SimpleTech by Hitachi Signature Mini 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive FS-U25/500E (Espresso)

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Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 3 x 0.6 inches ; 2.7 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001CGDUGC
• Item model number: FS-U25/500E
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (179 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank

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  Electronics > Computers & Accessories > Memory Cards & External Storage > Hard Drives

• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 10, 2008

Product Description

Manufacturer Product Description

Introducing the Signature Mini family of bite-size drives, bursting with tasty ingredients. Supple and resilient to the touch, with a positive velvety grip, they're designed by our friends at Pininfarina, the icon of Italian sports car design since 1930.

High speed USB 2.0 "Y" cable included provides power without extra cables

Perfect for the Consumers who own a laptop or desktop computer looking for a stylish, simple way to store, backup, and carry their files.

Just plug one in, and inside you'll find smart ways to protect and manage all your precious stuff. Includes both local and online backup for unbeatable, total protection. With Fabrik Local Backup software, you can set up automatic backups from your computer to your Signature Mini, while Fabrik Ultimate Backup (2 GB free) provides secure, online storage that's safe from real world mishaps. It works in the background, for constant, near-real time protection without bogging down your computer.
And who says the Signature Mini is just for storage? For all the photos, songs, and video in your life, Joggle helps you keep track of them wherever they're stored. Online or on any drive, you'll see all your stuff on a single screen and easily share it with friends and family everywhere.

Features and Benefits:

• Sleek pocket-sized design by Pininfarina
• Velvety smooth texture for a secure grip
• Durable and made for travel
• Express yourself – choose from multiple colors and capacities
• All-in-one high speed USB 2.0 "Y" cable (included) also provides power
• Simple, automatic backups with Fabrik Local BackupTM
• Complete, unbeatable protection with Fabrik Ultimate BackupTM online service (2 GB free)
• JoggleTM digital content manager for easy tracking, sharing and publishing of photos, music, and videos
• Free technical support
• 3-year warranty

What’s in the Box
Signature Mini USB 2.0 Portable Drive USB 2.0 Cable Fabrik Local Backup™ Software Fabrik Ultimate Backup™ Service (2GB free)† Joggle™ Digital Content Manager Free technical support

Product Description

SimpleTech 500GB Signature MiniTM USB 2.0 portable drive, the dark roasted brew from the SimpleTech Signature Mini family, brings all new flavor to your life on the go. Supple and resilient to the touch, with a positive, velvety grip, it is designed by our friends at Pininfarina, the icon of Italian sports car design since 1930.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

70 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High Quality at Affordable Price, March 29, 2008

By	mukhi "mukhi" (Stockton, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: SimpleTech by Hitachi Signature Mini 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive FS-U25/320H (Black Cherry) (Electronics)

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.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I don't trust it., May 20, 2009

By	M. J. Merchant (St. Paul, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: SimpleTech by Hitachi Signature Mini 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive FS-U25/320H (Black Cherry) (Electronics)

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!

39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good review I hope..., July 25, 2008

By	Techhy "Dude!" (Dallas Area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SimpleTech by Hitachi Signature Mini 320 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive FS-U25/320H (Black Cherry) (Electronics)

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!