looks nice~ but you probably haven't read what people said about this drive on amazon.com

the thinking of this product is great but the wire sucks it loses a connection if you put it a certain way this is my second one because of this issue and its always malfunctioning and i have only 30gb used (

My simpletough worked like a champ for 24 days. Then 2 days ago it crashed. I was playing a song on my comp and all of a sudden my computer says the usb device has malfunctioned and windows cant recognize it. Now im screwed. I would restore it from a back up but all my back up material was on the simpletough. Its fantastic that you can drop this device from 10 ft and run it over with a truck, really thats neat. But I think the r&d would have been beter spent making it able to handle, I dont know, windows and iTunes. Just and idea. But on the bright side i do have a new catfishing weight now thanks Hitachi

Internal wires in the cable broke in half. Used maybe 15 times in an office otherwise cable disconnected from computer and folded away for storage. Tried to use and worked sometimes then just quit completely.

I just bought this Hitachi SimpleTouch 500 GB about two months ago; and now I have a big problem. The problem is the cable; the drive can not be read by the computer because somehow the cable went bad. If I am lucky, I could flex/twist the cable somehow to make it work; but I am not lucky all the time. If someone asks me whether or not I recommend this drive, I will definitely say "NO"; it is not a good design.

I bought a SimpleTough 500GB a couple months ago and couldn't be happier with it. It came with a convenient backup utility which I've used. I put all my iTunes music on it (400Gb) and there's no apparent delay or slowdown in finding, playing, or manipulating music and playlists. I really like the enclosed USB cable... I can just toss the whole thing in my briefcase or to one of my kids' backpacks and it's always ready to go. The price is going down too. I orginally saw it for $120, I bought it for $100, and now I see it for $80 with $4 shipping. I'm thinking of getting another one at that price.

I too bought the Hitachi 500 gb. I was using it when I moved my laptop and it fell approx 4 ft to the floor, Something it should have withstood with no problems. I tried to use it and I got the error message that the device has malfuctioned and it would not work on any computer in the house. It also has a rattle inside like something came loose. It is under a 3 year warranty, hopefully I can get it fixed through that, but what about what I already had on the device?? Is it gone for good??

This drive has worked perfectly for over a year. I love the design and durability. I've dropped it a few times, no problem, and the integral usb cable is really handy and durable. I guess I have good luck.

As far as I understans, the test was conducted with a non-operating disk, where the likelihood of failure is smaller.
What happens is that many times accidental falls of external drives occurs while the disk is connected to the computer and thus in operating mode.
The test, therefore, should have been conducted on an operating disk, giving more reliable results..
Uriel