Customer Reviews

Signature Mini Black Cherry 320 GB external hard drive

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

I have over 2.5TB of 320gb drives. So trust this opinion on the points I write:
The simpletech drives are no real difference over the passport by western digital, in fact the WD is a bit thinner (when you cram as many in a case it may matter). The WD is supplied with a short cable, the Simpletech is a longer cable, and THIS is why some of the users will experience a problem with the simpletech drives-> The cable being longer will deliver less current to the drive, thus some computers do not have the ability to juice it up properly unless you use a high quality shorter USB cable. Additionally, I have noted (by taking many of them apart) that the PC Board (usb to SATA adapter portion) is not as "simple" as the passport, the pc board also runs a little warmer than the WD counterpart. I lastly ordered TWO of these 320gb Cherry's (320 juicy drippin' Gigabytes) and ONE of them had a BAD PC BOARD (USB to SATA internal adapter) which did not matter to me since I got the drive cheaper than a bare white label drive anyway- The drive was fine, just the PCB was faulty- Got hot, but no mounting... Anyway the drive is not "shielded" from EMI or STATIC discharge (internally) as the WD passport is. But BOTH the WD and the Simpletech lack a sturdy enclosure being plastic, and I typically mount the drive itself into a USB enclosure (cheapy ones do fine from ebay) which has an aluminum case to supress static and give it a bit of support to help prevent crushing in the bag. Sure the style is cool, but being larger and having the issues with the internal PCB make it less desired, but I still rate it highly mostly for the great drive bargain. I do not mind reformatting a drive, but it is nice to have it being NTFS out of the box...
Another note to other users: My computer is a new toughbook which supplies about 1amp at the USB port, so it will power anything on the market, but if your port is "wimpy" you WILL need to use both plugs, and may even consider investing in a power brick for a usb hub, it is +5volts to the center pin of the mini plug. Those are available on ebay, but a hint: IF you buy a PCMCIA to USB PORT (For old laptops) it will usually come with one that will work, and you can get that by far cheaper than just the adapter elsewhere!

If you are looking for a high quality portable external USB-powered high capacity hard drive at an affordable price, this is your choice!

Ownership: 5 days.

Pros:
1. High quality as SimpleTech is using a Western Digital (WD) internal hard drive disk (HDD) known to be a state-of-the-art HDD.
2. As portable (small size and light) as WD passport.
3. USB-powered or bus-powered. As single USB port of some computers can not provide enough power, SimpleTech is providing you with USB 2.0 Y-cable (not provided with WD passport) which can be used to hook up your drive to two USB ports of your computer to get enough power. This drive also has a power port (power cable is not provided, however, WD passport has no power port at all) in case you prefer to use a power cable. However, My laptop (almost 5 years old now) does not need it! I hook up this drive to a single USB port of my laptop and it works. I am so happy after knowing this as I was afraid to buy this drive considering that it may not work with a single USB port (my laptop has only two USB ports so that I would run out of it and not be able to use any other USB device, like mouse at the same time)! Make sure you use the main USB (not the pigtail, take a look at the picture above). WD will make you buy an expensive Y-cable if you need it. Moreover, this Y-cable from SimpleTech is longer than USB cable from WD.
4. Highest capacity portable drive available as of today (comparable to WD 320 GB passport).
5. I bought it from Amazon marketplace (ZENCORP) for $ 97.99 plus $ 6.49 S&H (no tax). The merchant offered the best price as of that day. I ordered it on Friday, merchant shipped (from MD) it on Saturday via DHL, and I received (at CA) it on Monday with excellent packaging! You can not possibly get this awesome deal for WD 320 GB passport right now.
6. Plug N play just like WD passport. My laptop immediately recognized this drive (also 3 of my school desktops, all of them required only one USB port) when I hooked up for the 1st time.
7. Hot-swappable just like WD passport.
8. Great look! After all, designed by Pininfarina! To me, WD passport does not look any better.
9. USB port of this drive is naked which is good because I always felt awkward in handling WD passport's port (WDXMS2500CN, bought from Costco) as it has a flap on it. WD made USB port naked only in their newest model (WDME3200TN).
10. Blue light shows that HDD is connected to the computer as a local disk, flashes when working, red light shows that power is on! WD passport indicator light does not show you these details.
11. 3 years warranty, just like WD passport's. Very important.
12. Did not try the software, but back-up and other utilities like simple, automatic backups with Fabrik local backup and complete protection with Fabrik ultimate backup online service (2 GB free), joggle software for organizing photos, songs, and video come with it. Will comment after use.
13. Free tech support over the phone. WD's tech support is available for free only upto 30 days after you give them the 1st call. WD's tech support guys know (including the higher level, really annoying) as much as you do being an ordinary person with some standard technical understanding.
14. PC/Mac compatible just like WD passport.
15. Base has pad-like structure to protect the drive.
16. It is as quiet and fast as WD passport. Its stays cool just like WD passport.
17. Pre-formatted to NTFS as compared to FAT32 (WD passport). Most people use PC rather than Mac!

