Seagate FreeAgent 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive ST310005FDA1E1-RK

by Seagate

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 10 x 5 inches ; 2.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001AHSNB0
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: ST310005FDA1E1-RK
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 22, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description When its time to back up and protect your digital content--photos, music, documents, and more--it doesn't get much easier than the Seagate Free Agent Desktop USB Portable Hard Drive. Simply plug it in to any power source, connect the USB cable to any computer, and you're ready to go. This hip-looking hard drive takes up less room on your desk than an ordinary stapler, giving you more space for your other desktop items.

Powerful storage device with a sleek new design.

Takes up less room on your desk than a stapler.

Keep all your digital content in a safe and secure location.

Portable Performance and Security
If you're still relying on your personal computer or back-up CDs or DVDs to store your digital content or vital personal or family documents, you're running an unnecessary risk. Your computer can only hold so many files and can crash at any time, leaving you helpless to access your content. DVDs and CDs have a place in archiving, but they get easily scratched and lost. It's too risky to store everything in your computer, and too time-consuming and cumbersome to have a drawer full of CDs or DVDs.

Computers come and go, but your content should always be nearby. With up to 1000 glorious gigabytes, the Free Agent external hard drive is the best place to gather and access all of your important photos, movies, music, games and documents. Simply plug in the power and the USB cable and you’re ready to go.

The Seagate Free Agent is big enough to store a huge portion of your digital content in a safe and secure environment, but small enough to let you take that content with you wherever you go. In other words, having the Seagate Free Agent is like having your entire computer with you at all times, but in a package that's a small fraction of the space and weight of your computer.

Designed to live peacefully in your home or office, the Free Agent external hard drive is extra quiet and takes up less room on your desk than a stapler. Even the cable ports are base-mounted to help keep your desk free of clutter. We even add a little bit of sophistication to your desktop with the unique espresso brown finish and molten amber illumination.

The sleek and slim design of this hard drive--only measures 7.5 x 1.6 x 6.4-inches (H x D x W)--and a weight of less than four pounds. The Seagate Free Agent lets you transfer files seamlessly from your computer via its USB 2.0 connection at a brisk transfer rate of up to 480Mb/sec. The drive delivers a spindle speed of 7,200 RPM, giving you the high-speed performance you need to back your data up quickly and safely.

The Seagate Free Agent is ready to use out of the box with a PC, but it can be made Mac-ready in a matter of minutes with Mac OS X's Disk Utility. This portable hard drive is already compatible with Windows Vista (as well as Windows XP and Windows 2000), allowing you to backup your content regardless of operating system upgrades.

At this compact size, and with this high performance, you now have the ability to take your data with you anywhere you go, so your digital content finally has room to breathe. A five-year warranty is also included, giving you complete peace of mind.

What's in the Box
FreeAgent Desktop drive, USB 2.0 cable, AC power adapter, and quick start guide.

Product Description

1TB - 7200rpm - USB 2.0 - USB - External

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

143 of 148 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big storage, some frills, external power, September 26, 2008

By 

A. Dent "Aragorn" (Minas Anor, GD) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seagate FreeAgent 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive ST310005FDA1E1-RK (Personal Computers)

I've had this for about 3 weeks now* because I wanted yet another backup for my family pictures and some of the more interesting videos (I always back up the stuff that I really care about on several drives kept reasonably apart from each other). I can't think of any major issues and the only minor ones are the orange light that glows every time the disk is accessed - yes, we know, data is being read or written to the disk by the computer - and the external power supply.

Overall impressions: easy to install. I just plugged it in and... that was it on my Windows machine. The unit comes with some backup software but I like to be in control myself so I can't say that I bothered testing it. It's good to know it's there though. The size is reasonable - not the smallest external hard drive you can think of but it's not enormous either.

Oh, and the price is great. In fact, my only regret is not buying it from Amazon because, it turns out, I paid too much for it elsewhere back then. It's also possible that the price went down since I ordered it.

To conclude: if you have a relatively large amount of data to back up, or if you want to store pictures AND some videos, then this is what you need. If all you need is to back up your 10,000 pictures family album, you can get away with a smaller drive but, given the price... why would you not buy this one? I am sure, it will be viewed as a 'relatively small drive' 5 years from now but, until then, all the data that you need keeping will be backed up.

