Good hard drives come in all shapes and sizes, from the practical, boxy models popular with IT folks to the fancy-pants portable units that artistes and poets use to store their highfalutin’ work. The SimpleTech 500GB is an amalgam of those two: small and unobtrusive enough to be ignored but with styling that screams “I take part in Critical Mass rides and might go to Burning Man next year.”
The drive uses wall current and connects via USB 2.0. There is a large button on the top to initiate backups and it also includes a 2GB MyFabrik account in the box for offloading some of your storage to myFabrik’s unique sharing system.
The drive is about seven inches long and SimpleTech, a worldwide manufacturer of flash and HD devices, tapped Pininfarina to design the drives, the same folks who designed the Ferrari. Pretty fancy, huh?
Contents may have shifted.
Amazingly, the drive comes with both Mac and PC backup software. The Mac version requires a little helper app for the button on top, but as far as I can tell the two applications, both from ArcSoft, are identical. It’s formatted in NTFS, which is kind of useless for Mac folks but definitely makes it ready to rock for Windows folks.
Hot FR33 WAR3Z!
Installation on my Mac Pro was simple — I just ran the TotalMedia backup installer and then the button helper. I had to restart, which was a pain, but I made it through without crying.
The drive is actually very quiet. I have three hard drives in my immediate vicinity, and the SimpleTech device is the quietest of the lot. The 500GB costs about $200 and the smaller models, which include 160 and 250GB, cost $99 and $120, respectively. Definitely not bad for such a hefty drive.
Drives, as they say, are all the same. However, some folks — SimpleTech included — try a little harder to make a nice-looking, solid product.
Today’s secret Skype subject line is:
IPreferSkypeOverLunchmeat
Neat and stylish. I just wish more portable drives (or external drive cases) came with eSATA (as well as USB 2.0 or FW) as USB 2.0 is quite the bottleneck.
I’m surprised that more companies have not ventured into ADAPTEC/SNAP territory and offer a Gigabit Ethernet NAS box, perhaps running an embedded Server OS on a chip. While I am dreaming, let the consumer provide their own IDE or SATA drive(s) – maybe a USB port to plug in a card reader?
Someone will probably MOD an AppleTV (to do just that) soon enough, right?
Here here! Affordable NAS! w/ Raid 0,1, and 5. I think it’s coming soon…
I use a Western Digital MyBook 500G from costco. Only cost $169 after instant rebate at the cash register. It is very quite and only hum a little when it is in accessing, at other time, the drive is silent. MyBook literally look like a book, it has two Firewire ports and one USB2 port. Daisychaining other firewire drive to it is possible. Sound like this one is not as good a deal, and the look is not that great either in my opinion.
The external hard drive 500gb is becoming cheaper and cheaper I paid $127 for My Lacie D2 500 GB drive, which is a bit loud, but otherwise an okay drive. Simpletech seem like an usable brand for a lower cost please keep us up to date on the product perforemance.
I just bought the simpletech 500gb from office depot for $129!!!!!!!!! I havent hooked it up yet, but I will soon, and utilize all the extra space it has to offer!
My SimpleTech 500GB USB Drive failed today after just 5 months of use. Lost about 350GB of data, home videos and photos. My advice, stay away from SimpleTech.
I purchased an I/O Mega 500 external from OfficeMax. 2 weeks later, it started acting flakey – wouldn’t always come on. Made odd noises. I backed it all up (had 200GB on it at that time) and took it back for an exchange at the store.
3 weeks later the replacement drive (now with 400GB on it) utterly failed. No chance to recover the data, it’s toast. Manufacturer doesn’t do any data attempts, will replace. OfficeMax would replace with same thing. I took the store credit instead and am wondering if I should even bother continuing down this path.
The I/O Mega had a 500GB Seagate inside it. China made.
They have the Simpletech’s, but I see that they aren’t all that stable, either.
