Reviews for SmartDisk FireLite 80 GB External Hard DriveFireWire/i.LINK 400 - MPN: FWFL80 
By member:
jessenyap
- Apr 4, 2007
Excellent Product for the PriceStrengths: Small Easy to use/connect High capacity Weakness: none This is an excellent product - very compact, and easy to use. Access via firewire is very fast. Note the following: you may need an ac adapter (which isn't included) if your system does not have a buit-in Firewire port. 100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
faltico
- Feb 7, 2005
SmartDisk FireLite 80 GB External Hard DriveStrengths: Very small and sleek. Only 6oz and nice metallic coating that resists scratches. Also matches titanium finish on pbook. Powers off the firewie so no extra plug needed. Comes with firewire cable too. Weakness: The Flash-ROM didn't work with my Mac out of the box. Had to install the ROM Update from a 10.2.x machine. Maybe this has been addressed. RPM is not very fast (4200) much less than fast drives. If you are looking for an easy way to do FCPro video editing remotely, this is a very nice product. Overall I'm very pleased. Getting it to mount on my Mac was a hassle the first time through, but these things happen and I'm *willing* to forgive Apple for not supporting the FireLite natively in Panther. The size and materials used to make this drive, along with it's extreme lightweight make it a superior product. Yes, it costs quite a lot more, but you're buying more than just storage. You're buying extra degrees of freedom. 91% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
Drag0nz
- Nov 10, 2005
Excellent ProductStrengths: Supper small and light weight. Powered by firewire, no need for a plug. No problems out of the BOX working with Mac OSX Tiger Weakness: NONE Although the hard drive speed is only 4200RPM the standard HD in a powerbook is only 5400RPM which is also pretty slow comparative to the 7200RPM on most PC's not to mention the 10k or 15k SCZI drives that one can put into a computer. Anyways that aside in the small case that makes it soooo portable a faster RPM HD would burn up and burn out without the proper cooling Its fast enough to get the job done! I was able to backup almost 60GB in about a half an hour... It is a great little drive and highly reccomend it to ANYONE PC or Mac 86% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
sarah334
- Mar 18, 2007
Great HarddriveStrengths: size and weight as well as self powered Weakness: can only use it on a pc with firewireport It would be perfect if it could be used iwth usb and firewire. It is small and self powered and is very quiet. it is VERY light weight. EASy to use and instal 75% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
skanknpunx
- Mar 18, 2007
Great item in a small package!Strengths: Size and ease of use Weakness: if they had added a usb 2 port, it would have been nice Small and quiet! comes with a 3 foot firewire. no need to buy one. Works FAST! Great color and design. Self powered. Plug and play capable. Easy to install and use! 75% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
chewbackadaka
- Jan 25, 2007
Freakin GreatStrengths: DURABLE! Very reliable, fast speeds, very very compact. This thing goes everywhere with me, and you gotta love that you can daisychain it. Weakness: Wouldn't mount on a certain update version of OSX about a year and a half ago Like I said, I carry this hard drive with me everywhere I go practically, and I'm not a careful person. My backpack gets thrown everywhere, and I have NEVER had this drive crash on me, not once in two and a half years. I only had one problem once, and it had to do with a certain update version of OSX and the hard drive wouldn't mount. They installed an update version of OSx at my school but because this caused other problems in the network too, they reverted to the old version of OSX. I haven't had any other problems with any other versions of OSX like this, or any other problems with this drive. Also, it has 2 firewire ports so you can daisychain this with other firewire drives if you want/need to. Highly recommended. 75% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
stead11111
- Mar 24, 2007
Nice HDStrengths: Sleek, quiet, compact Weakness: None I have only a few days experience on this drive. So far so good. It comes with a Firewire cable, just plug and play. the metal case looks durable. The data transfer rate is faster than USB2.0 on my machine. I am satisfied with it. 67% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
wu3shi
- Apr 27, 2007
Pocket size hard diskStrengths: Small size, good looking, high speed. Weakness: The package does not include the power apapter, it is a must. I bought this one when it was on sale. I am satisfied with it. But it only has 2 1394 Firewire ports. If you want use it with the USB port(because most computers have only USB port), you need to buy a USB/Firewire adapter and a power adapter. The power adapter is not included in the package, another extra 20 bucks out of pocket to get the power adapter. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top
By member:
vutukuris
- Apr 8, 2007
OK hard driveStrengths: Portable, cheap Weakness: Gets hot, have to buy extra accessories to use with laptop I bought this firewire hard drive for very cheap price. Initially my computer (Windows XP 64 bit) could not even recognize it. Then I had to call customer service, get some tips, do some modifications and finally computer was able to recognize. The body get hot pretty quickly. In order to use this with my laptop (which has 4-pin firewire connection), I had to by 6-pin to 6-pin cable and power adapter (4-pin connection cannot provide enough power to work). Overall its just satisfactory. So it is better to buy USB portable hard drive which is compatible with most the computers. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful? Top 
|
Products
-
Network Sites
-
About PCWorld
-
Resources
Ad Choices
RSS FeedsVisit other IDG sites:
© 1998-2012, PCWorld Communications, Inc.
Fast, convenient, inexpensive
Strengths: Write 25MB/s, read 33MB/s; very thin and handy (convenient); amazing price; no AC adapter required
Weakness: Needs powered FireWire port, uncommon on laptops
I got two of these at an amazing clearance price. They are very light and thin. It is a bit disconcerting at first to simply unplug-and-power-down a running disk drive. (The drive gets its power from the FireWire port, so unplugging it from FireWire also powers it down.)
With disk caching off (i.e., policy set to optimize for quick removal), I was able to write a 661MB file to this drive in 26 sec; and then, after unplugging and replugging to flush any cache, I was able to read back the 661MB file in 20 sec. That equals a write speed of 25 MB/s, and a read speed of 33 MB/s.
Ordinarily, one might want to use this in conjunction with a laptop; but this device requires a powered (6-pin) FireWire port, whereas most recent laptops have only an unpowered (4-pin) FireWire port.
100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?