14 DAY TRIAL // Simple Tech 500GB External Drive is an external, large capacity backup solution enclosed in a stylish case designed by Ferrari's legendary designer, Pinafarina, who has instinctively carved its aerodynamic edges. For the moment, the disc can be connected to the computer via a USB 2.0 port, but the manufacturer has already announced a new model that supports both USB 2.0 and FireWire. Given its size, the drive can not be powered via USB and needs an external power source (shipped with the device).
The user can check the drive's functionality by monitoring the four leds that surround the one hit backup button bearing the manufacturer's logo. When in use, the leds would cycle. Another interesting feature allows the leds to act as a free space meter upon the drive initialization. When the critical threshold of free space has been reached, a blinking red light warns the user that it's cleanup time. Should you run out of disk space in an extreme situation, you may use the 2 GB online storage space that ships with each SimpleDrive unit. The account is provided by www.myfabrik.com and allows the file upload via a web browser. Additional hosting space can be purchased for as low as 49 cents per gigabyte.
The drive comes with ArcSoft's TotalMedia Backup & Record suite that is addressed to Windows and Mac users only. Before executing a backup on a Mac system, the user needs to re-format the hard disk using the FAT32 or the journalised Mac OS Extended filesystems.
The software supports scheduled backups, that occur at the specified date and time. The user can choose between a full or an incremental backup, with the sole limitation that the software can not create a bootable backup of the operating system. The average file transfer varies around a value of 25-28 megabytes per second.
Featuring a decent capacity and a reasonable transfer rate, the SimpleTech Pininfarina 500GB External Drive gives the user the safety and efficiency of a fully automatic backup at a reasonable price.