Hitachi ST/500GB 2.5″ 500GB Ext USB Rugged HDD
Posted by Notcot on May 11, 2010 in Handhelds & PDAs |
Product Description
Hitachi SimpleTOUGH, Carbon Fibre, Portable, 500GB, External, USB 2.0 Hard DriveGo ahead, live in a rough world!If you work hard or play hard, SimpleTOUGH is the ultimate in durability and data safety, all in a ruggedly handsome design. Made with a rough
- Hitachi SimpleTough Hard Disk Drive
- Capacity: 500GB
- Interface: USB 2.0
- Enclosure: External
- Colour: Black
This drive isn’t the fastest I’ve ever had – nor is it the most compact – but it does boast an ability to withstand spilled drinks and drops onto the floor. Although if you read the smallprint, you’ll find that the tests were with 60ml of water and “a drop of 3 meters onto a carpet”.
It feels very light, and the outer case is made from patterned plastic, with rubberised ergonomic sidings. It doesn’t feel much like a tank in terms of ruggedness; it might cope with a drop onto a carpet of unspecified thickness, but I’m not convinced that it would like a similar introduction to my wooden flooring.
A nice touch is the reinforced USB cable, which tucks into the underside of the drive – the shape of the USB connector is continued along the cable, avoiding weakening the wires over time. This does lessen the flexibility somewhat, making it difficult to position the drive at anything other than right-angles to the connected computer.
Backup software is included on the drive, along with a formatting aid for those who are unfamiliar with the process.
As always, remember that the capacity for storage is somewhat less than 320gb because of system data necessary for the drive to work.
Overall, if you’re going to carry this around a lot and you want something that will withstand everyday shocks and impacts, this is the one to go for. However, there are other drives that are quite a bit smaller and faster available if you don’t need the shock-resistant trade-off.
One tip – make different folders for your files when you first set the drive up (‘Photos’, ‘Films’, ‘Music’ etc.); this avoids the unholy mess that can result otherwise. It can take many hours to clean up if you don’t do this, and I speak from personal experience!
Rating: 4 / 5
This is the first external HDD I`ve had, and I`m really very impressed by it. It is rugged – it looks more like a shatterproof hipflask – and it does give the impression that you could kick it, throw it, stamp on it…and all your precious files will still be fine. Really good news for anyone that wants to take their files out of their home office (which is where it will suit my wife when she goes to University). Hitachi things seem to be much better than they were when I was younger. This will contain all the files my wife and I have with so much room left over on it`s massive 320GB, but more importantly it is really easy to use. It didn`t require specific installation, it just appears on your desktop after plugging into your USB, and you are good to go, and your respective files are easily sorted into their own folders. If you are looking for a HDD with a serious capacity, that is also easy to use, and that you can hit with a cricket bat, then this is the right thing for you.
Rating: 5 / 5