Seagate FreeAgent 500 GB 3.5-Inch USB 2.0 Hard Drive ST305004FDA1E1-RK
by SEAGATE
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List Price: Our Price: $249.99 You Save: $20.00 (7%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $75.00 (click here) 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: What happens to your data?
Summary: 2 Stars
I really like this HDD (Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500 GB USB / eSATA External Hard Drive ST305004FPA1E2-RK). I agonized over this or the WD equivalent and buying a pre-made external HDD (as apposed to just a case and internal HDD combo). In the end, I was won over by the 5-year warranty. I like being able to fix things myself but why not have someone else do it. I put all my data from a 300 Gb and cleaned off the old drive. The new drive even installed special system back-up software. A few days later I turned it back on and got a "driver request" from Win XP. After going through all the checks and options I realized that the internal power connect was bad.
Now for the big question. If I turn it in for a new drive, I get a brand new drive, no questions asked. On the other hand, I lose all my pictures, music, movies, etc... The recovery of the data from a bad HDD is a minimum of $1400 on Seagate's site.
In the end, I cracked the case and pulled out the drive. The HDD was fine but now the warranty is void. I'm out $160 but I can use this 500Gb in another case.
Bottom line: Just buy an internal and stick it in your choice of separate case.
Update Mar 2009: I have since purchased the Western Digital 750 GB My Book Home Edition and have had no problems. Same features for $150. I'll buy a larger of the same when I need it.
Customer Review: Buy at your own risk!
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased this product to back up my Windows laptop that was dying. After backing up all my files I still had about 400GB left on it. It seemed okay on my Windows desktop for the first 3 months (only reading the files though) until I plugged it into my Mac laptop after not using it for about 2 months. On my Mac I was able to read the files but I could not write to it so I just shrugged it off as a compatibility issue. About a year after I used it on the Mac I plugged it into my desktop again so I can back up more files but Windows didn't even acknowledge that there was anything plugged into it (there was nothing wrong with the port since it was able to read a WD drive on the same port) but the Mac was still able read to from it. I don't know if this hard drive was either defective or if it was because I plugged it into the Mac or if Seagate just makes crappy hard drives, but I only backed up files onto this drive one time and it just decided to lock up. I only had WD hard drives and this was the only Seagate drive I ever purchased because it was on sale. When it comes to my files you only get one chance so I'm sticking to WD from now on.
All I have to say is if you plan on purchasing any Seagate hard drives make sure you have an extra hard drive to back up your files just in case this happens to you too.
Customer Review: Good Functionality and Decent Prize
Summary: 4 Stars
Although, I don't have anything else to compare this drive with, I am fairly impressed with the functioning of this drive.
As others have mentioned here, the drive is fairly small and occupies a small foot print on your desk. The 500 gig drive when formatted in ntfs comes to 465 gigs. The drive operates quietly, and you can hardly hear it when its operating.
Data speeds are quite decent - I transferred almost 400 gigs of data from a number of dvd's. The comparison to be made would be transfer to the external drive v/s transfer to the internal drive. On this count, there isn't much of a difference between the speeds of the external or internal drives. My estimate is that the speed is limited by the transfer rate of the dvd drive rather than the external or internal drives.
Transferring upto 10 gigs of data takes nearly 2-3 minutes and is in no way painful. A good product, cheap storage at a decent price that functions well.
I understand that the drive has reliability issues, with few individuals drives conking out on them. In my experience, there have been instances where the OS fails to recognize the drives name or its contents.
This has happened twice or thrice in nearly 4 months of operation, and usually happens when the processor is in a busy state.
Customer Review: Seagate + 5 Yr. Warranty = Nuthin'
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this because of Seagate's reputation (now shot), long warranty, and sale price. I've had it for TWO WEEKS and my Mac doesn't recognize it. It won't mount on the desktop anymore even though the System Profiler can see it! What's even worse, the Seagate Diagnostics doesn't see it. Fortunately for me, I only had time to copy some of my desktop files on it, and I didn't erase the originals. I used it over the long period of two whole days.
I will be returning this and buying anything else.
Oh,yes, it hums happily away just as if it were actually working. It's not. I'm very disappointed that Seagate not only doesn't seem to be backing its products, but that its products are suddenly zero in the quality department, and that they don't seem to give a damn!
Update 11/2010
I don't know what happened, or which particular swear word I used to get it to work, but about three weeks after writing the review above, it mysteriously reappeared on the desktop and has stayed there ever since. Not only that, but I switched it to my new iMac, and it still continues to function. Seagate is back in my good graces, but I have no idea why it was so glitchy in the beginning. I still don't fully trust it, but it's a good place for my less valuable files and videos. Go figure.
Customer Review: It Heats Up and Dies
Summary: 1 Stars
Once this drive heats up, it stops working.... The drive worked great for the first 30 minutes I owned it, but once it heated up, my laptop could no longer recognize it. It began appearing as an "unknown device" in the USB serial port. I tried every troubleshooting tip I could find on my laptop's Help and Seagate's Web site to remedy this to no avail. This included trying to find a download recommended by Seagate that apparently does not exist anywhere on the Web except in the Web postings of other users looking for it. During an online chat, a Seagate service rep acknowledged it was defective and said I should return it. Thus began a new adventure because the company's Web site is like the Blair Witch's forest. I would click "Warranty/Return" and it would kick me out to log in, but when I logged in I could not get back to the Return screen and when I did it kicked me out to log in again. I finally was able to request a return, paid $20 for expedited shipping, got the thing two days ago, plugged it in and guess what .... same problem. This drive was very easy to set up and would be perfect if it actually worked. At this point, I'm going to have to use it as an "offline" storage device and not like a true extension of my hard drive, which is what I wanted. This device was a complete waste of my time and money.