Oh, I forgot, you get a 'free' USB 2.0 wire in the box.

___________________________________________
*(Oct. 9, 2008) - While my experience with this product continues to be positive, I suggest that you read the other not-so-positive reviews before deciding whether you should purchase this unit or not. Also, I left a note to this review which describes how I am using this drive.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great In the Beginning, Frustrating After 6 Months..., May 19, 2009

By 

J. Tran - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seagate FreeAgent 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive ST310005FDA1E1-RK (Personal Computers)

Had I written a review 6 months ago, I would have given this product 5 stars. Ease of use and huge storage for a decent price. Now I would rate this product very poorly, because the device is no longer operable, I've lost hundreds of gigs worth of information, and the warranty, frankly, is a pain in the butt.

I didn't use the device very often, so overheating wasn't an issue. All of a sudden, this beeping sound kept going off, and the device was no longer detected on any computers. Warranty is for 5 years (hah!), and if you want your data, you have to be willing to cough up the money. If you open the casing at all in an attempt to rectify, warranty is voided. Plus, the warranty means you can get a refurbished device, not a new one! The new one has already failed on me within 6 months; I'm thinking the refurbished one will last me another few months. Plus, the shipping requirements make returning your defective device more burdensome than necessary.

As to the design of the unit, it's cumbersome and ill-executed. Slim, but tall and easy to knock over, which I bet would kill the drives. I didn't do anything to mine, and already, it's dead. All in all, I can understand the good reviews, but give it a few months. I think many of the bad reviews come from users who have used it for a good duration, only to find out that the device has suddenly stopped working altogether.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very nice backup system well-built and well-designed, November 8, 2008

By 

Roger J. Buffington (Huntington Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Seagate FreeAgent 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive ST310005FDA1E1-RK (Personal Computers)

I have been a PC nut since the Apple II and original IBM PC, and backup technology is just now getting good for us small office and home users. I have tried tape backup units, DVDs, and other classic solutions, never with real confidence that my data was stored safely. This 1TB HDD from Seagate really is a superb backup unit. On the competent advice of my IT professional, I bought two of these, one for my business, one for my home office.

The unit is very nicely built, with an attractive black finish and it stands vertically. It has a large orange vertical LED the brightness of which indicates whether the unit is working or on standby. The unit is very compact. If you need more than one later, you can stand them next to one another without taking up much space. But 1TB is enough storage for a LOT of files. Of course, in a year or two no doubt there will be units of the same physical size that store multiple terabytes. Nevertheless, for now, 1TB is a lot!

The unit installed effortlessly. You simply plug it into the power supply, and attach the USB (or firewire) connector to the computer. On my Vista Premium Home Edition machine, a menu came right up asking me if I wanted to install the backup software with which the unit comes equipped. I let it do so, and in a minute or so the software was installed and the 1TB HDD was shown in my Computer directory as ready to go. No need for reading anything; true plug and play. The unit is quiet and unobtrusive; it just does its job without annoying the user in any way. Nice!

I did install the backup software, and it seems to be very nice. In fact, this is the first time in years that I have seen backup software that I thought was better than just doing the backups manually. One complaint (minor) is that the backup software makes you specify each directory on a drive by checking a box. I would prefer an option that just lets me back up an entire drive. No big deal. The software enabled me to schedule a nightly backup every night, and that is an absolute first for me for my home office. A very nice feeling to know that one has one's files safely backed up. And one can easily view the contents of the unit to actually see the backed-up files.

This is a USB2 unit, so transfer speeds are not as fast as a SCSI drive would be, but usually this is not an issue with the type of use I plan, as routine backups and storage in increments does not take long. It did take roughly 1 hour twenty-five minutes to move about 34 GB of photo files from my little USB HDD to this unit; that is one USB2 unit to another, so it was bound not to be real speedy.

Incidentally, the unit is formated NTFS, so no need to reformat it to get rid of FAT32 format as is the case with some drives. It truly was ready to go for my Vista system.

So far I am extremely pleased with this unit. It is a fast, well-built, well-designed and cost-effective solution to mass storage of data.