Hitachi SimpleDrive Mini 250GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive SDM/250RW (Red Wine)

by Hitachi

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 9.5 x 12.5 inches ; 4.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B002CMEIUM
• Item model number: SDM/250RW
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 1, 2009

Product Description

Capacity: 250 GB

SimpleDrive Mini ¿ Portability + Reliability + Style. for everyone! Choose a color that fits your mood or personal style - white snow, red wine, blue dusk or carbon fiber. There is a style, color and capacity for everyone all backed by Hitachi local and online backup for complete, unbeatable protection. Looking for a reliable drive that has something more? SimpleDrive Mini has it! Our Carbon Fiber Mini is sleek black and glossy and like all SimpleDrive Mini¿s features cool underside lighting that lets you know everything is OK. Our White Snow, Red Wine and Blue Dusk SimpleDrive Mini¿s are velvety smooth to the touch and have easy grip sides. Just plug one in, and inside you¿ll find smart ways to protect and manage all your precious stuff. Includes both local and online backup for unbeatable, total protection. With Hitachi Local Backup software, you can set up automatic backups from your computer to your SimpleDrive Mini, while Hitachi Ultimate Backup (2 GB fee) provides secure, online backup that¿s safe from real world mishaps. It works in the background, for constant, near-real time protection without bogging down your computer. And who says the SimpleDrive Mini is just for storage? For all the photos, songs, and video in your life, Joggle.com helps you keep track of them wherever they¿re stored. Online or on any drive, you¿ll see all your stuff on a single screen and easily share it with friends and family everywhere All of our SimpleDrive Mini¿s are made by Hitachi and use the same reliable Hitachi drives you have come to trust. And best of all, each SimpleDrive Mini powers itself off its USB 2.0 cable (no external power supply needed).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than the Competition, September 1, 2009

By 

R. Rosener "Photomatic" (St. Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hitachi SimpleDrive Mini 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive SDM/320BD (Blue Dusk) (Personal Computers)

I got this drive as a tote around for Video and Photos. I'm both a Mac and PC user so my insight is unique on this product. First thing I noted after opening the package is the small size and weight of this drive. With the curved lightweight body you could easily slip this into a hip pocket. The USB cable is unique in that it has two plugs on the interface end. The 2nd one is needed only if your USB port does not have enough power to spin up the drive. Just plug it into another USB port. I have an older G4 power mac which has exactly this problem, so having the secondary Connector for a power boost came in handy. The drive powers up fine on my newer Intel chip iMac and also the Fujitsu Lifebook portable.

This drive is formatted in the MS DOS FAT 32 standard. That makes it pretty much universal to any computer with a modern OS. It comes up on Mac OSX Tiger and OSX Leopard no problems. My Portable is running Windows XP professional. There is some backup software included for both Mac and Windows but I didn't bother as I'm using this drive mainly as a carrier. File transfer seems fast and easy. Most important, I was able to designate this as a Scratch Drive for Final Cut Express on my Mac and load video files straight to the drive. It was fast enough for stutter free playback and direct capture. That can be a problem with a lot of USB port powered drives-too slow and connection is unreliable. Not this one!

The Rubberized skin on this thing gives a positive grip on the fingers, and has a nice tooth to hold onto slippery desktops. That's important for a drive this light. Other drives slide around-and off-the desk. This one has gripping power! it's a very quiet drive;sometimes I don't even know it's working! And that brings me to one of the few gripes; the LED lights are on the bottom of this drive. SO you really have to look close or pick it up to see if it's on. I'd much prefer some kind of light on the front to know what the status is.

I've had quite a few external and portable drives over the years. This is one of the best in terms of speed and portability. It seems a lot of thought went into designing and it shows. It's a standout both in looks and performance over the many many portable hard drives out there.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars power hunger, July 1, 2010

By 

D. Tsai (NYC, US) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hitachi SimpleDrive Mini 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive SDM/500CF (Carbon Fiber) (Personal Computers)

The size is Okay, the performance is not bad. The only concern I have is its power hunger. I always need to attach both USB plugs into machine at the same time to supply enough power for this drive. Looks like it uses a shell to cover its internal 2.5 hard drive to make up this product. On one of my XP machine, it even bring the whole machine to a halt and I need to restart the whole machine by hot reboot. Of course, it could because the power supply is weak. On my the other Mac mini, it is not a problem, but still need to plug into both USB ports. Anyway, it is annoying.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works great, October 13, 2009

By 

Nicholas S. Caruso (PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hitachi SimpleDrive Mini 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive SDM/500CF (Carbon Fiber) (Personal Computers)

I have a 1tb external that is not easily moved around because you need a power for the computer and then probably something else and it is inconvenient to plus it in. I ended up with a bunch of these and I decided to keep one, it works well. The luxury of moving around, usb powered, small size makes it worth the few extra bucks than a standard external.

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