I purchased an I/O Mega 500 external from OfficeMax. 2 weeks later, it started acting flakey – wouldn’t always come on. Made odd noises. I backed it all up (had 200GB on it at that time) and took it back for an exchange at the store.
3 weeks later the replacement drive (now with 400GB on it) utterly failed. No chance to recover the data, it’s toast. Manufacturer doesn’t do any data attempts, will replace. OfficeMax would replace with same thing. I took the store credit instead and am wondering if I should even bother continuing down this path.
The I/O Mega had a 500GB Seagate inside it. China made.
They have the Simpletech’s, but I see that they aren’t all that stable, either.
It is a shame that I trusted my 500GB SimpleTech to do its job. I have a kazillion files on my drive, but less than 5% used. Nonetheless, I hate that one day I shut down my laptop and SimpleTech and tried to boot up my SimpleTech the next day and the unit appears to be dead. I just get a red light by the power button and on top of the unit. Called the support from the website and they were utterly useless. Of’course it died on day 45 so I can’t take it back to Best Buy for an immediate replacement. Now it will be weeks before I can get a new unit – that I can’t trust to hold my important data or back up my laptop. I guess I will try Maxtor since the drive I have on my PC is still working fine after year 8.
Frustrated for Trusting SimpleTech
I bought a 320GB Simpletech drive with a 400GB Samsung PATA drive inside. It was intermittent from day one. Factory support was nill. After about a year died entirely. I have an old Seagate and it is solid as a rock. I just bought a new external drive, Seagate, 500 GB. I’m buying a new enclosure for the Samsung, but intend to keep the Simpletech enclosure. It will make a decent secret safe and remind me never to buy anything with the Simpletech name on it again.
LW
My first SimpleTech Drive was D.O.A., not even a power light. They swapped it out for this second one, which I have had only two days — just in time to get all my data on it, it has now died and only a red power light will come on. My Apple System Profiler will not recognize it; the thing is entirely dead. Now it has all my data on it, perhaps for someone at SimpleTech to steal. I meant to use this drive to back up my desktop hard drive, to back up my laptop, and other important files. I can now see it is entirely useless to be used as a backup at all. I don’t know what to do next; perhaps get a new internal drive. I would not recommend SimpleTech.
I keep loosing my music files on this simpletech drive. First I lost 80 now I have lost 540. The file is there but 0 bytes of data…. This is ludicrous I bought this thing in case and put everything on it I had. I am scrambling now to get everything off before I loose yet more files….F*&*& I put a lot of money and time into my music and now its disappearing……..
Email me and maybe we can get a class action happening……
My SimpleTech just died after four months. Circuit City said that there is nothing that they can do to either refund my money or save my data. I’ve considered contacting Simpletech but am not optimistic, considering what I’ve read here. Fortunately some of my old stuff was backed up on CD, and some of my pictures are still on my computer’s hard drive, but I still lost a lot that I hadn’t taken the time to back up and overall I’m very disappointed. For the past few years, I’ve kept hearing folks say that CDs don’t last and that it’s dangerous to keep things on your hard drive. Well, the data that I have on CD and on my hard drive is still there, while everything on the Simpletech is gone, unless either the company or someone else knows of a way to recover it.
I JUST bought this drive at Best Buy. It’s on special right now for $119! I’ve heard some pretty good things about it. Being on sale should only help it prosper.
I’ve been using it for a while now and it’s a little slow but solid. Great way to add some extra HD space.
It was great for a while, but if I could do it over again, I’d back up everything on CD and maybe another internal as well.
I used this to back up all my fansubs and today it died. ive used about 200Gb of space consisting of about 25 full anime series and 16 that are close to finished. i got a corrupt file system error from it im trying to use getbackdata to see if i can recover it. i have a 160Gb Iomega that ive had for 3 years and it has run fine all this time. i think im gonna go with an internal drive this time.
