Customer Reviews

Seagate 500GB 16MB 7200 RPM Bulk/OEM Hard Drive ST3500630AS

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I purchased several of these for a striped array. They all worked out of the box without an issue. I would recommend it. Obviously don't forget to set the jumper to SATA2 if you have the appropriate controller.

Also, all you get is the drive in a plain brown box. No manual and no cables.

This is a great price for a SATA 500 gigabyte hard drive. Be warned - it comes with no supporting documentation, nor does it come with a SATA cable. But the installation instructions are readily available at the Seagate website, and a SATA cable can be had for 6 or 7 bucks. In addition, you'll need to buy a hard drive cradle or caddy that fits your particular hard drive bay. Installation was pretty easy for me - plug the cable into one of my two SATA ports, hook up the power tab from the computer's power supply, and bang - you're in business with the most affordable hard drive of its type. Note - I've heard some people complain that the drive is noisy. This was the case for me at first - because the SATA cable I used had a rather bulky connector which stuck out from the hard drive and made contact with the computer case. The case itself amplified the hard drive noise. A little pad of thin rubber solved the problem completely. Keep in mind I use my computer as a digital audio work station on which I produce a radio show - so any noise would be a real problem when I record from my microphone. It's not been an issue thus far.

I bought this HD to replace a crashed sangsung HD of my desktop. It has 500GB, efective capacity is 472GB. Installation was very easy, my desktop recognize it at first time. It is working not as a sata 3.0Gb/s, it is working as a sata 1.5Gb/s, no problem at all.

Perpendicular Recording HD, cool!!!

Just one thing, no cables at all, no sata data cable, no sata power cable, no nothing, I got one from my motherboard.

4 stars, lets see what will happen with it.

This is a little early for a complete review but so far very good product and very good service from Amazon.

This drive has been working great for the month I've had it so far. But, as other reviewers have noted...this drive can be noisy. At first, I didn't have this problem when I had the drive in my USB enclosure. However, when I put the hard drive in my Dell machine, I had to mount the drive on its side...and that's when I heard the noise. You can hear the data accesses...even with the side of the case on. Thankfully, I usually have some music on in the background so it's not very noticable.

Overall, it's been a great drive; however, I'd recommend trying to mount the drive flat instead of on its side.

As noted in other reviews this is a bare drive, wrapped only in a thin plastic anti-static bag. In stark contrast to every other hard drive that I have ordered over the Internet, Amazon provides almost no protective packaging for the drive in shipment.

When I opened the package from Amazon, tossed on my front porch by the UPS driver, I noticed a few air-packs on top of the drive and ABSOLUTELY NO PROTECTION BETWEEN THE BOTTOM OF THE DRIVE AND THE BOTTOM OF THE BOX. In other words, the bare drive was placed in the box, a few air-packs were placed on top, and the package was shipped.

It is worth adding that Seagate will void the drive's 5-year warranty if "the drive experiences shock in excess of 350 Gs." How much is 350Gs? I am not sure, but I assume dropping the drive qualifies.

What this means is that Amazon's shipping practice for bare drives may void the warranty. The drive may not fail right away, but when it does, Seagate may not replace it if Seagate determines that the drive was dropped.

Until Amazon changes their packaging practices, I don't plan on buying any more bare drives from Amazon.

Update: October 15, 2008
Amazon exchanged the drive that had been poorly packed for one that was much more sensibly and protectively packaged -- double-boxed with the inner box resembling the retail box, where the drive is suspended and cradled at both ends by shock-absorbing plastic.

I had a ST3500630AS in a well cooled Antec case. The drive started with the "click of death" about 12 months after I installed it. I ran some deep scans and several sectors were found to be defective (though the data was recovered). Clicks started up again and finally the OS (XP Pro) got incredibly slow due to the number of necessary re-reads (and presumably re-writes). Replaced the drive and did a successful disk clone and now the system is MUCH faster (lending credence to the theory that that slowness was due to the ST3500630AS starting to fail). It was still under warranty, so it's heading back to Seagate.

I usually have very good luck with Seagate, so hopefully this one was just an anomaly.

This drive worked great for 2 months and then it started making a horrible noise and would no longer mount. Sending back to Seagate for a replacement.

I found this Seagate Hard-Drive to be an excellent upgrade to my Dell 3100 Series computer, with 3.06 Ghz Pentium 4 and 2 Ghz of memory.
The new Seagate HD seemed noisy at first, but is now whisper-quiet after entering "SETUP" and changing the BIOS setting to allow the Drive Manufacturer to select the proper accoustic settings automatically.
The Dell's factory "Default" settings overlook the processor's Hyper-Threading technology and the adjustable hard-drive functions. Spend a few minutes to tune your machine to perform the way YOU want it to !!
My Seagate came with all the parts and software necessary for a quick and easy installation.
UPDATE:
After more than one full year of use, the Seagate 500GB Hard Drive has functioned perfectly -- and I'm a happy and satisfied customer !!
Thanks, Amazon.com !!

This is an OEM version which doesn't come with cable and screws. It worked in my Netgear Readynas Duo flawlessly. The 5 year Seagate warranty is so good that I don't need to worry about long term reliability. I have two of them in the DUO on Raid 1. So it's next to impossible to lose data and money with the warranty, LOL. It gets warm but not hot compared to other hard drives I had. I highly recommend it if you can get one at a good price.