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Plug the USB cable in and you have a 160GB hard drive at your disposal. Windows 98 users will have to use the driver CD to install this drive.</p> <p align="left">The drive does not turn on once power is applied. A power switch in the back must be flipped on. This gives the user control of whether the drive is in use or not. The power adapter is unique because it mounts sideways. This allows the bulky AC converter not to take up more than one outlet on a surge if it is plugged into the end slot.</p> <p align="left">Once installed the SimpleTech behaves like a physical hard drive. It can be formatted, partitioned, etc...</p> <p align="left"><strong>Testing:</strong></p> <p align="left">For testing, I will compare the SimpleDrive to the <a href="atruereview/simpletech/../netdisk/index.php">NetDisk</a>. Sandra SiSoftware will be used to test both drives' performance. Tests will be run 3 times on each drive and I will take the best scores. </p> <p align="left">Instead of testing with the included USB 2.0 cable, I used <a href="atruereview/simpletech/../conex/index.php">ConexUSB</a> LED cables which have a thicker shield and allow me to plug both drives into the USB ports at the same time with a similar cable. </p> <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/simpletech/simpletech.gif"><img src="atruereview/simpletech/simpletechth.gif" alt="SimpleTech SimpleDrive External Hard Drive" border="0" width="300" height="353"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font> </p> <p>SimpleDrive provides great performance for a USB drive. Again not as good as an internal drive.</p> <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/simpletech/netdisk.gif"><img src="atruereview/simpletech/netdiskth.gif" alt="SimpleTech SimpleDrive External Hard Drive" border="0" width="300" height="353"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font> </p> <p>The 80GB NetDisk showed less performance than the SimpleDrive. SimpleTech's SimpleDrive is over 1MB/sec faster than the NetDisk, both USB 2.0 drives.</p> <p align="left"><strong>Inside:</strong></p> <p align="left">Let's open up the SimpleDrive and see what we have. There is no fan inside the SimpleDrive. The aluminum housing pulls the heat away from the drive to cool it. The drive does run warm but the housing does a good job at keeping it cool. Because of the lack of fan and thick aluminum housing, the drive is very quiet during operation.</p> <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/simpletech/10big.jpg"><img src="atruereview/simpletech/10.jpg" alt="SimpleTech SimpleDrive External Hard Drive" border="0" width="250" height="148"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font> </p> <p align="left">The drive inside is a Hitachi 7200RPM DeskStar. I will take some heat for this this next comment, but I like IBM/Hitachi drives over Maxtor. For me they have always been more reliable and faster. Most failures that have occurred with IBM are due to heat and covering vent holes that shouldn't be covered. </p> <p align="left">An interesting thing that I noticed, is the drive uses an IDE 40 pin cable, not an 80pin Ultra ATA 133. Let's hook up an ATA 133 cable and see if this drive does any better.</p> <p align="center"><a href="atruereview/simpletech/ultraata.gif"><img src="atruereview/simpletech/ultraatath.gif" alt="SimpleTech SimpleDrive External Hard Drive" border="0" width="300" height="340"></a><br> <font size="-1">Click on image for larger picture</font> </p> <p align="left">No real improvement is seen from using an Ultra ATA 133 cable over the standard 40 pin IDE cable.</p> <table width="100%" border="0"> <tr> <td><a href="atruereview/simpletech/index.php"></a> <a href="simpletech/../conex/index.php">Previous (Introduction & Description)</a></td> <td><div align="right"><a href="atruereview/simpletech/simpletech2.php"></a> <a href="simpletech/index.php">Next (StorageSync & Conclusion)</a></div></td> </tr> </p> </div> </td> </tr> </table> </div> <div id="footer" class="clr"> <div class="rk-1"> <div class="rk-2"> <div id="the-footer"> <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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