Customer Reviews

SimpleTech by Hitachi Signature Mini 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive FS-U25/250C (Cayenne)

5 star:		(69)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(39)

 

 

Like a few others whose reviews I've read, I would have rated this SimpleTech 160 MG Blueberry Pininfarina VERY highly right after I bought it - it was sleek, beautiful, convenient, and worked perfectly as a USB 2.0 external HDD.

But around the time the one-year warranty expired, it decided from time to time that it was going to be a USB 1.1 device, and it would fail to run at USB 2.0, resulting in horribly slow transfer rates. That intermittent problem finally became a permanent problem.

So now I ALWAYS get the dreaded "This device can perform faster if you connect it to a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port" message EVERY time I plug it in to ANY computer. And these computers are ALL new USB 2.0 compatible, which have no problem with any other USB 2.0 devices.

(FYI, this Blueberry has never been dropped, jarred, or otherwise abused.)

I wrote to Simpletech asking for help, but they WILL NOT ANSWER! I can't even say I got bad support...because NO SUPPORT AT ALL is what you get from these people. "SimpleTech"? "SimpleMinded" or "SimplyScrewed" is what they should call themselves with this kind of product and service.

Just FYI, I've been told that the Hitachi drive inside this SimpleTech Blueberry can be placed into another external SATA HD casing with USB 2.0 circuitry and that it may work properly. That's beyond my present level of expertise, so I just bought a different brand external HD and will patiently transfer all my files off of this unfortunately flawed device. I will NEVER buy a SimpleTech product again.

We had the bubblegum 250GB Simpletech drive and one day the computers just stopped recognizing the drive. The light would turn on when connected and it SEEMED to be spinning fine, but I couldn't get any computer to see it.

After a little research, it turns out these have notoriously bad USB controllers.

I opened up the case and inside is just a standard 2.5" SATA hard drive. Mine was a Hitachi, other have reported having a Western Digial.

So, we bought an external SATA hard drive case from Best Buy for $50 and plugged in the drive and voila.......it works.

The case basically just replaces the Simpletech case and you can get your files off AND continue to use the drive.

You can buy a SATA case online for < $20 if you look hard enough, but I wanted to give it a shot so I didn't want to wait for shipping.

Hopefully this will be able to help someone else who is having the same problems. We had all of our kid pictures on it so it was critical to get the files off!

It's small, compact, quiet, fast, light weight, space saving, racy looking, different colors for easy ID, rubberized coating for a sure grip, stackable, extremely portable, with easy instructions to convert to Mac.

I have 4 Minis. I bought the first one over a year ago. I have one for my Time Machine back up, one for music, one for photos/videos, & a 500G to back up the others, that I keep in a fire proof safe.

Some suggestions for those who gave bad reviews:
1. When the drive is running, leave it alone! Don't pick it up or move it around. Just leave it sitting flat.

2. You must dismount the drive properly! See FAQ on Simple Tech's web site.

3. Don't be in such a hurry! Wait several seconds to be sure the drive has fully stopped.

4. Don't yank the USB plug out. You might create a tiny spark. Sneak the plug out gently, especially if it's windy or there's static electricity in the air.

5. As for the lack of power complaints...The shorter the USB cable, the greater the power. Try using your camera cable. At about 50+G of info, the external drive may need up to 1 Amp to get going. If the Mini is not seen by the computer, unplug everything - Mini first. Then attach both USB plugs of the "Y" cable & reconnect - Mini last. Best to get an externally powered USB hub. Belkin makes a nice little white 4 (& 7) port. Each port of the Belkin puts out ½ Amp (500mA). I can run several Minis at once, without any power problems.

6. Lastly, if your not backed up at least twice, you're not backed up at all.

Use a little common sense & save yourself a lot of grief.

The Mini is a great little product!!! Be nice to it, and it'll be nice to you.

I got this item, similar except blue, a couple of weeks ago. My college-issued Gateway M285 only has 40 gig of space and this would have been perfect to use for my music, my pictures, games, and class files from previous semesters that I may need to look back on in later years. One week after I got it, the mini-usb port started to come loose and the connection was unreliable. While moving my data to another external I have, the connection failed entirely with over half of my data still on the drive. I contacted Tech Support via the website, and they said they don't do repairs, just exchanges.
Do I: a) loose all my data; b) pay hundreds for data recovery; or c) void the warranty by opening the case and tightening the connections myself. If you chose c, you're right!
When I opened the case, I discovered that it contains a Western Digital Scorpio 250 gb 2.5" SATA hard drive model WD2500BEVS. Guess how big my tablet's HD is going to be in a few days?
Overall, the drive & talking to tech support sucks, but the HD inside is of good quality.

