Seagate 300 GB External USB 2.0/FireWire Hard Drive with Backup

by Seagate

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 5.7 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0006FS1Z0
• Item model number: 9Y7685-500
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 27, 2004

Product Description

Includes: BounceBack Express, pedestal stand, USB cable, FireWire cable, AC adapter, & more. Seagate 300GB External Hard Drive - Backing up your computer's hard drive is essential to protecting your vital information. But with the size of hard drives these days, burning dozens of CDs and DVDs is no longer a convenient solution. Thankfully external hard drives, like this model from Seagate, are available to easily backup your entire computer with the push of a button. All of your data is then quickly transferred via a super-fast USB 2.0 or FireWire connection. Unique Interlocking Design - Allows the drive to be stacked Drive can also stand vertically with the included pedestal stand Built-in self-monitoring technology that continuously checks the hard drive for data safety and drive performance PC System Requirements - Microsoft Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, & XP Mac System Requirements - Mac OS 8.6, 9.x, & X (note - backup software does not support Mac OS 8.6 or 9.x) Unit Dimensions (w/o pedestal) - 7.125 (d) x 6.5 (w) x 2.25 (h) Unit Dimensions (w/ pedestal) - 7.125 (d) x 2.5 (w) x 7 (h) Unit Weight - 2 lbs. 9.5 oz.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

119 of 122 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Buggy drive not ready for market, February 8, 2005

By 

Gregory Shapton (Claremont, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Seagate 300 GB External USB 2.0/FireWire Hard Drive with Backup (Personal Computers)

Unfortunately I didn't heed the various negative reviews on this drive. Formatted it to NTFS as soon as it arrived. In just a few days, Delayed Write Errors started showing up, caused by the drive randomly disconnecting itself from Windows XP. Called Seagate on the problem, only to have the technician admit they have had rampant problems with this drive. Their Engineering Dept is still trying to figure out what is wrong -- they promised to call me back on the issue, but have not done so. I have returned the drive to Amazon for credit. Stick with the 160GB or 200GB Seagate USB 2.0/Firewire external drives -- I have three of those and never had a problem with them!

95 of 98 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do not buy these drives!, February 15, 2005

By 

Leif (Emeryville, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seagate 300 GB External USB 2.0/FireWire Hard Drive with Backup (Personal Computers)

Our organization ordered 2 of these drives and 2 of the 400 GB variety of these drives. All 4 of them experienced write problems as indicated in the previous reviews.

The drive would be just humming along fine, and then suddenly write errors would start popping up in the system log.

We experienced these problems with both linux using the 2.4 kernel and Mac OS X. Based on the previous reviews here, and my own experience with 4 of the drives under two different operating systems/machine architectures I can only conclude that these drives have some serious design/engineering problems and should definitely be avoided.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars UNRELIABLE-NOT RECOMMENDED, March 6, 2005

By 

Jisun Hahn - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seagate 300 GB External USB 2.0/FireWire Hard Drive with Backup (Personal Computers)

Short version: I DO NOT RECOMMEND YOU TO BUY ANY SEAGATE DRIVES; power regulator seems to have problems & you might be able to retrieve data by cooling down the chip marked "smooth" if you are brave enough to try it & I WILL NOT BE RESPONSIVLE FOR ANY DAMAGES TO YOUR DRIVE OR DATA.

These new 300GB & 400GB drives are based on the current 8th generation of Seagate's Barracuda drives also known as 7200.8

Seagate's Barracuda drives are known for their quietness since 6th generation by employing fluid dynamic motor. The performance has been considered as average to better ones out there; however, the performance has not been so hot since 7th. For 8th generation, Seagate was pushing the sata's native queuing commend which cannot be supported under ata100 which the external model is based on.

Seagate's external model design has been same since the 1st generation with the 7200.7 Barracuda drive. Other than cheap plastic bodies, the design is a better side of external drives. Unlike other external drives, Seagate's external drive is designed to dissipate heat through the natural air flow with the helps from the attached heat sinks. Drives are kept under reasonable temp without the noisy cooling fans. Besides the good thermal characteristics, it also has a power switch & a button which can be used as an one touch backup solution with the included software.

Good things about the drive end here. 8th generation Barracuda has a buggy power regulator unit which makes the motor controller gets very hot. This prevents momentary power loss to the drive; this can be heard as a repeated clicking sounds. These clicking sounds are caused by the head moving to the park area and moving out from the parking area. When the motor controller gets how, it shots off to prevent from burn out, then the drive's main controller restarts the motor controller which gives power backs on momentarily. The drive might be able to sustain few minutes of disk actives; however sooner or later, the drive controller will stop working & the main controller will halt all the actives to prevent the data loss. Drive would go into sleep mode in idle even if power save on is disabled that is to cool down the drive.

I have tried 3 different 300GB drives from 3 different stores & all had same problems. I also tried one 300GB external which had same problems. 5 years warranty will not be good if the drive is this unreliable. Frankly I would have not bought one if the price, 5 years warranty, & the capacity were the issue because I have had more than few circuit board related problems with the Seagate. I also read a story about dead circuit board from 7200.7 @ slash dot org

I cannot be responsible for what I suggested here, but for those who needs to retrieve data at all cost can try to cool down the motor controller marked as "smooth" ( if you are not sure you can find one by touching the chips when there are disk actives) I retrieved my data by cooling down the chip.

My recommendation is not to buy Seagate's external model as it is proved to be unreliable.