SmartDisk USBFLB40 40 GB FireLite USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive

by SmartDisk

Product Details

• Item Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00009WO2M
• Item model number: USBFLB40
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 30, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The "drive for perfection" is built into our line of FireLite portable external drives. Palm-sized, durable and stylish with outstanding performance and capacity, FireLite offers the ultimate in a convenient, highly portable data storage solution. FireLite combines the best features of today's hard drive designs in one attractive package. Quite simply, FireLite provides quality without compromise.

Unique Magnesium Alloy housing
FireLite's diminutive size and weight are made possible through the use of magnesium alloy for the drive's housing -- by weight, one of the strongest materials on the planet. Its thermal dissipation properties also help to wick away heat, increasing drive longevity. Hold it in your hand and you'll sense the aesthetic and functional advantages of a metal housing over plastic.

No power cord needed
Both FireWire and USB 2.0 models are bus powered, meaning they can be powered directly through the FireWire or USB 2.0 cable used to connect them to your computer. For portability, this is the uost in convenience -- just plug it in and start using it! For configurations that do not supply sufficient cable power, FireLite can operate from an optional AC adapter.

High performance
FireLite's high performance hard drive mechanisms and electronics provide outstanding data transfer speeds with either FireWire or USB 2.0. For most software applications, you can use FireLite as an internal hard drive, then unplug it and take it with you when you're done!

USB 2.0 or FireWire models
FireLite hard drives are equipped with a USB 2.0 connection. USB models support USB 2.0 High Speed operation (up to 480 Mbps) and they will also work with USB 1.1 ports at slower transfer rates.

Plug and Play
For recent Windows and Macintosh operating system releases, such as Windows XP, Windows 2000, Window Me, and Mac OS X, no driver installation is required. This is an enormous convenience when working with a "borrowed" computer; just plug in FireLite to maintain access to important data or transfer large amounts of data between computers.

Product Description

The FireLite from SmartDisk is a palm-sized portable external hard drive with great looks, huge storage capacities and a slim design that makes it easy to carry and use, at home, at your desk, or while jetting around the world. Hundreds of uses, with both desktop and portable computers Back up critical files and applications Carry documents between home and work without a heavy briefcase Use as a high capacity sneakernet at the office Create a bootable backup image for safety's sake Includes - 3 foot USB 2.0, carrying case, Retrospect Express Backup for Windows 98 - ME - 2000 - XP USB 2.0 port required in host computer to realize full speed

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars worked great for 6 months, data recovery voided warranty, September 7, 2005

By 

wary consumer (silicon valley) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SmartDisk USBFLB40 40 GB FireLite USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Personal Computers)

I was happy to find a name-brand external drive that would connect via a single usb2.0 slot. The price after rebates was higher than the brand-x alternatives, but I wanted to deal with what I considered to be a "Real" company.

The drive was fast, quiet, and trouble-free. I used it on a variety of systems to move data around and to backup critical files.

After 6 months the unit refused to work. No lights, no sound, no data, nada.

The tech support staff was quick to answer, but their answers weren't really helpful. I was to send the drive back and they would send a replacement. However, if I sent the drive back, then the data, which is worth a heck of a lot more than the drive, would be gone.

To get my data, I opened up the drive container and found a Samsung drive inside. I put the Samsung drive into a "brand-x" 2.5" drive enclosure and connected it to my laptop. The Samsung drive fired right up and I got my data back. This indicated to me that the problem was not with the drive component, but with the firelite drive enclosure. To test this, I put a fujitsu drive into the firelite enclosure and it failed to work. The problem was obviously with the firelite enclosure.

When I sent this information to the smartdisk support staff, their response was as follows:

Hello:

If you opened the drive up, there would be no warranty.

Regards,

Chee Lo
SmartDisk Technical Support


So now I have a working Samsung drive and a dead firelite enclosure. For this combination I paid a premium price.
I could have bought a bare drive and a brand-x enclosure and saved a LOT of money.

Given that the only part of this product designed by smartdisk is the part that doesn't work, and the idiotic return policy that prevents data recovery, I woul never buy another product from this "Real" company again.

Repeated emails to tech support and customer service go unanswered.

If your data is important to you, get a different product. If it's not, then why are you backing it up?

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice little backup unit, April 16, 2004

By 

Roland Grefer (Tampa Bay Area, Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SmartDisk USBFLB40 40 GB FireLite USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Personal Computers)

Its small form factor makes this USB-powered 2.5 inch hard drive an excellent travel companion. If your laptop provides (sufficiently) powered USB ports, you will not need an optional separate power supply for the drive.

While the drive comes packaged with a power chord that would be fed from a PS/2 port, this would not help users such as me who don't have a PS/2 port on their laptop; luckily mine provides enough power on the USB port to operate the drive.

One thing missing in the package is a basic backup/restore/sync utility, i.e. a stripped down version of LinkPro PowerSync; other manufacturers have already started to pay consideration to this common use of external hard drives.

While it may be cheaper to burn a couple dozen CDs for a backup, it is time consuming, does not provide for the convenience of instant access, and would result in a lot of extra weight to be carrying around while travelling.

If you need to backup large files (over 2GB) under Windows, you will have to convert the drive from its native FAT32 to NTFS. Converting the format is pretty straightforward if you're using Windows XP's "convert" utility [go to the command prompt, type in "CONVERT /?" and you'll see all the options].

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Buy!, November 8, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: SmartDisk USBFLB40 40 GB FireLite USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive (Personal Computers)

People looking at this item probably have searched for a numerous external hard drives. And also have looked at an item called "GigaVault" made by Sony. (Or at least heard about)

1. This device does not have a AC Adapter because it does not need one. It's amazing how the unit is able to get enough power from USB while having a 40 GB hard drive.

2. It's compact and stylish design makes easy to carry around. The size is smaller than adults' palm.

3. Sony "GigaVault" is battery powered with same capacity and speed, but it is about 100 dollars more. That's ridiculous. This drive is powerful enough, that it does not need a external power.

The price might be a little steep comparing to other hard drives. But in the long term, you will say it was smart investment.