ...

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  Summary: Very nice design, 500 Gigs for less than $100.00...BUT...the USB 3.5mm jack on the back panel broke loose inside the unit after only 3 mos. of use. That means it's completely useless until it gets re-attached/re-soldered.
  I opened it up to see if I could fix it myself, and discovered that the jack housing was barely soldered on, so that if it gets jostled a bit while connected, (I put the unit in my backpack while the USB cable was still attached - that should NOT cause the thing to break off!) the jack will easily break loose inside the unit.
  Terrible QC, poor attention to an important detail.
  
  Updated on Feb 8, 2009

  My review stated the "3.5 mm jack broke"
  It's NOT a 3.5mm, it's the other larger truncated square designed jack which broke.

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• 2 stars

  What good is a backup drive that fails?

  by hogwild2009 on January 25, 2009

  Pros: Quiet, sleek, and reasonably fast. Came with a nice bundle of software.

  Cons: It died after using it about 10 times. What a clunker! I guess I needed to get a reliable drive to back up this piece of junk.

  Summary: Don't waste your money on this. I want my $75 bucks back! I guess you get what you pay for. Get the Maxtor with the 5 year warranty, I'...

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  Summary: Don't waste your money on this. I want my $75 bucks back! I guess you get what you pay for. Get the Maxtor with the 5 year warranty, I've read some good reviews on it.

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• 9 stars

  Works Fine

  by segaszivos on December 26, 2008

  Pros: Inexpensive, 500Gb, easy to use, and reliable

  Cons: Average read/write speed, but sufficient...

  Summary: I got this as a Christmas present in 2007. This external drive is exactly what I was looking for. I share music, movies, and TV shows from this drive to ...

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  Summary: I got this as a Christmas present in 2007. This external drive is exactly what I was looking for. I share music, movies, and TV shows from this drive to my Popcorn Hour (media player). The drive is fast enough to stream High Definition movies across my home network. I occasionally bring this drive into work to share media with my coworkers. This drive has had a lot of use over the last year without any major problems. I don't use the software, just Windows plug'n'play. I would recommend this drive to any user. It's so easy to use.

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