All I was looking for was a drive to supplement the minimal storage space on my Toshiba laptop. This worked perfect. I got it on sale at Circuit City for $119, which was a steal. I use it mostly to store MP4 files to load on my iPod Classic. Works great and can play movie files from it through my laptop no problem. Can't speak to the back up software that's included, haven't used it. Only negative thing I can say about it is that the cord has a pigtail USB connector if you need it for extra power, if you have low voltage USB ports. I don't so it just kind of gets in the way. Also, you have to make sure you have the primary USB plugged in to connect the drive, if you plug in only the pigtail, it won't load the drive to your computer. I marked mine so I wouldn't mistake it. That minor thing is really the only thing I can think of negative to say, and it wouldn't be negative if I had low voltage ports and needed it. Overall, I highly recommend it.

I had this for a couple of months and it seemed to be working fine. Then, for some reason, it stopped being a USB2 device. It reverted to 1.1. That means that copying got *SLOW*! My USB ports are all definitely 2.0, and I have all the latest drivers. Other USB2 devices - thumb drives, external HD's and DVD's, etc - all run at USB2 speeds on the same ports. But, whenever I inserted this drive, I got "This device will run faster if you use a high-speed port ...". I tried three separate computers, and got the same result on all of them. I tried ports on the motherboard and on a PCI card. No change.

Tech support was no help. They suggested that I did not have the right drivers, or that the ports were not really 2.0. But I tried other devices, and they worked fine as 2.0. I tried the drive on multiple computers, and it just did not get seen as 2.0.

So, I returned it. Shame. Seems like a nice design, and including the forked cable is a nice touch. If other folks' drives are working, then I sincerely wish them well, and am a little jealous. I did get another, different external drive with more capacity and it works at USB2 speeds, but it is much bigger and uses external power. Oh well.

Bought this about 4 months ago.... The hard drive is small, and very very portable.

Pro's
1) Transfer speeds are fast, (Avg.20MB/s / Peaks around 30MB/s)
2) Able to Run movies, music, anything off the drive directly without lags
3) Plugging in both USB cords, increased transfer speed
- 1USB = 15MB/s
- 2USB = 25-30MB/s
4) Able to run smooth even if running laptop on battery (own a 13inch Toshiba U300)
5) Takes about 3-5 seconds for a window to open to access the hard drive
6) Runs files off the hard drive same speed if it were run off computer (w/ 1 or both USB; doesn't mater)

Cons'
1) Will be recognized on MAC and VISTA, however, If formated for VISTA and used on a MAC, the MAC user can only copy files from the Hard drive onto their MAC. They arent able to copy files onto the hard drive.
- Out of box, the hard drive is Windows formatted. Need to follow easy to read instructions to convert to MAC

2)Nothing else at this point

****** Note: Havent used the software on the Hard drive itself for the Back up. Neither have I used the 2 gigs of online backup.

I bought this at costco and just use it for backups about 1x quarter. It only lasted 1 year. I bought another and that one broke too. and it just sits there with almost no movement.

there have got to be more reliable options.......don't waste your money

All drives fail. All of them. Eventually. What you want is a drive that isn't going to fail for a long time. Ideally, longer than you plan to use it. Alas, no such luck here. I think I got 5, maybe 6 months use. My feeling is that you should be able to get 2 years before failure becomes an issue. So, that is why it is at a single star. Because I make multiple backups, I'm not dead in the water so to speak, but I've still got some work to do. Part of that includes going out and buying another drive. Simpletech again? No. Again, they have to last longer than this. Best that can be said? Well, they work great... until they fail.

I decided that it was time for me to back up all of my files and began searching for the perfect external hard drive. I did some research and concluded that this one was the right one for me. I'll admit that one thing that drew me to the SimpleTech hard drive was the color--in bubblegum pink, it matches my Sony laptop.

The previous reviewer is correct; it has a 232 GB capacity. But this is more than enough space for me. I was able to quickly and easily back up my files without having to plug the drive into an external power source. I didn't use the included software...I just dragged my files into the drive.

The drive is much smaller than I expected and extremely portable. I think it's the perfect choice for me.