As a bit of a download junkie, and item like this sets my heart aflutter. Not only is this a great price on a 500GB External Hard Drive, but it’s the first web deal I’ve seen to be available both in store and online. But not all is good in Comstar-town.
When searching for a review of the product, nothing came up. That’s not exactly the mark of a quality brand name. As a a matter of fact, the only information I could find came from our very own Boo when he posted the November’s 6 Days of Web Deals and this item just happened to show up;
Comstar manufactures mediocre products and when it comes to a sensitive items like external hard drives I’d rather spend a few more bucks and buy a higher quality product. If however you’re looking for the lowest price you could spend on a 500GB external hard drive then this is definitely the right deal for you.
There you have it folks – it’s not good, but it’s cheap. And at that time, Boo was writing about a price of $229 – so it’s dropped even further.
If you’re interested, you can pick up this deal here.
I bought the same device on the same Future Shop website promotion and just received it yesterday.
Pros:
– The price was great, especially when compared with other backup units from FS and elsewhere.
– It’s an all-in-one complete package, including the unit, power cord, data cable, stand, and software CD.
– Nice quiet operation, and the case does not seem to get too warm.
-The 1-button backup feature is great if you just want to perform a backup on demand.
– The clamshell packaging keeps the unit protected well before sale.
– The unit claims Vista compatibility.
Cons:
– The item was out of stock for 3 weeks.
– If you follow their instructions regarding the configuration, it may not work and just lock up. The vendor recommended configuring the unit to Optimize For Performance, but that only resulted in the unit locking up after about 5 minutes.
– The unit does not have a cooling fan with the case, like several other models do to keep the HD cool.
– The 1-Button backup software is rather primitive and limited.
– You do not get the option to produce a compressed backup file, rather than just copying the entire source disk to a destination directory.
– The drive comes formatted as FAT 32, but most users will want to upgrade to NTFS and the instructions do not cover that.
– No support website was found (just a 800 phone number was included).
Using such a hdd will definitely save my data in safety 🙂