R500U SimpleTech by, Great drive, less guilt!

Overall Rating2.672.672.672.672.67

Great drive, less guilt!

I just got this drive so I could backup all my music and pictures and so far I love it! I researched this drive and was quite happy to see all the steps the company took to reduce waste and power consumption. Its not quite as attractive as it looks in the photos, mainly because the metal is powder coated rather than a satin like coat but its a handsome devil nevertheless.
The package is completely barebones, finally! I am happy to report that the only thing in there I couldn’t recycle was two little pieces of plastic that line the inside of the egg carton corner protectors. The startup guide is printed on the inside of the box and the software and manuals are all located on the drive itself, but it really is a plug and play device. It comes with this turbo USB software and it seems to make the transfers a bit faster. Overall I’m very happy with this purchase and would recommend it to anyone!!

Update (5/19/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.

The featured review for this product, SimpleTech by Hitachi redrive R500U 500 GB Turbo USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Grey/Bamboo Electronics, was written by Matthew Mendoza.

The average rating for this item is 2.7 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.

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Reviews (3)

Momma of Two

March 2nd, 2010 at 2:28 pm    


Overall Rating11111

Failed after less than 30 days!!!
First off - I bought this product to work with my Mac and TimeCapsule…
Well this “energy efficient” drive never spun down…It was always running (and I might add that its fan is quite noisy).
Second, when my Mac went to sleep, the drive would not spin down. Then when my Mac woke up, I would get an error message saying that the drive was not properly shut off and I could have lost all my data…I contacted tech support about this and they said that if I walk away from my computer I should always eject the drive…ANNOYING!
Third, after 3 weeks of use the drive has totally failed. It no longer shows up on my hard drive and is DEAD! Again, I contacted tech support and was advised that I could pay and mail it to them and wait for a replacement or return it to the store…
Lastly, SimpleTech’s tech support sucks. They are slow to respond and do not fully stand behind their products. I was advised to just return the product to the store - If I still could.
I plan to return it and go with Apple’s Time Capsule…Apple has great tech support and stands behind their products…No more Simple Tech for me!


Matthew Mendoza

March 6th, 2010 at 5:20 pm    


Overall Rating55555

Great drive, less guilt!
Rated 5 stars.


C. Dixon

March 10th, 2010 at 7:52 pm    


Overall Rating22222

Returned this product
I needed an external hard drive and wanted to minimize the power consumption. The drive needs to be ready, but on demand, when not in use, spin down to save power. The drive does not always spin-down. As long as the computer is on this drive is rotating. In addition, the drive straight out of the list of drives would disappear for no apparent reason. I tried with both Vista and XP and it did the same. Their technical support does not reply to multiple e-mail inquiries. I liked the packaging, very green, and was even willing to pay more for a little more. However, it did not work properly. I returned it and got a MyBook Essential Edition instead. It turns when not in use and never disappears from the drive list.


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