I bought (from Office Depot) the 500G the other day got home and started backing up the data. Went to access it a little later and it would not allow me in (locked up computer) rebooted and tried again and received a file corrupted error. Tried to do a clean up/check disk…No good still receiving a file corrupt error. Unable to access the hard drive at all. Exchanged it for another one and this time I was able to access it after a few hours. Turned the computer off that night. Tried to access it again the next day…No good same exact error. Tried using 2 other computers to verify and they really get bogged down when it was plugged in and eventually received the corrupted file error. I have a SimpleTech 160G (with no power source, except for USB) and it has been working great for over 2 years.
This Simpletech drive is JUNK. I bought the 500MB version pictured above for my business. Within days it started getting flaky: the connection to it would disappear and I’d have to reboot it for it to come back. Then it started throwing I/O errors and lost some files. Now I’ve wasted most of today trying to get my sensitive files off it before I return it for a refund. It frequently stops responding, and when it does respond it moves at glacial pace (mouse-click wait 5-10 minutes for a response). Total junk. BTW, I’ve tried it with several computers, all give the same response.
Dead after two weeks, gone 160G of family photos and my first born!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my AK47 comes to mind…
Ive had a 320 gig simplejunk drive that died in 1 WEEK ! Called support desk and they asked me if i had all the wires plugged in…lmfao…of course i do. Then they tell me that my drive failed…no shit?
DONT BUY THIS P.O.S DRIVE…GO WITH SEAGATE OR WESTERN DIGITAL
I have a SimpleTech 500gb External Hard Drive.. bought at Office Max for around $250 at the time. The thing never did load correctly. It’s been somewhat a pain ever since. I’ve had to jumpstart the stupid thing numerous times as when I didn’t use it for awhile it would just refuse to start up. Today my PC won’t recognize it. By time I’m done with it neither will anyone else.
I wouldn’t buy another one. It looks pretty, just doesn’t come close to a Western Digital product.
Hi,
I had the 500gb. Suddenly I got flashing red light problem and everything stopped working. I opened the box and I completely disconned the hard drive from the box. Then I connected the HD using “USB 2.0 Drive Mate” kit to my laptop and fortunately my laptop recognized the drive as a usb drive and everything worked fine. Quickly I backuped my data in another drive.
Seems my problem was about the smal board in simpletech box which connect the HD to the usb port.
Excellent info – maybe there’s a chance that I can restore my data that way. The drive just quite one day. The computer doesn’t even blink when I attach the usb cord – nada. If I put my ear to the drive when I switch it on, I can here it spin up, click a few times, and then spin back down.
Hello All!
Great News for some users of those pathetic 500Gb Simpletech Simpledrives. After reading all of your posts, I decided I had nothing to lose by ripping off the sticker and popping the hood, so to speak, of that Pininfarina designed piece of rubbish. By opening up the enclosure, I discovered the following: The hard drive itself is fastened to the cheap plastic enclosure by just two screws. What happened was that somehow the plastic mounting brackets failed and cracked, causing the drive to shift forward about an eighth of an inch and lose its connection to circuit board behind it. I then pressed the drive back in and presto! The drive was fixed and came back to life. Hope that that is the case with at least some of yours and I wish you all good luck in your data recovery.
Cheers!
P.S.
I certainly hope Pininfarina does a better job designing the bodies of Ferrari’s than it does hard drive enclosures!
Thank you Sooo much Lech! You were right on the money. I removed the 4 screws to my 500 GB drive case and found the same thing. A very heavy Western Digital drive held in place with two metal screws through two very thin and cracked plastic mounts. My first hint should have been when I picked it up after powering it down and heard something moving around inside — like broken plastic. I loosened the two mount screws, slid it back into place, and am back in business. I may just mount the drive internally tomorrow. It appears to have an IDE interface.
Bought my 500GB SimpleTech drive (new) about 1 year ago on sale for $35!! It ran great until it fell about 4 inches onto the floor. Now when it trys to boot a small red light ontop of the drive comes on and thats as far as it gets.
It has been an amazing unit, just not built to survive minor bumps.
