SimpleTech SP-U25/250 SimpleDrive 250 GB 2.5-Inch USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive (Silver) Review

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(More customer reviews)I have quite a few of these hard drives: IOgear (GHD425U160: 160GB), Lacie (301266: 160GB), Simpletech (SP-U25/250: 250 GB) etc. (and soon to have a Toshiba too). All of these hard drives are handy (fits into your palm; about 5 inches by 3 inches), lightweight (5 ozs to 6 ozs; 150 gms to 180 gms) to carry around and can carry a lot of data (149GB or 232 GB in computer/binary/real terms which, in commercial/decimal terms, mean 160GB and 250GB respectively). I have been using Simpletech flash drives for about 2 years now and I am quite satisfied with those; so I opted for a Simpletech hard drive (and then later bought one more from eBay).

The Simpletech SP-U25/250 hard drive is stylist, lighter in weight than the Lacie and IOgear (probably about 150 gms/5ozs vs. 180 gms/6 ozs) drives I have, which could be due to its being made of plastic (though it probably has a metallic coating on the top and the bottom) and through which you can peep into the insides, from the side. I do not know if this is a drawback, and I also think that probably the bodies of IOgear and Lacie are also made of plastic, but with a tougher metallic case, they give me a feeling of better physical security. [However, my friend thinks that it does not matter, because a hard drive that falls from your hand could be anyhow dead, no matter what material it is made up of!]. I have also noticed that the sides being see-through plastic, it already got some scratches (only on the sides) within the short time period (3 weeks or so) of my using it. Probably it will be nice to buy some sort of a cover or a case to carry this drive around, if you are sensitive about scratches or physical beauty of the drive; I am, and so I carry it in a case.

Other than that, I have no complaints. I have been using it for 3 weeks now, and often I use it overnight to transfer data (the USB 1.1 ports on my computers are notoriously slow, to say the least! Note: USB 2.0 port is 30-40 times faster.) and it never gave me any grief (to quote, Al Pacino). It gets very litle heated even after long periods of use.

For those of you, who earlier had problems with power supply for such baby hard drives (my friend, for example, had to return his Western Digital drive due to that problems) and needed to buy a Y-cable (or return the drive), the Simpletech SP-U25/250 comes with a Y-cable. (in all fairness, I never had a problem with any of the drives; but even before buying the IOgear drive, my first mobile hard drive, I had written them asking if this could be an issue, and they replied telling that in the event of a problem, they would provide me with a Y-cable, free of cost. I think that was a nice thing to do, and I am impressed with IOgear customer service).

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Product Description:
Designed by Pininfarina, the very same design firm that gives Ferrari sports cars their stylish lines, SimpleDrive Portable hard drive is the easiest way to add fast, reliable storage to any desktop, laptop or notebook computer. With USB 2.0 setup is a snap and data transfer speeds up to 480Mb/second. StorageSync automatic backup software makes full or incremental backups fast and easy every time. And every SimpleDrive Portable hard drive comes with a free 2GB account on myfabrik.com so you can store, manage, and share your media online