Seagate FreeAgent 500 GB 3.5-Inch USB 2.0 Hard Drive ST305004FDA1E1-RK
by SEAGATE
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List Price: Our Price: $75.00 You Save: $194.99 (72%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Personal Computer See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Seagate FreeAgent 500 GB 3.5-Inch USB 2.0 Hard Drive ST305004FDA1E1-RK
Customer Review: Know what you're buying
Summary: 5 Stars
This is essentially a Seagate 500 Gig, 7200 rpm, SATA drive in a cheap USB 2.0 compatible case. It comes with some sort of software to "help" you backup data. I right click and select open and use it as another hard drive. Depending on your intended use and degree of sophistication this could be a great product.
PROS: I've had great luck with Seagate drives. I have never lost data on one (fingers crossed). The 7200 spin would be great for video capture and the SATA connection is perfect to make sure this drive will directly plug into your computer if the USB case dies. You could also buy another external drive case if the one supplied fails. I do not use the included software, preferring to just back up data. The included software takes up about 250 megs which I could erase at any point if I need the space. Even without running the software this device goes into power saving mode (the drive spins down) in about 15 minutes. The included USB cord is A to mini-B. This is a great standard connection. I have them sitting around for digital cameras and MP3 players. It's nice not to have worry about finding a proprietary cable.
CONS: Slow interface. But what do you expect? I set it up with 100 gigs of video to back up and go to bed. The next morning it's done. It is a rather flimsy housing and I would see it tipping over easily. The active drive light flashes too slowly for my liking as you must observe it for 10 or 15 seconds to see if it's really active. The housing doesn't have any vents so I could see heat being a problem but haven't experienced that.
CONCLUSION: I looked around and decided that for my purposes (just backing up huge video and data files) this was a perfect drive. I haven't had any problems with heat as the drive spins down, but I also disconnect it and move it to a safe place after I dump data to it. As I said, if the case dies I don't care, this was the same price as an internal SATA Seagate. If it dies I'll crack it open and lock it in my safe. Then if I need to restore something I'll spring for a SATA to eSATA connector (circa $15) or just plug the drive directly into the computer.
This is just a good hard drive with a free external case. And I haven't had any problems with the case so I may end up being happy as a clam with this drive for years.
Customer Review: I love this drive!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was having all sorts of problems with my system (Windows XP Pro) when I tried to use an external SATA drive cabled into my motherboard, so I had to abandon that route for external backup storage. I had thought I needed the SATA speed to make it practical to back up large files, but finally had to try another way to meet my backup needs. I read through all of the products and reviews and finally settled on this one after reading about the overheating on the Iomega drive (which, ironically, uses a Seagate disk inside). Well, I am so happy with the Seagate FreeAgent USB 2.0 that I would heartily recommend it to anyone else. It is quiet, runs warm but not hot and I can leave it on and plugged in to my system, so it's always ready for me to use. The files transfer just as fast as they did with the SATA interface, and the 5-year warranty is a meaningful bonus.
I do make the following recommendations, though, for problem-free operation and getting around some of the "undocumented features" that come with the package. 1) Plug it into a power source that only is on when your computer is on. It doesn't have a power switch, but I have a power strip that is plugged into my backup power UPS and is only on when my whole system is on. That way you don't have to unplug it or lose data, as some users have reported. 2) Instead of drag and drop for copying files (which produced some very weird results and caused some files to go off into the ozone), COPY the file and then PASTE it into the location you want it to go into on the FreeAgent disk. This works flawlessly every time. 3) Don't bother with their backup software. It doesn't "see" any of the files in the Documents and Settings folders, such as Outlook .pst files, Favorites, or Bookmarks. It also doesn't apparently have the "intelligence" to know which files have been modified since the last backup was taken, so I just copy everything manually, using copy and paste, and it works great. I just make a habit of backing up my work either right away or at the end of the day. 4) burn a CD of the setup files that come pre-installed on the drive, in case you have to reinstall your system at some point in time, and then delete them from the drive if you want to.
Customer Review: Bye, Bye, Data.
Summary: 1 Stars
Before I make any purchase I try to look around and find the most affordable and reliable solution. However, I wish I took more care into doing so when researching my external hard drive. Lets spill out a little tale.
