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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Customers in the UK,
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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: Quick & Easy Setup - It just works.
Summary: 5 Stars
Having used Western Digital external (and internal) hard drives for years, I finally got tired of their phantom bugs (especially the external drives).
I've been running the Seagate Free Agent 500GB drive as my backup for a couple of months now and the thing just purrs along. The design is very pleasing. Makes little to no noise at all. And it's stylish as well. Absolutely no complaints.
When I purchased the drive it immediately brought a smile to me as I opened up the very clean and fun packaging. Some simple, yet inviting stickers saying "hi". And a manual sitting right on top that says "This will only take a minute". I actually enjoyed the packaging (yeah, I know, weird).
And Seagate was right - in less than a minute, my drive was recognized by Windows XP and up and running. Plug and Play. That's it.
I'm not sure what the fuss about the lack of firewire support is about. USB 2.0 transfer rates are nearly as fast (if not faster in some respects) than firewire. Over the course of several gigs of file transfer, you may notice a few seconds difference either way. Does it really matter?
Finally, it's nice to know that Seagate hasn't diminished their warranty over the years. Unlike many of the other larger manufacturers who have reduced their warranty to a year or less (Western Digital, et al), Seagate has maintained a warranty of 5 years.
Simply put: It just works.
Customer Review: Good buy
Summary: 4 Stars
USAGE - With my laptop.I bought this external drive strictly for storage. But as recently I began using it for downloading torrents directly to it. That said the drive is now being worked a bit harder. Constantly uploading and downloading while I am using torrents.
DESIGN - It looks great, no two ways about it. It saves space and can fit in a nice corner on your desk or so. However you may not want to tuck it away because it looks really sleek and sophisticated, you won't mind it being seen.
PERFORMANCE - Well this is what it really is about right. I read a lot of reviews before deciding to buy this. Thanks to all the amazon users who leave their comments! It is a great help. Anyways, some people did have a few bad experiences with theirs, however for the month I have had it, no problems to report.
It is fairly quick and silent during operation. It does not produce as much heat as I expected, however I have found on occasions, that when I have left it idle for a period of time (3-4hrs) without accessing it, it is slow in responding. For example it takes a couple of seconds to read the drive. Other than that, it works great for me.
PRICE - Well I think for 500 GB you can't go wrong!
OVERALL - I think it is excellent for storage purposes, and the price is great as well. It looks very professional and works without any errors etc. I recommend it!
Customer Review: As easy to use as a thumbdrive
Summary: 5 Stars
I couldn't pass up the sale price in today's Circuit City ad. I needed a backup for my other backup which is a SimpleTech 250GB hard drive I bought a couple of years ago. It sure is nice to see cost per gig drop from what used be $1/gigabyte to less than $0.30/gigabyte.
I bought this solely on impressions of other reviewers. Compared to Western Digital and Maxtor reviewers, this one seemed to be as close to hassle free as my SimpleTech.
So far so good. I made the circuit starting with my Gateway then to my Mac G5, Dell, and IBM laptop and am happy to report that all 4 units recognized the hardware promptly and permitted me to import/export files easily.
Unlike other hard disc drive users, I use mine for simple back up archival purposes. I plug in, click and drag My Docs, unplug, and put the drive away in a fire safe until the next time I feel like backing up. Sure beats the stacks of CDs and eventually DVDs I used to have to store.
There is one little hang up. After I am done, when I am trying to invoke the Eject hardware feature on any of my units, I kept getting the "unable to eject at this time message" that I sometimes get with thumbdrives. I unplugged anyway and didn't seem to affect any of my files when I checked later.
This is the way all electronic products should be. Simple and ready to use right out of the box.
Customer Review: Works
Summary: 4 Stars
I was able to grab this drive for $65 shipped, which is a pretty decent deal, despite the fact that significantly faster and larger internal drives can be had for less. That said, I'm pleased with this drive. I'm using this as a mirror drive for my smaller internal hard drives.
The Read/Write speeds are about 30/30MBps (megabytes, not bits) according to CrystalDiskMark, and it also performs well with small files, unlike flash media. These speeds certainly aren't blistering, but that means that you can still transfer about 1GB a minute, which is great for backing up DVDs and music. That said, it really pales in comparison to my 500GB WD Caviar Black, which normally reaches speeds of 100/90MBps.
I've had the drive for over a month now, and it still runs fine; no failure yet. I like the orange light- it makes it very easy to tell if the unit is on. It runs pretty cool; the cooling system is passive (no moving parts).
This drive works absolutely fine in Windows XP 32-bit SP3. I just plugged it in, and it worked. However, there is no on/off switch, so the only way of turning it on is connecting it to a computer. I really don't like this, and I can see it being a problem if, say, my Ubuntu installation doesn't recognize it.
Over all, money well spent. It's a little slow, but I don't really need the speed for my use, and neither do most people.
Customer Review: Great value but buggy sleep mode.
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this in April and it as worked fine except for chronic EventID 51 errors (An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\D during a paging operation) in WinXP when it wakes from sleep mode. Sleep defaults to every 15 minutes the drive is idle and the error occurs when the drive wakes. Seagate support offered little help other than suggesting that I disable sleep mode. That fixes the issue but leaves the feature unavailable.
Another unexpected glitch was that the workstation to which I attached the drive took a very long time to boot after I added this drive. Disabling USB legacy support on the BIOS setup fixed that, but I would have to reinstate that feature if I ever wanted to boot from this drive or access it outside of windows.
On the plus side, this drive works great with the free Seagate DiscWizard software which is a stripped down version of Acronis TrueImage that you can download for free. It's very useful for imaging drives and I have images of four different computers stored on it. Also it's fast enough to be able to comfortably view video movies that are stored on it. And with an Amazon promotion for $15 off any purchase more than $100, this was a true bargain.
I'm reasonably satisfied and it's a good value, but if I had to do it over again, I would seriously consider opting for a true network drive instead of USB.