SimpleTech (Re)Drive

CNET editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 4.0 stars Excellent
  Detailed editors' rating
  Design : 10.0
  Features : 7.0
  Performance : 8.0
  Service and support : 7.0
  Overall score: 8.0 (4.0 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Dong Ngo
• Edited by:
  Matthew Elliott
• Reviewed on: 08/13/2008

The SimpleTech (Re)Drive will help protect your data and the planet. Housed in a casing of renewable bamboo and recycled aluminum, the external hard drive features a pleasing design--like something you might see inside the pages of Dwell. The drive's packaging also leaves little to waste: no plastic bag, no CD, no extra paper--the installation instructions are printed on the inside of the cardboard box. It lack FireWire and eSATA connections, but in CNET Labs' testing, the (Re)Drive still managed to register decent throughput performance thanks to its Turbo USB 2.0 software. You can find the (Re)Drive for about $150, which is quite reasonable for a 500GB hard drive. Thanks to its unique look, speedy throughput, and the eco-friendly materials used in both the drive itself and its packaging, we recommend the SimpleTech (Re)Drive to anyone looking for a USB-only external hard drive. In fact, we hope it encourages other vendors to follow suit in creating gadgets that deliver form and function to the end user while creating minimal impact on the environment.

Design and features
Unlike most other pieces of consumer electronics that come hermetically sealed inside plastic blister packs, the SimpleTech (Re)Drive arrives in a refreshingly simple and easy-to-open box. The drive comes with virtually nothing but the essentials: the cardboard box, the drive, a USB 2.0 cord, and a power cord. The cords are taped to one side of the box, and the installation instructions are printed on the other side. The little piece of adhesive tape and two small plastic patches that keep both ends of the drive from being scratched are the only nonbiodegradable packaging materials you'll find within the box.

Remove the SimpleTech (Re)Drive from its packaging and you'll find that its casing is made of renewable and recycled materials. The top and bottom sides of the device are two pieces of bamboo that look and smell just-off-the-mill fresh. The sides of the device are made of recycled aluminum that also works as a heat sink, enabling the device to be fanless. The device feels solid, is heavy, and looks like a small gourmet-cheese-cutting board.

Like most external hard drives, the (Re)Drive is very easy to set up. The process involves only connecting the hard drive into a computer using the included USB cable and plugging it into the wall. As the (Re)Drive doesn't come with a CD, all of its software applications, including Turbo USB and ArcSoft TotalMedia Backup and Record (for both Windows and Mac), are stored on the hard drive itself. The drive also comes with Fabrik Online backup service that offers 2GB for free and unlimited for $4.95/month.

Preformatted for Windows, the drive will work as soon as it's plugged in, but only in regular mode. You'll then be prompted to install the Turbo USB software if you want to use it in Turbo mode, which takes just a few seconds to install and promises a 25 percent performance increase over regular USB 2.0. The drive needs to be repowered or replugged in to switch between regular and Turbo USB mode. From our experience, there's no reason why you shouldn't use it in Turbo mode. Note that Turbo USB 2.0 is not supported by Macs, but SimpleTech does say it's coming soon, sometime toward the end of the year. For now, the (Re)Drive is the first external hard drive we've tested that features Turbo USB 2.0.

The SimpleTech (Re)Drive also works with Macs, but out of the box, you can only read information off of it. In order to do both reading and writing, you will need to reformat from NTFS into Mac OS X's file system, HFS+. Make sure you copy the original content of the drive onto the computer's hard drive before reformatting. Otherwise, you won't be able to use the included backup software.

We didn't try the online backup service, but we did the ArcSoft TotalMedia Backup and it worked very well on both Windows XP and Vista (we didn't try the Mac version). You can back up preselected data (My documents, My photos, etc.) or select certain folders or the entire the hard drive to back up. You can also back up directly to multiple types of media including hard drive, external hard drive, and optical media. The software's interface is easy to use and very intuitive.

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Recent user reviews

• Average user rating: 1.5 stars out of 6 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars Write review

• Showing 3 of 6 user reviews

• 0.5 stars

  "When it fails, they send you the cheaper model!"

  by jmyers1979 on October 30, 2009

• 3.0 stars

  "It's a 1TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B"

  by rarevision_dot_com on October 18, 2009

• 1.0 stars

  "Both drives I purchased became defective in one year."

  by cmarvel58 on September 11, 2009

• See all 6 user reviews Write review

Reviews from around the WebPowered by alaTest

• alaTest.com

  Summary: alaTest collected and analyzed 45 reviews of SimpleTech [re]drive Hard Drive from international magazines and websites and compared these to 88648 reviews for other Hard Drives. Experts rate this product 60/100 and users 67/100. The amount of rated reviews for this product is too low to calculate a reliable alaScore™.

  Read full review

• maclife.com

  Editors' rating: 60

  Summary: . The SimpleDrive Pininfarina USB speed is far from blazing, but it's no dog, either. At least it'll coordinate nicely with your new aluminum iMac.

  Read full review