SimpleTech SP-U25/160 SimpleDrive 160GB 2.5-Inch USB 2.0 Portable Hard Drive (Red)

 (20 customer reviews)

I found this beautifully designed drive at an amazing discount. ~50% less than equivalent-sized competitor products. It is small, fast, sleek ... and apparently needs an accessory AC adapter brick in order to draw enough power to spin up the drive consistently. I have tried connecting the drive to 6 very different systems I have here (a couple laptops, a compact desktop, a couple high-end workstations, and a server - all systems within 3 years of age, and one a brand new Dell model) and none of the systems was able to offer enough power through the USB ports to spin up the drive (whether one or both plug ends of the supplied USB Y-cable were used). One trip to Radio Shack and $30 later, it spins up like a champ. Does what it needs to do (except for the reduced portability). Until flash memory comes in 160GB units, I am satisfied with this.

Folks, ignore that first review. This drive can absolutely be formatted for Macs to use. It's not really Simpletech's fault but rather Apple and Microsoft having incompatible data formats. All external hard drives will have this problem. This drive comes with NTFS default which makes sense since most people use XP. Other than that quibble, the drive is fast and efficient on my laptop. Very useful since it doesn't require an extra ac adapter.

This model does NOT need external power. My guess is that some of the reviewers here are confusing this one with another model, SP-U35/160 (http://www.simpletech.com/parts/spu35160.htm), that looks exactly like this one, but does indeed require an external supply.
Our company, J.C.I., uses hundreds, if not thousands, of these. Scores of my colleagues and I have these units with HP laptops. They all work flawlessly.