Customer Reviews

Seagate FreeAgent Desk Hard Drive

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

The Seagate FreeAgent Deks 1TB for Mac (ST310005FJA105-RK) is a 1TB external drive Seagate is marketing for the Mac fanbase (though the drive could be re-formatted for Windows). I purchased the drive because my iTunes Music folder had soared to 120GB in size, and I needed to move the folder permanently to an external drive to free up space on my internal drive.

The drive is 2.2 lbs and measures 7.28" in H x 1.48" in W x 5.98" in L . It comes with an AC adaptor, a Firewire 800 cable, a Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable (for those with older iMacs, like me, who only have 6-pin Firewire 400 ports), and a USB cable. The FreeAgent Desk itself sits on a small white stand with a rubber pad on the bottom. Unless I've missed something, the stand cannot be removed from the external drive itself. As a result, it must be placed upright. Seagate provides a 5 year limited warranty, so keep your receipt. The FreeAgent Desk is formatted for Mac and Time Machine ready. The brushed steel exterior, plastic white trim, and white cabling complement the iMac's appearance. The cache size isn't readily ascertainable, though the spin speed is 7200 RPM. Details on the drive from Seagate's website can be found here:[...]

After taking it out of the box, the FreeAgent Desk requires only two steps to set it up. First, plug the AC adaptor into the drive and power supply. Second, connect the drive to your iMac using the appropriate cable. I chose the Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable because Firewire transfers (even for a Firewire 400 port) are reportedly faster than a USB 2.0 transfer, and because I need my USB ports for other devices. Because I plan to keep the drive constantly connected, I placed it only about 6 inches from the computer itself.

Mac OSX Leopard immediately recognized the drive. The preferences window for Time Machine, which I hadn't used before, popped up on its own and asked me whether I wanted to use the external drive as the backup drive for Time Machine. I did, but before I completed the Time Machine setup, I wanted to move my iTunes Music folder so the first Time Machine backup would mirror the internal drive as I wanted it to be, not as it was. I turned off Time Machine in the "preferences" window, printed out and carefully followed the instructions I'd previously found online for moving my iTunes Music folder to an external drive, and waited for the 120GB transfer to complete. I didn't time the transfer, but it took between 30 minutes and 1 hour or so. After the transfer was complete and my iMac's hard drive no longer had dangerously low space, I re-opened Time Machine preferences, turned it "on," and allowed it to do its magic. After heading out of the room to watch a Christmas movie with my wife and children, I stopped back in and found Time Machine had already completed two backups to the external drive (now only 57 GB of data).

As other reviews have noted, the drive, when active, has a white light emanating from the bottom of the unit, creating a pool of light under the drive and on top of the foot of the stand. Also, the Seagate logo on the front of the drive is backlit by a white light. Both lights go off when the drive goes to sleep. The drive is extremely quiet. It sits on my desktop near my computer and generally cannot be heard. I can hear it spin up as it comes out of sleep mode (a faint, high-pitched sound, followed by a click), and, if I listen closely, can hear a low background hum after it finishes spinning up and begins actively working. I was concerned about noise level since the drive sits directly on my desktop, but so far the noise level is fine.

My media (both music and video) streams perfectly from the FreeAgent Desk through iTunes, although there is 3-4 second lag in start time if the FreeAgent Desk is in sleep mode when I click "play" in iTunes. Once the external drive spins up, the media plays as if I were running it off the internal drive. We also have an Apple TV which is synced to our iMac, and we were able to play a movie now residing on the FreeAgent Desk drive through Apple TV without a hitch. Now that Apple TV and iTunes are using the iTunes Music folder on the FreeAgent Desk, I can continue adding media without worrying about the amount of disk space it's taking up on my internal drive.

All in all, a great purchase. Sleek, quiet, and a ton of space. Note: If you use your external hard drive both to back up files (i.e., Time Machine) and to store active files (i.e., iTunes Music folder), just remember that the active files on the external hard drive are not being backed up. You may want to have a plan to ensure these files are backed up as well.

