SimpleTech SimpleDrive SP-U35/320 320 GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (designed by Pininfarina)

Amazon Customer Reviews

(5 out of 5)

Great drive for backup w/ sleek design.

A while back I got a great deal on this 500GB hard drive (not at Amazon). The drive is very sleek and comes in cool colors. I have the black unit and matches in well with the rest of my PC and A/V components. I use this drive as an external archiving device for my Dish Network (DN) ViP622 HD receiver. Recently, DN has enabled this feature on their ViPs. I was coming close to filling up the DVR and this simple and painless upgrade has been awesome. The receiver detected the SimpleTech with ease, formated the drive in 2 minutes, and from that point on I have about 490 GB worth of extra DVR space. Playing archived video either in SD or HD format is no different vs. playing direct from the receiver. Outstanding quality/no complaints! This drive comes in 750GB and 1TB capacities and should be a worthy upgrade for PC/Mac backup as well. FYI, There is another variation of this unit with also a FireWire port.

(2 out of 5)

Backup your Backup

I am would say I'm very tech savvy having much of the latest tech and building my own Home Theater Pc. I have seen many hard drives in my time and used perhaps all of the hard drive manufacturers (From old 4 GB drives to 1 TB drives). Not one has failed until this drive. I was lured by the cost of the drive and wanted to backup my media onto this drive to clear space on other drives. But no less than 3 weeks after converting nearly 300 GB's of data on the drive, there was catastrophic failure. I lost all the media I was converting. Nearly $300 worth of itunes media and countless hours of video conversion data for my apple tv was lost because the manufacturing of this "sleek" designer hard drive.

Take my review with a grain of salt being that I lost a ton of data. However, the hard drive failure has been due to mechanical error. Also, customer support has been very lack luster and now 2 weeks after sending my hard drive for replacement, I have yet to receive an email or call regarding the status. For all I know the company has reconditioned my drive and will send it out again. There has been no follow up and return procedures are sketchy at best.

(1 out of 5)

Beware: Product details inaccurate - Not powered by USB!!

I bought this item based on the Product Details which state:
"Powers via USB or FireWire connection"
This is simply false! The drive comes with an AC adapter which it needs for power, and connecting the USB cable alone does not power it.
Also, while it has a USB port, I see no FireWire port.

Moreover, calling this drive "portable" is a bit of an exaggeration. This drive is comparable in size and weight to the Iomega silver series drives which are not advertised as "portable". Truly portable drives are drives such as the Smartdisk Firelite, which are lightweight and pocket-sized, and really do power through the USB with no AC adapter.

I should have known it was too good to be true - nobody is selling an external hard drive with capacity beyond ~250 GB that is powered only by USB. All 500 GB drives require an AC adapter and are well beyond pocket size.

(1 out of 5)

Unable to format drive. Poor quality.

I've had this drive for several months, and it seemed to work fine. Then, I was unable to retrieve some family photos from it. System would lock up on read errors. So I offloaded all I could and tried a format of the drive. Failed 7 times. No diagnostic software provided by manufacturer. It's as if they are relying on other drive manufacturers to provide it. Only a basic user guide is provided on their 'support' CD. Poor support.
After downloading and running Seagate's Seatools, the long generic test FAILED. Why couldn't Simpletech have such a BASIC tool.

I would NOT recommend buying this drive under ANY circumstance. Poor initial quality if it won't even format. I do not even want to send it back for fear they'd send me another. Dependability is of the utmost on USB hard drives. Simlpletech is not reliable for me.

(5 out of 5)

Very useful!

I bought this to backup my movies and tv shows downloads. I thought that it would be a little slow to watch the videos straight from it because... well... because it's an external device. However, that was not a problem!! I can watch my videos directly from the Simpletech without compromising speed!!! It was a great buy!!!