lunes, 28 de julio de 2008

Review: SimpleTech 250GB Signature Mini USB Portable Drive

Nagore, a friend of mine just bought this external portable hard drive, with a really good deal from amazon.com.

I had the chance to put it to the test!!



Here are my impressions.

First is a pretty little thing. Is a little bit bigger than other 2.5", but merely at the end of the opposite side where you plug the mini-usb. The case is pretty sleek, with just the minimum "waste" of space to make the hard drive look beautiful.

I have not noticed any issues with the external temperature of the hard drive, during long periods of continuous writing to the disk. Definitely not hotter than similar portable hard drives.

About the transfer speed, I have seen a decent sustainable speed. Of course, the bottleneck here is the USB port, at 480 Mbps, not the 5400rpom of the hard drive. but unless you are willing to pay extra for a brand new e-SATA external hard drive, and you have a computer with that port... you won't get much more speed.

In all the hard drive has been a really nice deal. But... there is always something that could be better...

It uses two USB ports, one for power and data, and the other one for data with a "Y" style cable. Supposedly, if the computer can send enough power through the USB port you should be able to use just one, but it turns out, that none of the 4 computers I have tried have been able to "have enough power". I have tried a laptop running Windows Vista, a laptop running Windows XP SP2, and two desktops running Windows XP SP2. When I connected only the data+power USB, it gave me a warning like device cannot be properly identified/malfunction, and the hard drive couldn't be used. Then, when I connected the data+power AND the POWER, both ends of the Y USB cable to 2 USB ports, the hard drive was instantly and properly configured and ready to be used!

So, the hard drive is a nice one, it has the looks, it has the capacity, and the performance was good enough... but it has a "problem", you will be using 2 USB ports... now, that can be a problem to some people, or you might not care, since most modern laptops have 3 or 4 USB ports close by, and the desktop systems, come with 2 USB ports on the front and another 4 or more at the back... That depends on you... I have seen reviews where people states that it works with just one cable, and reviews where people states that it will only work with the Y-cable attached to both USB ports... From my experience, I had to use the Y-cable to have two usb ports power the portable hard drive.

1 comentario:

Anónimo dijo...

necesidad de comprobar:)