Since my Mac Mini came with an 80GB hard drive, I was desperate for more storage. After much research, the Seagate FreeAgent 1TB external hard drive was the best solution for me. The drive is clad in brush metal and white plastic trim, which matches the color of most Mac Desktops. It transfers data pretty quickly through the Firewire.

Besides unpacking the drive, you only have to do two things to get this drive up and running, plug in the power cord and connect the drive to your Mac. It couldn't be any easier. The connectivity of the drive gives you a few options. There are 2 Firewire 800 ports and 1 USB 2.0 port.

Here's where the details matter. Seagate included all the necessary cables so that you don't have to spend extra money or extra time to get running. It's a really nice touch considering the high price you have to pay for FireWire cables from the local electronic store.

There is one flaw with this drive. There is no on or off switch. The drive simply goes to "sleep" when not in use. This becomes a problem if your Mac, line mine, is your media center in the living room. When watching a movie, the drive can come back to life and glow in the background. There isn't a way to disable the lighting effect on the drive too. Trust me, I've looked. I think another reviewer had the same issues.

Conclusion: 1 TB of storage is more than enough for my Mini. Will the drive work with a PC? Yes it will. Just use the USB port. I would recommend this drive to anyone looking for additional storage.

What's in the box:
Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1TB drive
1 FireWire 800 cable
1 FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 cable
1 USB 2.0 cable
Power adaptor
Documentation

The hard drive "dismounts" when my iMac goes to sleep and I receive an "error--external device not disconnected appropriately". The hard drive then has to be unplugged and the computer restarted in order for the drive to again be mounted. I spent 45minutes on hold with Seagate service before speaking with a technician. Though nice, he was of no assistance in solving the issue. Although the product is "for MAC", blogs reveal that other Mac users have had the same problems. Wish I had read those earlier. I cannot recommend this product. Read the 5 year warranty carefully. If given a replacement, it may be a "refurbished" product.

Don't have much experience with this yet, just received it a couple of days ago. Plugged it in to my macbook pro running OSX 10.4.9 and it "just worked", no problems. Small, looks good, completely quiet, 5-yr warrantee. The mac reports the drive's capacity is 931.19 GB.

However, I'm writing this to warn mac users about one thing: it has a bright light, which shines both through the bottom and through the little logo-thing on the upright panel, that is on whenever the disc is working, and there is no way to turn it off. (It does turn off when the disc sleeps after a period of no use.) The only disc manager software Seagate offers is windows only. I specifically wrote their tech support to ask it there's any way to turn the light off, and they said no, there's no way on "this platform" (the mac). I wrote back to ask who I would contact to suggest that such software be written, and they wrote back "The new drives we are marketing for the Mac are designed as storage drives and will not come with any software. We suspect most customers will use Time Machine to backup to those drives. I can't say what the future will hold for our Mac support of this software, but it doesn't appear we are going to update the software that will allow us to interface with the light or sleep interval on the Mac platform."

If you have it in your bedroom and want transfers or backups running at night, this could be a dealbreaker.

Pros:

Superfast
Crazy easy super simple setup
I like the light at night makes a good night light (when drive is not asleep)

Cons:
Takes a few minutes to be recognized by Mac OS X Tiger the first time you plug it in.
Light when in use might bother some people.
The light goes out when the drive goes to sleep, this could be good or bad depending on your use.

Setup:

I pulled it out of the box, plugged in the power just like the instructions say then plugged in the Firewire 800 cable. And nothing. I double checked the connections and then tried the USB 2 cable. Nothing...

I called Apple Tech support and then just as they were coming on the line I see the light on the front and underneath light up and suddenly the new Seagate Harddrive icon appears on my iMac OS X Tiger desktop.

I click on it and Finder Opens right away and it's working!!

Use:

I bought this drive because the Harddrive on my iMac was full and overflowing. Also an old Maxtor USB 2 drive I had plugged in was so slow.

This Seagate is lightening fast like having the files on my regular drive. My old Maxtor USB 2 was always kind of slow when editing photos but this thing is just like having them on the iMac Hard Drive. I thought I would need to keep editing photos on my main iMac hard drive but this new drive is so fast I won't need to.

