Product Description

SimpleTech 120GB SimpleDrive Portable Hard Drive - Designed by Pininfarina

Product Details

• Size: 160 GB
• Color: Red
• Brand: SimpleTech
• Model: SP-U25/160
• Released on: 2007-01-22
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .39" h x .39" w x .39" l, .0 pounds
• Hard Disk: 160GB

Features

• 160 GB 2.5-inch USB 2.0 portable hard drive for fast, reliable desktop or laptop storage
• 5400 RPM spin rate; 8 Mb buffer cache; transfer speeds up to 480 Mb/s
• Powers via USB connection
• Designed by Pininfarina, the designer of Ferrari sports cars
• 1-year limited warranty

From the Manufacturer
The sleek lines and ultra-low profile styling of the new 160GB SimpleDrive Portable USB2.0 Hard Drive, Designed by Pininfarina allows it to easily slide into your pocket for ultimate portability. Designed by Pininfarina, the very same design firm that give Ferrari sports cars their stylish lines, SimpleDrive is engineered to pack performance into a small form factor.

Features and Benefits

• Plug and play installation
• Sleek and Stylish Design
• One-click backup with StorageSync Pro
• Hi-speed USB 2.0
• Compact and Portable
• Free and unlimited technical support

Customer Reviews

Drives Great - Needs Power
I found this beautifully designed drive at an amazing discount. ~50% less than equivalent-sized competitor products. It is small, fast, sleek ... and apparently needs an accessory AC adapter brick in order to draw enough power to spin up the drive consistently. I have tried connecting the drive to 6 very different systems I have here (a couple laptops, a compact desktop, a couple high-end workstations, and a server - all systems within 3 years of age, and one a brand new Dell model) and none of the systems was able to offer enough power through the USB ports to spin up the drive (whether one or both plug ends of the supplied USB Y-cable were used). One trip to Radio Shack and $30 later, it spins up like a champ. Does what it needs to do (except for the reduced portability). Until flash memory comes in 160GB units, I am satisfied with this.

Great looking drive at a great price
Folks, ignore that first review. This drive can absolutely be formatted for Macs to use. It's not really Simpletech's fault but rather Apple and Microsoft having incompatible data formats. All external hard drives will have this problem. This drive comes with NTFS default which makes sense since most people use XP. Other than that quibble, the drive is fast and efficient on my laptop. Very useful since it doesn't require an extra ac adapter.

Flawless (& NO External Supply Required)
This model does NOT need external power. My guess is that some of the reviewers here are confusing this one with another model, SP-U35/160 (http://www.simpletech.com/parts/spu35160.htm), that looks exactly like this one, but does indeed require an external supply.
Our company, J.C.I., uses hundreds, if not thousands, of these. Scores of my colleagues and I have these units with HP laptops. They all work flawlessly.