I was recently switching my Windows laptop over to a Linux build. Before doing so I backed up all of my data and client's data onto my 500GB Seagate External hard drive. After awhile of fooling around on the distribution and realizing the emulation capabilities were not what I hoped of some Windows based programs I switched back. (No hard feelings Linux, I still love you and use you in other ventures.) However when I went to plug my Seagate hard drive in nothing happened. I went and opened it up and the drive looked like it was completely blank. I unplugged it and switched over to my desktop. This time all the folders were there, but empty. Shut everything down checked connections, pins, made sure everything was plugged in and then powered everything on. Again, no data was shown.
In somewhat of a panic since a clients project was due that week I contacted their customer support, who seems to work more off of sales then to help. While I was on with the representative who took forever to respond between inquiries I started researching Seagates data recovery and analysis tools. When I mentioned these to the customer support he said "DO NOT DO ANYTHING TO YOUR HARD DRIVE. SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN AND DO NOT TOUCH IT." Yes, caps. Then being told that Seagate's "Remote Data Recovery" service would cost close to $1400 I promptly left.
After searching and trying various options I did eventually get my data off of the hard drive. However it was a daunting task.
I would advise anyone, who needs to backup their data to stay away from Seagate. I have yet to use any other physical back up solution. I rely heavily on Amazon's amazing S3 services. So, buyers, if you happen to be revamping your system and want to buy an external hard drive go ahead, get a Seagate. They will only cost you $1500. Or, you can try out S3 and pay pennies per month for only the space that you use.
Customer Review: Seagate 500GB External Storage HDD
Summary: 5 Stars
This device was purchased as a replacement for my maxtor which broke. Maxtor was made by seagate, so I wasn't to sure about buying this Seagate drive.
The drive comes neatly packaged (which I bought mine new from Amazon) and it comes with a manual, the drive, a power cable and the USB cable. The drive should be plug and play compatible. Just plug it in and you can access it from your my computer as a second HDD. should be next to your C: drive. You can then drag and drop any files you may want to store on the HDD.
I have owned this drive for about a month now. I have ran the drive 24/7 for about 2 weeks now and it is still running A ok. that shows a lot of integrity for durability and reliability.
In order to turn off the drive you have to safely remove the hardrive and wait for the drive to power itself down. you can then remove the cables. REMEMBER, make sure you use the dock and stand for this drive. it has to be upright and ventilated properly or you risk overheating the device.
There are TB drives however, that are only 50-100 dollars more. I feel that if anyone wants to go that route they may be better off. An internal drive would be an even more reliable route also, as an internal drive are less likely to fail.
keep in mind that my seagate drive has made me happy, it worked right out of the box and it is what I needed to store the music I have been buying from itunes. I have a lot now, so my 500 GB drive is nearly full.
it makes me wish I would have went for the 1TB drive.
if you are not planning on downloading and storing, or more for backup or for office storage or for storing maybe schoolwork or to back up documents and such, this drive is great! it has saved me on several system crashes, as I store important drivers and documents that I need on the drive. But then again, I beleive that is the idea of any drive.
It depends on the use of the Drive, but I say this drive is reliable and fast and easy and very pnp reliable. I would recommend it to anyone.
Bryan. 10-1-08
Customer Review: faulty product, Seagate not helpful.
Summary: 1 Stars
I cannot explain enough how horrible my experiences were with Seagate. I originally bought this product to back up all of my memories- photographs, music, and documents- since my ancient computer was pitter pattering on it's way out and has a very small hard-drive.
I had a 320 GB FreeAgent hard-drive and after about 8 months, one day it just stopped working. I googled the issue to find out it is really common for Seagate products. After calling Seagate technical support I found out that a company of theirs was my only option at getting my memories back (for a minimum of $1,000 and up to $3,000 in data recovery). Seagate declares the warranty invalid if you get data recovery through any other company or service (which would be cheaper, but still extremely expensive).
What I decided to do in an act of desperation was physically take apart the casing and remove the hard-drive since I'm computer savvy and try to power it with a Caddy-drive. Upon disassembling the Seagate product I saw that the power converter was singed and had fried my hard-drive, making it impossible to get any files back without going through an expensive service. This could have been prevented had Seagate designed better ventilation/fan system for the amount of heat this drive produces. Today, I got a quote from Best Buy- it would cost $1599 for data recovery through them.
Best Buy told me flat out that this problem was 100% due to a poorly produced product and Seagate refuses to be helpful in the least. Point being, Seagate hard-drives are poorly designed and they try to trap you into giving them money for data recovery once your drive fails. All of their drives have the same problem, where they overheat and destroy the hard-drive. The only reason most reviews have been good is because, like I did in the past, most reviewees have rated the hardware before it overheats.