Cons: Not many! I believe pros simply wins over cons.
1. As scratchable as WD passport.
2. 5400 rpm only, however, this is the highest speed available for all portable drives including WD's.
3. Capacity is not as high as that of larger drives.
4. No firewire 400/800 or eSATA or 10/100/1000 ethernet ports. You can not possibly expect these with portable drives.
Make sure you buy a carrying case, the best being from case LOGIC (model # PHDC-1) in order to protect the drive and for carrying convenience.
There are other portable drives in the market, say, WD, Seagate, Toshiba, Iomega, HP, Maxtor, but none of them are better than this one. I own this and I owned WD passport (WDXMS2500CN) and returned it.

Did I say enough about this excellent gadget? Buy one and enjoy it!!!

UPDATE: 11/20/2009: The drive is still working. Only problems are 1) occasionally, it does not work with some computers (even the recent ones) with a single USB connection, you have to use two ports. 2) sometimes, when I connect this with computer, this device behaves as if it were connected to a slow USB (1.1) port, therefore, copying files takes forever. I disconnect and reconnect this, and it behaves normal. I have been advised by ST representative (over the phone) that this may be a controller issue and I should go for an RMA. I will see. I still have valid warranty for some good time.

UPDATE: 12/20/2009: I returned the drive to Hitachi for repair/exchange with an RMA. They got me a new drive (color is not black cherry now, but kind of red, still looks good) and I am happy to report that it looks like they have fixed the issues. So far I have hooked up this with 2 desktops and 1 laptop with success (in which the old drive was having issues). To return the drive, I have used flat-rate ($4.95) box from USPS, therefore, the guys who are complaining about this drive after purchase should do just like I did if the warranty is still valid (3 yrs).

When I first got this drive, I would have given it 4 stars. I really love the styling -- it is the best looking drive out there. And it worked fine for a year -- then it just died. This was not an occasional write error; unprovoked and without warning, it went belly up. Kaput. Dead as a door mouse. This-is-a-dead-parrot dead.

It was gently treated. Mostly, it has been on a bookshelf in my office, under no physical or thermal stress of any kind. I praised its beauty, and entrusted it with my most important data. And this is what I get: the thankless rotating bit bucket betrayed me!

O fickle platter: Never again, I say!

I purchased two of these to use with my laptops (both have low capacity built in hard drives). Within one week they both died. I ran a diagnostic on one of them and it had more than 400 bad sectors. The other drive would not even boot up. I tried on more than one computer, with different operating systems. It just stopped working. I previously had to return a 250gb simpletech drive after only 4 months. I wish I had known about the 250gb drive before I bought the 320's. I would not have wasted my time. On another note, they require a lot of power. Most laptops will need to plug it in to two usb ports or purchase a power supply (about $30 from Radio Shack). But you have to call in to Simpletech and get the specs on the power supply. That information is not on the web site. And it has unusual specs so your power supply choices are limited.

