Customer Reviews

SimpleTech by Hitachi [re]drive R500U 500 GB Turbo USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (Grey/Bamboo)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I needed an external drive and wanted to minimize power consumption. The drive needed to be ready on demand but, when not in use, spin down to save power. This drive does not spin down ever. As long as the computer is on this drive is spinning. In addition, the drive would just vanish from the drive list for no apparent reason. I tried with both Vista and XP and it did the same thing. Their tech support never replied to several email requests.
I liked the packaging, very green, and was even prepared to pay a little more for it. However, it didn't work properly. I returned it and got a MyBook essential edition instead. It spins down when not in use and never vanishes from the drive list.

I just got this drive so I could backup all my music and pictures and so far I love it! I researched this drive and was quite happy to see all the steps the company took to reduce waste and power consumption. Its not quite as attractive as it looks in the photos, mainly because the metal is powder coated rather than a satin like coat but its a handsome devil nevertheless.
The package is completely barebones, finally! I am happy to report that the only thing in there I couldn't recycle was two little pieces of plastic that line the inside of the egg carton corner protectors. The startup guide is printed on the inside of the box and the software and manuals are all located on the drive itself, but it really is a plug and play device. It comes with this turbo USB software and it seems to make the transfers a bit faster. Overall I'm very happy with this purchase and would recommend it to anyone!!

First off - I bought this product to work with my Mac and TimeCapsule...
Well this "energy efficient" drive never spun down...It was always running (and I might add that its fan is quite noisy).
Second, when my Mac went to sleep, the drive would not spin down. Then when my Mac woke up, I would get an error message saying that the drive was not properly shut off and I could have lost all my data...I contacted tech support about this and they said that if I walk away from my computer I should always eject the drive...ANNOYING!
Third, after 3 weeks of use the drive has totally failed. It no longer shows up on my hard drive and is DEAD! Again, I contacted tech support and was advised that I could pay and mail it to them and wait for a replacement or return it to the store...
Lastly, SimpleTech's tech support sucks. They are slow to respond and do not fully stand behind their products. I was advised to just return the product to the store - If I still could.
I plan to return it and go with Apple's Time Capsule...Apple has great tech support and stands behind their products...No more Simple Tech for me!

Before purchasing this product, I read the reviews and they were guite favorable. When I received the first drive, the Vista Home Premium system would not recognize it. I called SimpleTech support and they were able to step me through a process so that it was recognized. After I powered off my computer that day and then powered it on the next day, nothing I did could get the drive to be recognized. I called SimpleTech suppport again and was told that I could either return it to them or the store (Amazon.com) where I purchased it. I decided to return it to SimpleTech (I should have returned it to Amazon). A week later, I checked with SimpleTech support again to see what the status was of receiving my replacement drive. They were out of stock and did not know when they would receive additional drives. I contacted Amazon at that point and they were good enough to send me a replacement at no expense to me. When I finally received a replacement from SimpleTech a couple of weeks later, I forwarded that to Amazon with a prepaid shipping label. When my second drive also failed after almost a month, I contacted Amazon first this time and requested a refund. They readily agreed and again provided a prepaid shipping label. I am very satisfied with Amazon service, but I would not recommend the SimpleTech drive.

I found the ReDrive on a clearance rack at Best Buy for $39, and made an impulse buy. After I got home, I read some of the reviews where people were concerned about the quality of the drive. When I hooked the drive to a Mac and ran Disk Utility, it identified the drive inside as a Western Digital Caviar WD5000AAVS SATA 300 drive. The drive was formatted as NTFS, and in a matter of a few minutes I had reformatted it for Macintosh and started a backup of my Mac's internal hard drive. The only con is that there is no power switch, like most external drives have. I only want the drive to power up when I want to do a backup, and it would be nice to be able to turn it off when I am not backing up. I would have given it 5 stars if it had a switch, but overall I am very happy with the drive, and I was pleasantly surprised to find name-brand media inside.

Note that only SEAGATE has their own "white room" to make repairs and
data recovery.

The Hitachi "simpletech" 1TB drive I bought was working OK, then simply
STOPPED abruptly. It won't even spin.

Unfortunately it was used for data backup, and 300GB+ has now gone missing.

I will NEVER EVER consider anything made by Hitachi, because of their
lack of support for something they manufacture themselves. OF COURSE they
have a disclaimer, but they do not bother to tell you on the packaging
that they are INCAPABLE of repairing their own hard drives.

If I could've rated the items I did at LESS than one star, I certainly would
rate the Hitachi hard drive products at less than 0 because of their poor
reliability and support.

I made the mistake of not doing due diligence, and noticing how many others
have posted about similar experiences online.

Use Hitachi at great risk to your data!

Purchased this about 8 months ago and it's been great so far using it with a Mac. A lot of people are complaining about it not working, not showing up on their desktop, being noisy, etc. but I haven't had anything like that. Well worth the money given its performance and environmental impact.

ZERO STARS
product failed - simpletech customer support also failed; after hours on hold with manufacturer i gave up & returned to seller who very graciously made the refund.

So far I really like this drive. I am using it with my MacBook and TimeCapsule and for what I need, it's great. You do have to eject the drive before letting the computer go to sleep, but I just wanted a drive to back up music files, so I don't mind not having hourly backups. My computer didn't recognize the drive one time when I plugged it in, but when I unplugged the power to the drive and plugged it back in it was fine.

Item is packaged nicely. Hooked up to my Mac and worked perfect. Not a hitch. Not sure what one reviewer was talking about when they mentioned the "fan" running. This drive has no fan. :) It powers down with my computer however I haven't tested the "sleep" function. I have my computer set to put all unused drives to sleep when possible so I assume it will sleep when it needs to.

It is what it is and it works great in my case. Great item for backing files, photos and music up. At a very nice price.

Recommended,

Michael