Customer Reviews

Seagate Expansion 3 TB USB 3.0 Desktop External Hard Drive STAY3000102

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(68)

 

 

This external drive lives in the plainest of black plastic cases. On the front is an all white Seagate logo and next to that a small green LED power/busy light. Plug it in and you'll find few files stored in it. A back-up utility, some set-up files, user guides and not much else. Just a lot of empty space. No stands, no back-lit logos, no extra inputs. On the back you'll find a power input and a USB 3 jack. In the box you'll find the USB cable and power adapter that plug into those jacks, as well as a quick start sheet and warranty card all packed in eco-friendly packaging. This is as simple and plain as it gets.

I started by plugging this into a netbook running Windows 7. Windows recognized it immediately and asked if I'd like to use it as a back-up drive which I did. It was easy and problem-free.

The Seagate Expansion hard drive is set-up for Windows computers, but if you're willing to take a minute to reformat it, it'll work fine for Apple users too. I did just that.

Sara Plain and Tall has to be a good girl, no misbehaving allowed! Unfortunately, previous versions of this drive have a reputation for poor reliability, so I set out to get this drive to fail. I programmed my Mac to fill it up completely, erase it, and fill it up again, over and over. I kept this drive reading and writing continuously for several days. The Seagate remained a quiet workhorse. I couldn't find any hint of distress. No hotspots, no strange noises, nothing but its tiny green LED pulsing serenely letting me know it's busy. I haven't thrown it against the wall, but by every fair measure it's been a solid drive so far.

I promise to update this review if I run into a problem.

This is my third HDD in 3 years. One is a WD My Book 1TB that I use to back up to a Vista PC. The other is a Seagate GoFlex that I carry with me for my laptop. I got this one to provide more disk space for videos on my desk top.

It is an attractive unit with a matte black finish. It sits flat on 4 rubber feet which I like better than my upright WD. Unlike the WD, this has cooling vents on the bottom and feels cooler and quieter than my WD. There is an indicator light but no on/off switch.

The Seagate is simplicity itself to set up. Attach the power cord (it uses a two-blade plug) and then fit the USB lead and off you go. No formatting is needed on a Windows machine. You can drag and drop files right in. It is just like having another partition on your hard drive.

File transfer is as good as the WD with the USB 2.0. I copied a 1 GB file in 1min. 20 seconds. It can be attached to USB 3.0 which is supposed to be up to 10X faster. The actual available space is 1.81 TB.

Other than a simple connection picture, all information is available on internal folders - Registration, Dashboard (set up) and User guide in several languages with a Help manual that seems very good at a glance.

It includes software to set up auto backup of your C drive. You can set it to back up all files, or select "Customize My Back Up" to choose what files you want to back up.

So far I would have to say that I prefer this unit to my 10 month old WD, which has also been trouble free. The only thing I would like to see is an on/off switch.

 

When I received the box, I realized something was wrong. It rattled -- never a good sign with an electronic component. Something was loose within the hard drive's casing. Nonetheless, it seemed to work fine, powering on when I plugged in the power adapter. When I inserted the USB cable, Windows 7 recognized the drive just fine. I formatted the drive, removing all of Seagate's pre-installed software and proceeded to copy over 50 GBs of music. This took approximately an hour, at a speed of 16 mb/s over USB 2.0; not blazing fast, but acceptable.

So far, rattling aside, it seemed to be a reasonable product. I was going to test USB 3.0 when I copied the files back to my PC after a fresh Windows 7 install. I unhooked it from my computer and removed the power cable to turn the drive off.

The enclosure never powered back on. It was not asleep -- it was dead. No amount of unplugging and replugging the power cord back in would bring it back. The only option to get my data was to pry open the case. It should be mentioned that the case is NOT designed to be easily opened by the user, and, as such, you pretty much have to rip it apart to get to the hard drive. After much prodding with a screwdriver, I popped the case off and removed the HD, a Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB HD. These drives retail by themselves for around $70 - $80, so this external HD would appear to be a good deal, given the USB 3.0 support. If only it was more durable.

