SimpleTech SimpleDrive Deluxe User Manual

250 GB SimpleDrive Deluxe, by SimpleTech

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of 5Mac Guild Review

10/17/2005

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Posted: 17-Oct-2005

4 out of 5 Mice

Overview
Backing up has always been critical to businesses, but these days, it's just as important to the
home computer user. With all of your music digitally stored, as well as home videos, email,
documents, and everything else that you've discovered to be easier to store on your computer,
so much important data now resides on a hard disk. Always keep in mind that, at any given
time, your internal hard disk can fail and not be recoverable. If you do not have the data backed
up, than you lose everything. Nowadays, it's a must to have an external hard drive for backing
up your critical data. External drives also offer extra storage for those who are running low on
disk space and have no options for adding additional internal disks. Whether used for back-ups
or extra storage, external disk drives continue to emerge with larger storage capacities, lower
profiles, and lower prices per gigabyte. One such offering is the 250GB SimpleDrive Deluxe from
SimpleTech. The SimpleDrive Deluxe is a combination USB 2.0 and Firewire external disk drive.

Vendor's Description
Engineered for performance and reliability, SimpleTech's high­speed, high capacity SimpleDrive Deluxe external hard drive is
ideal for any storage need, including digital music, movies and
photographs. Every SimpleTech SimpleDrive Deluxe comes with a
FREE copy of StorageSync Professional Edition Automatic Backup
Software so full or incremental backups are fast and easy every
time.

Vendor: SimpleTech Type: COMMERCIAL
Reviewer: Bill Catambay Class: HARDWARE

l Plug n' play installation (no tools required)
l One-click backup with StorageSync Pro **
l High-speed USB 2.0/Firewire
l Hot swappable
l Free and unlimited technical support
l Compact, space-saving design

** Backup software is Windows-only, so for Mac users, you will need your own backup software.

Specifications

l SimpleTech Part # STI-U2F36/250
l Capacity 250 GB
l Data Transfer Rate 35 MB/sec
l Hard Drive Height 3.5
l Rotational Speed 7200 RPM
l Buffer Size 8096 KB
l Operating Shock 55 G
l Non-Operating Shock 350 G
l Warranty 3 Years
l UPC Code 705487113310

Price

$207 (Street Price range is $180 - $240)

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Set Up
Hooking up the hard drive is a no -brainer. Just plug in the power supply, connect the firewire
cable from the hard drive to the firewire port on your Mac, and then flip the switch on. You can
alternately use the USB connection instead, but I prefer firewire, and this will review will be on
the firewire functionality.

Once the drive is connected and powered on, the drive will show up on your desktop - no
software or drivers required. The SimpleDrive is DOS formatted at the factory, so although it can
be used right out of the box, the instructions recommend (as do I) that you reformat the drive
before using it. Just run Disk Utility, and reformat the drive as Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)
for the most compatibility with OS X. Under this formatting scheme, the drive capacity is 232.76
GB. If you need the drive to work with PC's as well as Mac's, then you will want to leave the
drive as DOS formatted.

Design
The SimpleDrive sports a sleek and slender design (see picture at top of review). It's very light
weight, and includes two black boots to sit the drive in. The drive runs very quiet. There is no
noisy fan, and yet it does a decent job of containing the drive heat (it's warm to the touch). The
case is mostly silver, with a long V-shaped translucent cap on the front. Within this area are the
drive LEDs, a red light for indicating that power is on, and a very subtle green light for drive I/O
activity. In the back is the power port for the drive's power adapter, one USB port, one Firewire
port, and an on/off switch.

Formatting the SimpleDrive for Mac OS X