I just came across this page a few hours ago while looking for info on how to open the external case I bought on eBay. I didn’t realize until I received it and started searching for info that SimpleTech didn’t actually sell external cases and that the case I bought must have been taken off of a drive.
Anyway, I seem to have gotten it working with my 750GB WD drive. I deliberately haven’t connected the backup button yet and won’t until I decide to use that function. I also haven’t put the side panels back in and am wondering if there’s any reason to do so, except looks (and keeping it closed, which I plan to do for now with a piece of tape.
BTW, my experience with Western Digital MyBook drives has not been good. Of the three I’ve either bought or received as a replacement, one became useless due to a firmware update that froze and another one first became unreliable about starting up and then stopped doing so altogether. Fortunately, both of the actual drives (WD SATA 500 and 750) worked fine when I took them out of the cases and stuck them in a Thermaltake BlacX dock.
BTW, I use a MDD G4 Mac.
P.S. I can’t imagine why, as reported above, someone found only two screws being used to hold the drive in place. There’s holes for 4, and I’m using all of them. Would SimpleTech’s assemblers be so lazy as to only use two?
GARBAGE!!!!! I have purchased 3 of these drives (1 320 GB drive & 2 500 GB drives) and to date I have lost ALL of them. I bought 3 drives for redundant backups – OH MY GOD!! My future son in law purchased one of the 500 GB drives just before I bought mine and his has crashed as well – ALL DATA LOST!!!!
The first issue came with the 320GB drive. I attached it to my home PC and moved files onto it for transportation of data to use on my laptop. When I hooked it up to my laptop it couldn’t recognize the drive. When I called tech support they knew right away what was happening and told me to remove the case and pull a connection loose and then reseat it. That fixed the issue for a time. Now the drive will not work at all!
At first I noticed that the drives seemed to running constantly and called support to confirm that this wasn’t an issue. They recommended that I shut the drives down when not using them. A pain in the neck but I figured that was a small price to pay. From that point both of the 500GB drives began to function slowly. Each reboot the CPU would recognize them sporatically and eventually would read partial files. The remaining files would read as corrupted. Now the drives do not register at all.
Now before you question my treatment of these drives they sit on a grided shelf all the time. Good air flow to the units -no travel for 2 of the three.
I really thought I was getting a great deal with these drives but I have to say that the data lost has been disasterous!!! When I think that I was so excited by the money I was saving vs the data that I have lost . . . DAMN!!! I REPEAT NOT ONE OF THESE DRIVES HAS CRASHED BUT ALL OF THEM HAVE!!! DO NOT PURCHASE THIS PRODUCT!!!!!
AGAIN -THESE DRIVES ARE CRAP!!! DO NOT – DO NOT – DO NOT CHANCE YOUR DATA. The tech support is very apologetic but offer NO SOLUTION for the issue other than to replace the drives. WHAT ABOUT THE DATA???????? I WOULDN’T REPLACE THESE DRIVES WITH A HUNDRED FREE ONES. What good is a drive that dumps your data?
JUNK – JUNK – JUNK!!!!
I’ve had a simpletech for over 2 years now and it’s been fine except for I have to reconnect it or power it off and on to get the PC to recognize it. It won’t get recognized if it’s connected at startup. Besides that I found it interesting that people will trash this product and say they should have bought a western digital. One of the reviewers here said they opened up their case and a WD drive was inside. I decided to open up my case and saw the same. Hopefully people understand that if this unit fails, it may be a case problem and not the drive. You can always pop the drive out and hook it directly to your computer or get a $20 rosewill case, which are great, and try it out in there.
Six months ago I purchased a DLINK DNS323 enclosure, which is a networked dual RAID drive enclosure. I popped the Samsung drive out of my Simpletek and put it (with a Seagate) into the DLINK housing. It has been flawless ever since. My problem was clearly the Simpletek housing rather than the Samsung drive. I am not sure that I recommend networked drives. The DLINK product is good, but Windows doesn’t work right. Maybe it would be fine with an Apple, but the key point is there never was anything wrong with the Samsung.