Hitachi LifeStudio Mobile Plus: Storage With Compromises
Hard drives these days generally come in a few basic options ranging from the uber-portable, light-weight thumbdrive (often just a few gigabytes in size) to a bulkier, paperback-book-sized external hard drive (500 GB to 2 TB or so, though heavier and usually requiring external power).
Our interest was initially piqued by the novelty of the Hitachi Lifestyle Mobile Plus as a more versatile option. The sleek design is eye-catching and the hard drive design comes in three parts including an external hard drive, a USB key, and a docking station. The USB key is in reality not so much a thumb drive as an upgradeable 4GB microSD memory card container. It docks neatly into the docking station and can be easily removed. By itself, the hard drive is small and compact. However, it looks a bit cumbersome when the three pieces are put together.
We were also annoyed by the packaging, oddly, as it hints at a 100 GB capacity when in actuality it is a 500 GB storage system. Though it might seem a nice surprise, it doesn’t breed trust in the product. We were also unpleasantly surprised to discover that the Hitachi hard drive doesn’t support files 4 GB or larger out of the box- unlikely to affect those with only images or music, but ISOs and some videos can exceed that limit. The device does not require external power… but did require two USB ports from a laptop we tested, though only one full-powered port was required from our PC. And the divided hard drive has a read-only section with back up software in one portion, and the other can be formatted into HFS+for Mac, FAT32, or NTFS.
Installation is simple… but oddly required, as it didn’t function well until we installed software. The gadget is bundled with a LifeStudio application that automatically finds digital content in everything from music to documents. However, most of the features are links to web-based media services such as Flickr or Picasa. If you want to see how many Facebook photos, you have, then this gadget will show you. Or you could just log onto Facebook… The purpose of the included thumb drive is to sync a selection of your files automatically, and it worked pretty well- but offered little extra flexibility over using one normally.
Another potential downside is the lack of other connectivity options: no USB 3.0, Firewire, or eSATA capability, and no network support over ethernet or wireless. It does run smoothly and quietly though, and transferred data quickly given the USB 2.0 interface. And color options- black and white- are a nice addition to the often mono-color palette from many manufacturers.
We were able to purchase this for around $80 from Amazon or other authorized suppliers. Bottom line: there are plenty of storage options to meet your needs- the Hitachi LifeStudio is an odd duck, and one which we couldn’t readily find a place for.
