Customer Reviews

SmartDisk FWFL80 FireLite 80 GB 2.5-Inch FireWire Portable Hard Drive

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I work as an author and seminar/training class instructor. Due to this I travel a lot and am frequently asked to review hardware. I have tested Maxtor, Seagate and these SmartDisk FireLite models. In my opinion, the FireLite is the best external hard drive for those who travel because of its small size and light weight.

The drive does not have the shock resistance of the larger cases and this should be kept in mind. You'll want to be careful with it as evidenced by another review elsewhere related to these devices.

My biggest suggestion: Don't consider any USB drive a permanent backup solution for your data. They are just hard drives. If you have any data that is important to you, it should always be in two, or more, places at the same time. This is true with any storage medium.

Tom Carpenter, Senior Consultant - SYSEDCO

I was impressed with the online reviews and the specifications of this handy external drive. However, it failed (as in very dead) during my first use, backing up my MacBook. Two different customer service reps were very rude as we were trying to diagnose the fault. And it was a toll call. Smartdisk does not provide toll-free customer support. Eventually they gave me an RMA (return merchandise authorization). It took them about 2 weeks to send me a replacement - a refurbished unit; one that had definitely been used a lot (I asked for a new one since my original one died after about 20 minutes of use; but they refused). I know I won't be buying from SmartDisk again.

I bought this drive and a Lacie 500 GB at the same time for two-stage backups. I've been very happy with both drives. As expected, the SmartDisk 80GB unit integrates immediately and seamlessly with my Mac. When I'm on the road, I use it alone for backup. When at home, I piggyback the Lacie 500 GB off the SmartDisk and back up to them both at about the same time. I do not use the free backup software that came with the SmartDisk, but am sticking with Mac OS X's simple Backup routine. The combination (Backup, SmartDisk 80GB and Lacie) works quite well.

This thing went to work backing up my system right out of the box. I have a G3 i-Mac running Tiger and there were no problems with either the firewire interface or the BounceBack software that comes pre-installed. I partitioned it right down the middle and now have a perfect automatically updateable, bootable image of my hardrive right on the desktop as well as a seperate 40GB utility storage unit. I did download SuperDuper for use on it instead, which makes backups quick and painless. That process went without a hitch as well. All in all it's totally turnkey. Of course time will tell about its longevity. Having had it running just a month I've nothing to contribute on that matter.

Hands down it is the best hard drive I've ever purchased, I understand it costs almost twice as much as others out there but because of it's technology it runs outstandingly faster. for instance it takes me only less than one minute to copy 4 GB of information on to this hard drive and it took me 4 hours to copy to other external hard drives that are half the cost. To me time is money.

I purchased one of these hard-drives to back-up my PC data, but it soon failed to be recognized in either of my PC (or Mac). I sent it back twice, and both replacements failed (I think they sent me back the same faulty drive twice). I ended up paying twice the purchase price just to recover the lost data, from a data recovery service (SmartDisk wouldn't pay for this). An external hard drive ought to be reliable, mine wasn't.

I have had two smartdisk drives for about a year now, and I couldn't be happier with them. I have two versions, a FW 800 and FW 400, and the speed difference is almost negligible unless I'm doing heavy photo or video editing. I primarily use them to store my aperture library and my aperture photo vault. These flawlessly daisy chain with my 17" macbook pro when i want them too, and even play nice when i daisy chain them with my two 500 gb WD My Book Pros.

If you have a Mac, there should be no question in your mind about getting these drives, they are remarkable pieces of engineering.

I bought this External Drive for use with my PowerBook and have never looked back. I have had it for a year now and I use CCC to make a complete clone of my hard drive and it works flawlessly. I was so impressed that I bought a 120GB USB drive for other storage and to help backup my friends computers that are having Windows troubles.

It is smaller than the picture leads you to believe and it is fast and reliable. What more would you want from an external drive...

Nice drive. Problem when daisy chain two drive together. XP will lose connection with the two drives. I guess it draw too much power and the firewire can't handle it. As a result, the drives shut themselves down.

The ultimate travel hard drive for your computer. Plug and go-that's it! No complaints, ever. I have 2 and even if it gets yanked, it never fails. Oh, yeah, and no external power required!