I'm going to throw the drive into a Thermaltake BlacX. The physical drive seems fine; the enclosure they put it in seems cheap and flimsy. When I opened it up, it turns out that a piece of the plastic case had broken off during shipping -- hence the rattling.

In summary, the performance is perfectly reasonable, the drive inside is of good quality, but the enclosure itself leaves a lot to be desired. The lack of eSata support may be a problem for some as well. If you do pick one of these up, I'd be very, very careful moving it about.

Update Aug. 30: I put the drive into the Thermaltake BlacX and attached it to my computer. Windows 7 immediately identified the drive. My data was intact, and I was able to copy all of files without any problem back to my primary drive. This confirms that it was a malfunction with the enclosure, which is a bit of good news: if the enclosure fails, at least the drive (hopefully, as in my case) will keep on going so you can get your data back.

 

I got the 3TB drive couple of days ago. Everything was fine: connected, installed, formatted NTFS, copied about 1.5 TB on it. Disconnected and re-connected the drive couple of times and everything seemed to work fine until today when I got a message: you must format the drive in order to access it.

Restarted the computer, checked the disk management (Win7) and the drive seemed to have the partition lost. So I had to reformat it. I just lost some data which was temporarily only on this drive. I couldn't imagine you can loose the partition so easily on a portable drive.

The drive was only on my desk and always disconnected with Safe Remove Hard drive.

Very disappointed of this drive :(

The WD rocks, it took so many hits and still work fine.

Costi

--update Dec 4th
After I formatted the drive and created 2 partitions (2TB and 1TB), and copied 1TB in the larger one, today I just lost one 500 GB folder. The used space is still 1TB but I can't see the folder anymore. I checked the drive with a data recovery tool and indeed the files are there. But if I try to recover, they'll have Recover_xxxxxx.extension names, which I don't like. So much pain with this drive.

Best thing is to wait until technology matures, so you don't loose data and time trying to recover it.

--update 2: Dec 4th
Seagate recommends to use their recovery tool. Pay another $99 to recover something from their hard drives :)))))). They should give you a licence to recover your lost data as courtesy. An indeed the data is there waited to be recovered. Their tool see the data and can recover it in the original folder structure. But I won't pay $99 - same as I almost paid for the drive.

"If your data is important and it is not accessible, I would first try our data recovery software to see if this helps to recovery the data. Here is a link to this utility: [...]

 

I purchased this hard drive to give me ease of mind that my data would be backed up and safe. However this product is a nightmare. I had a good experience with a prior Seagate external hard drive which has become too small so thought the brand would be OK. Not so in my experience with this Amazon purchase.
A) First problem is that this product switches off all by itself (have since learned it has a sleep mechanism) and does not always come back to life when the computer is switched back on. The only way I have discovered to make it work again is to unplug the attached wires and shake it around! Amazing high tech wouldnt you say?
AA) Most importantly however is that I have lost critical files which cannot be accessed (as pointed out by a helpful message that brings chills to the spine): "files corrupt and unreadable" and to run "Check Disk Utility".
I called Seagate Tech Support and was told I could return the device - however I would of course have to part company with all the data on the hard drive! Not a good solution.
The technician helped me run the Check Disk Utility - and it ran alright: so well that unstoppable "deleted" "deleted" "deleted" messages flashed across the screen for a while: so now I dont get the "corrupt file" message any more - but now I have discovered that ALL the so previous unreadable files have gone, lost, kaput.
Scary. Loss of data going back years, lost in a flash.

A few days later....promised "sleep" software over-ride hasnt been received and OH NO....I am getting the dreaded "corrupt file" message again - I have no idea what data I will lose next, maybe all of it.

UPDATE: I have indeed no access to a remaining major file owing to the "corrupt file" message. Chilling. Do not be fooled by the company's "generic" responses on this Amazon website: this product is not for everyone. period.

DO NOT PURCHASE THIS PRODUCT UNLESS THERE IS CERTAINTY THAT IT IS 100% COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR SYSTEM AND THAT ALL 100% OF ITS CAPACITY/COMPARTMENTS CAN BE MANAGED BY WHATEVER SYSTEM SOFTWARE YOU ARE OPERATING. This is not a "one size fits all" type of product at all. I now have to stop using this drive, purchase a RELIABLE external drive and transfer remaining data to the new drive. I wish I had done research before mindlessly responding to the Amazon Gold Box "deal" owing to a price reduction. Worst deal of my life - EVER.
It is outrageous that this type of machine is on the market and I would like to know why Amazon is making money by selling total junk.