I've had this drive about one month, and am very pleased with it. It's very small, yet huge in terms of capacity. It also looks cool (and even feels cool, like metallic velvet). It's extremely quiet (actually silent), and is plenty fast. No problems playing back recorded video through Media Center or Media Player. Smooth as silk even when fast-forwarding. Music of course and pictures come through perfectly.

On my Toshiba Satellite notebook, it functions just fine connected to only one usb port. If your laptop is underpowered for some reason, you can either use both prongs of the supplied two prong plug (uses up 2 usb ports) or you can use a 5 vdc 1.0 A ac adapter (I think the same used by most other powered usb devices like cooling fans, usb hubs and such). This information is clearly stated in the foldout manual. Make sure you look at the manual to see which of the two plugs you should use if you only want to use only one plug to connect to your computer or notebook, since one plug carries both power and data, while the other is just a backup power carrier in case your usb ports are underpowered.

Tech support responded within 1 day to the question I asked about whether it can be set to spin down when not in use (apparently not). It runs cool, so that's not really a problem.

For the price, the style and the performance, I think this is a fantastic drive.

I like this in many ways: its fast, and small. But on laptops, you need two usb ports next to one another
for this to work, or you will need to get an external power adapter (though how you do so is not mentioned
in the user guide). It works fine with my macbook, but if your laptop does not have two usb ports
next to one another (like on some macbook pros), then I wouldn't buy this.

I bought this hard drive because I had previously bought a SimpleTech 60GB one that worked perfectly. Unfortunately It never worked, I couldn't even make a single back up. Returned it after a few days.

I bought two of these drives to use for backup and as a network drive. I liked them because they were small and USB powered. I could put two of them in a RAID array and take up less space than my old drive.

However, after a couple of months, one of the drives failed. No bid deal I thought. I still had all my data because it was in a RAID array. I sent the busted drive back to SimpleTech and before it arrived my other drive failed. Now I've actually lost data. The backups I don't care much about, but I had stuff on that drive that I didn't have anywhere else.

I needed a hard drive to store photos and my home videos in a portable hard drive. Various hard drives go 'on sale' week to week, and I took a chance on this particular drive.

Construction

This has a Matte Red Finish which is not prone to scratches, like the glossy appearing WD Passports that I also own. Its shape is odd but stable when set upon a surface. It has a Y-type USB connector which I find unusual, also. I only have to use one of the two USB connectors to plug into my Macbook Pro.

It is slightly thicker than the Passport at the convex portion by about 3 millimeters but it is the same length and width so it maintains the compact size.

Use

It is a relatively quite drive and is no louder than my WD Passport. It runs quite warm to slightly hot.

Overall

Aside from the unusual shape and higher than average temperature, this hard drive is still a great value.

Alternatively, a better value is the Hammer Morespace hard drive with customizable skins. It doesn't run as hot. It is more compact with rounded edges and is very dependable.

First off, this is a great product and has been very reliable so far. I have had it for more than 9 months now and have not had any issues at all. I travel all the time and whenever I need access to my files, i just need to plug it in and it works like a charm.

It does comes with a Y cable. I have never had the need to use both of them though. Just one plug in to the USB slot has been enough for me.

I was in the market for a portable drive. WD was the choice but more expensive than the other ones. SimpleTech looked great and very attractive price wise but I was not sure if it was reliable. It seemed to be the new kid on the block.

So i did my little bit of research. I went to the company web site to find out who ran this company. Turns out all the senior management was from some of the best hardware manufacturing companies including WD. So they had the expertise, just not the brand name. I went for it and i have had not regrets so far.

The reason for the 4 star rating? I haven't tested this out in Vista. Just XP. I did read some comments about issues with Vista. Though i haven't personally tested out on Vista, i would be doing so shortly. If it works fine, i will come back and give this a 5 star.

Hope this helps.