Home > Consumer Reviews > AcomData HD500UFAPE5-72 500 GB 3.5-Inch USB 2.0/FireWire A Combo

i did quite a bit of shopping & comparing before i decided on an external hard drive & i couldn't figure out why the 320 gig model that is very similar to this cost more & had many reviews where this one had none. then i saw that this model came out later than the other one & as we all know, technology is the only thing that gets less expensive. after doing some research on the manufacturer's website i decided to get this one despite what they say about drives as big as 500 gigs being a little less reliable. i baby my computers & have a history of having them last forever & i just couldn't see paying more & getting less. this one is the most bang for buck, especially for a firewire/usb combo.

so far it works great, it got up & running quickly with no problem & transfers data rapidly. i am using it on the firewire bus on my macbook, don't let the tag "firewire a" throw you, that just means you can use either the 6-pin or the 4-pin cable. i like the metal case & it doesn't run hot. it comes ready to roll but i reformatted it to optimize for mac which only took a moment. the only discrepancy is that the manufacturer claims that you can make this drive bootable on a mac by installing osx on it but osx tells me differently when i try to do that. i am not using the backup software supplied with it because i am informed that it is flaky. of course the real test will be how long it lasts & if i have problems i will update my review but so far this unit is a solid quality item @ a very good price.

All the cables you need, no power brick, a solid build and almost silent operation have won me over to this brand. I'm using it via Firewire 400 on a dual G5 Mac and editing HD video and the drive is plenty fast. I also off-loaded a 600,000 record, 1.6 GB mySQL database on the drive and all the little seeks and writes are barely slower than my internal drive. The drive is also extremely silent since it has no fan, the only sound is the head seek, which is muffled by the thick aluminum enclosure.

The only complaint I could possibly have is that the light on the drive is night-light bright, to the point I leave my office door open and removed the night light from the bathroom.

It's also about $20 more than comparable drives, but when I saw it had all the cables included, was solid as a brick, and was American assembled, I figured it was money well spent.

If it lasts more than the year warranty with the amount of use I'll be giving it, I'll bump it to five stars.

UPDATE: Well, I purchased a second drive and I'm just under the one-year warranty with it. The drive powers but won't spin up. I have it (and the first one I bought) attached to a $600 UPS with line-conditioning, under and over voltage and surge suppression. Contacted Acomdata and we'll see how this goes.

2nd UPDATE: Emailed Acomdata and spoke to Tim Soto. Good guy. Shipped the drive back under warranty, it was fixed and all the data was saved. Got it back in 5 business days. Drive works like new. I'd add another star for customer service if I could.

This was my second purchase of an AcomData Firewire drive. Both are quiet and cool and fast enough for my purposes. I use one only for backup of music files and the other for cloning my main Mac hard drive once or twice a month (alternating with a 5-yr-old LaCie drive). Used this way they should last a long time. I think AcomData drives, at Amazon prices, are good bargains.

I bought this about two years ago and it has been on constantly since then. No fan, but does not get hot, all heat is dissipated by the very heavy aluminum enclosure. Could t noget the firewire to work well, but the USB works fine. The new eSATA Acoms are dynamite, I've read a number of reviews around the web and they are consistently rated 5 stars.

I got an intel core solo mac mini brand new in 2006. I bought this acomdata drive brand new early in 2007. The core solo was the transitional mac mini, and got bogged down after I started filling it with stuff.

The mini was never online, so no viruses. After testing the acomdata several times, I put all my stuff on the acomdata, and did a total reinstall on the mini to straighten it out. Plugged the acomdata drive back in and it didn't ask for the password.

Called acomdata. Lousy customer service. Finally got ahold of them and they wanted to give me a reset key...which wipes out the drive. I take the drive to a pal, and he takes it apart and hooks it up to his PC. It still runs, but it's got a partition problem.

Now, the drive sits on the floor, gathering dust until I save up $400 to send it to a data recovery specialist.

The acomdata was on sale when I bought it. Big mistake. One stupid glitch and it costs me half a grand.

I went back to Lacie. A little more money, but no screw-ups.

If you use a mac, don't buy acomdata and ask for trouble. Stay with the mac-friendly guys. Don't try to get a bargain, like I did.