 

I am extremely overprotective of my digital files. I back them up on discs and thumb drives when I can, but I Always back them up on my external hard drives. And yes, that's plural. I back up my backed up content, and then make another backup for those. All in all, there's usually at least three 1-2TB drives with my stuff on them at any given moment, and a few more in waiting. I have all the major brands, Western Digital, Toshiba, and Iomega. This is actually my first Seagate. So far I've loaded it up with 500gb of stuff without complaint, but of course there's not much an external hard drive can do wrong until it crashes. Still, they aren't all made equal. Here's my list of pros and cons based on my 1 month of experience - of course, I'll update the review if I discover something along the way.

PROS:
- Fast (but only Really fast if you're using USB 3.0. With regular 2.0, it's about average)

- Quiet (by far the most quiet hard drive I've used. I find myself checking it to make sure it's actually turned on!)

- Doesn't get extremely hot (all my other EHDs get HOT and FAST. I'm extremely pleased to see that this one doesn't get nearly as hot as other brands, and takes a while just to get warm.)

CONS:
- Casing. I MUCH prefer my EHD to be cased in a strong metal instead of the plastic used with this device. Admittedly it is made of a stronger plastic than a WD brand I have (which has a crack in it) but it still feels cheap-ish. I don't know that it has any effect on the quality, but I feel much more comfortable with hard drives that use cases like This and This. I'm fairly clumsy, and I want to know that if my EHD takes a tumble, it won't get a big nasty crack (and let in dust, if not damage the important data).

- Software. I understand that the software included with this is VERY minimal and not required at all for normal use. Its simply there for a few benefits, like automatically shutting down after so many minutes of non-use. For some, this is an added bonus. For me, I'm superstitious and would prefer absolutely no software to be included whatsoever. It really isn't much of a worry, though, just don't install anything if you aren't interested in it.

Overall, I'm pleased. Fast, quiet, and cool are really the three most important components of an external hard drive, and this 2TB Seagate release fits the bill for me so far. It does just what it is made to do: store my stuff in a safe place. As long as it doesn't crash on me, I'll be extremely satisfied. I only wish it was cased in metal instead of plastic.

Very disappointing!!! Usually have had decent experiences with Seagate drives but I cant recommend this one. Unit initially powered on but will not power up after PC is shut down or restarted. Have to remove and reinsert power cable before drive powers back up.

 

I bought this drive despite all the negative reviews, thinking how bad could it possibly be, it's made by a Seagate, right? Wrong, immediately after getting it out the box I plugged it in, it works fine, but the power supply connection issue is definitely real. All you have to is wiggle the power cord, not even the barrel plug just a little bit and the drive restarts. You would think Seagate had better QC than this, guess not. They are going to have fix the defect and recall the bad drives or they will eventual end up with a class action on their hands.

I'm a longtime Seagate devotee, and I bought two of these 2TB drives for backup purposes... FORTUNATELY, I mirrored an identical backup on each of the two drives, because, upon accessing them just over a month after the initial backup (and using them only a few times over the course of this month), I plugged them in tonight and found one to be completely corrupt... Windows cannot access the disk at all. Now I'm stuck wondering whether I should fight with Seagate to exchange it for another drive that--according to many reviews on here--will end up dead, too... or shell out more money for a brand new drive from another manufacturer.

 

I've heard many mixed reviews of Seagate external hard drives. Mine, so far, has worked well. My drive is less than half full at this point, and not many months old, but I've heard no click-clacking (as others have mentioned) and have had no issues retrieving or storing data. Thus far, no durability issues, but I do move it around gingerly when transporting it.
The drive itself is easy to use - plug it in, add the files you'd like to store, and you're good to go. Transfer process seems speedy enough. I moved 3 gb of pictures over in about 25 minutes. I mainly use this for pictures and video, just as a back-up in case anything ever happens to my main drive, and so far I've been pleased.