SimpleTech SimpleDrive External Hard Drive (500GB, Pininfarina)

• Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 16 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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  7 out of 7 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!!!!!
  
  Updated on Dec 28, 2010

  This external drive crashed almost a year ago & I hardly used it. I LOST EVERYTHING I HAD SAVED & WAS NEVER ABLE TO RECOVER IT.

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 1 stars

  WARNING!! Keep a fire extinguisher near. Drive is HOT!!

  by mosfet303 on April 10, 2012

  Pros: Didn't run long enough to find any!

  Cons: Caught on fire after plugged in for 20 minutes. Started with a squeak then a cracking rumble, then fire n smoke billowed from drive Every minute of that 20 minutes PC was locked up from drive. Stench of burned wiring in furniture and walls for days.

  Summary: I'm just glad I was sitting in front of it when it caught or i could be homeless right now. All because I tried to save a buck by ...

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  Summary: I'm just glad I was sitting in front of it when it caught or i could be homeless right now. All because I tried to save a buck by buying some generic brand drive. Also glad I didn't loose any data, because not one byte made it to drive before the light show. They should give you a fire suppression system and a bottle of fabreeze with every drive. Thanks for the smelly office SimpleTech!!>:-/

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• 1 stars

  Dosn't work

  by scottyxlr8 on August 12, 2010

  Pros: Swirling lights

  Cons: When it goes to sleep, it won't wake up. Sometimes it comes 'back to life' after leaving it uplugged for a few days. Also, tech support is difficult to obtain and finger-pointing.

  Summary: Sounded like a great price with lots of room, but the bottom-line is that it's not available when needed.

  Summary: Sounded like a great price with lots of room, but the bottom-line is that it's not available when needed.

• 4 stars

  Once it overheats (and it will) you'll have problems

  by johnserr on January 26, 2010

  Pros: Worked ok for some time. Acceptable transfer speeds

  Cons: It overheats, and stops working. You can't trust it with vital information.

  Summary: There is a workaround for overheating, which may help some of you. I removed the whole drive from the casing. First, you remove the four screws on the bottom. (two ...

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  Summary: There is a workaround for overheating, which may help some of you. I removed the whole drive from the casing. First, you remove the four screws on the bottom. (two are under a silver warranty sticker. DO NOT DO THIS IF DRIVE IS STILL UNDER WARRANTY, my drive's warranty had expired. Then you remove the connector to the flashing blue light on the cover. Finally, you disconnect the on/off switch from the drive, remove it from casing and reconnect. You end up with just the drive, and the USB port card which connects directly to the drive and to power. Drive looks ugly, and you don't have the silly flashing blue light, but it has been working for at least 10 hours, while it used to stop after about three. I still wouldn't trust it with vital info, but it will work fine to move files around. Hope this helps some of you.Let me know if you need more specific instructions. Johnserr

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• 2 stars

  Same as most other reviews, totally unreliable !!!

  by jcac221 on January 10, 2010

  Pros: Looks/ price/ avaiilability

  Cons: Doesn't do waht it is suppose to do, that is, being able to access back up data !! :)

  Summary: I Used th hard drive 3 tiimes to back up very important amd critical data, After trying to recall some informatioin about 6 months later, the unit was dead...with ...

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  Summary: I Used th hard drive 3 tiimes to back up very important amd critical data, After trying to recall some informatioin about 6 months later, the unit was dead...with message of "drive not accessible: ! The unit was about 7monhts old and had not been used but 4 times total. First such hoorying experience I have ever had with any piiece of computer equipment. Wrose yet, I can not send the unit back for a return since I have legal proprietory information on the hard drive and can't risk the chance of any repair person having access to it. I am out about $100 !!

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• 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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