Appearance:

It's smaller then my old Maxtor 320 GB USB 2 drive and much sleeker. The housing is made out of plastic but it looks like aluminum on the sides. About half the physical size despite having 3 times the storage space on the drive.

Light:

When the disk is operating the logo on the front does this cool slow pulsing with the glow getting slightly brighter and then darker. Very cool, very Sci Fi like. I like it a lot. Plus a light glows in the bottom towards the stand making it appear like it's floating on air in the dark. The light does go out though when the drive goes to sleep.

Sleep mode:

Both my iMac 24" and this Seagate drive go to sleep and wake up just find. There is the usual slight delay when you click on the drive after it has been to sleep but you can hear a very slight whine if you put your ear next to it as it spins up. And it spins up pretty quick usually waking up in only a couple of seconds or so.

Recommendation:

I couldn't be more pleased. If you own a Mac with Firewire 800 and you don't the light at night then get it you won't be disappointed.

I'm a big fan of the MyBook Studio drives, so I was unsure about this drive when I bought it on sale. But it really won me over. It's far quieter than the Western Digital drive. It's also much thinner than the MyBook cases. It's also pre-formatted for Mac HFS+ Journaled.

It features cool white Firewire 800 and USB cables and matching white power cord. You can buy a 800/400 cable if you don't have FW800. The silver case blends perfectly with my MacBook Pro unibody. The underside of the case is illuminated, which you'll either love or hate (I love how it lights up my desk). The Seagate logo also illuminates white, but it doesn't display disk activity. In fact, there are no disk indicators on the case. There's no also power button. When it's plugged in, it's on. Some may be bothered by that omission. I found the MyBook's pulsing display to be distracting (especially when you have several drives lined up).

But the Seagate Mac is a great drive that looks terrific next to a Mac!

PROS: Slim profile, Fast Firewire 800 interface, cool LED glow, quiet drive mechanism.
CONS: Foot not removable, can only stand vertically, not stackable, no power button, no activity lights, foot will probably break off if dropped.

DO NOT BUY THIS DRIVE!
THIS DRIVE DOES NOT RECONNECT AFTER AN iMac GOES TO SLEEP. I have contacted tech support about the problem and they have not resolved the issue. Here's their last response: "Beyond using the power setting on the Mac, if this does not resolve the issue you would need to install the drive with software on a PC to turn off it's energy saving options."

I'm buying another backup hard drive because my last Seagate started clicking and stopped working after about 2 years. I gave it credit for lasting that long and decided to stick with Seagate. This one arrived and was broken upon delivery - again with the clicking noises. I already lost all my data and backups once from a broken Seagate, not sure I'm ready to lose any more. Too many breaks for the lower price.

So glad I got this. It's gotta be the easiest thing I've set up on my Mac. No complicated instructions... just had to plug it in. And it comes with all the fancy Firewire cords too. It did take a few minutes to show up on my laptop. Looks like it was just the initial setup time because it's always connected now and the files transfer really fast. Some of the other reviews complain about the light, but it actually looks really cool. Kinda looks like it's hovering! I'm sure I could just throw a towel over it if doing an over-night download. I think my PowerMac is a little jealous because this Seagate hard drive gets everyone's attention now =). This little hard drive is pretty cool and is really quiet. It holds a ridiculous amount of files. Finally, there is an external hard drive that looks like a Mac and can handle all of the video, sound, and picture files we need it for!

The Seagate FreeAgent Hard Drive for Mac is easy to set up and get running with Time Machine. Backup is automatic and you don't have to think about it. Moving or copying files to the hard drive was also easy.

However, for a product that is supposedly compatible with a Mac, the hard drive disconnects when my iMac goes to sleep. When coming out of sleep mode, the iMac gives an error message that the hard drive has disconnected. I emailed Seagate about this issue, and after several rounds of emails with multiple people, their "mac expert" said that the problem has something to do with the firewire connection. The Seagate person said it was an issue with Apple and the operating system, and that the hard drive was fine. If that is the case, then the drive is not fully compatible with the iMac. I've dealt with this issue by using sleep mode less frequently, and hoping that my files are getting backed up most of the time.