Seagate FreeAgent Desk 500 GB External Hard Drive - Silver (ST305004FDA2E1-RK, Recertified)

by Seagate

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 6.8 x 1.3 inches ; 2.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001FW9QGQ
• Item model number: ST305004FDA2E1-RK
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (467 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

Product Description

Capacity: 500 GB

From the Manufacturer

With its huge capacity and sleek design, the FreeAgent® Desk storage solution delivers a powerful yet simple way to help safeguard all your photos, music, videos, and documents. Included, easy-to-use software helps keep your information safe and private with automatic data backup and encryption of your important files and folders. Environmentally smart utilities help save energy by putting your FreeAgent drive in sleep mode once it has been idle for 15 minutes. And you can take advantage of its flexibility to lie on its side or stand vertically to maximize your workspace.

Durable brushed metal finish, dynamic display lighting

Easy-to-use encryption, password-protect critical files.

Modern Design
With its huge capacity and sleek design, the FreeAgent® Desk storage solution delivers a powerful yet simple way to help safeguard all your photos, music, videos, and documents.

Security
Included, easy-to-use software helps keep your information safe and private with automatic data backup and encryption of your important files and folders.

Dual orientation to maximize space, easily stackable, energy efficient

Space Saving and Energy Efficient
Environmentally smart utilities help save energy by putting your FreeAgent drive in sleep mode once it has been idle for 15 minutes. And you can take advantage of its flexibility to lie on its side or stand vertically to maximize your workspace. Plus, multiple drives can easily stack on top of each other.

Key Features

• Conveniently store all your photos, music, videos and documents in one place thanks to generous storage capacity.
• Enjoy a sleek, modern design that offers the choice of horizontal or vertical orientation to complement your desktop environment.
• Easily protect your data with automatic backup software.
• Keep your important files and folders private with powerful software encryption technology.
• Sync content between your FreeAgent Desk drive and other portable drives so you’ll always have your current versions wherever you are.
• Experience fast data transfer with a USB 2.0 interface.
• Get started quickly with pre-loaded software. No CDs!
• Save energy with an environmentally smart utility that can put your drive in sleep mode once it has been idle for 15 minutes.
• Enjoy peace of mind with a 5-year limited warranty from the worldwide leader in storage solutions.

What’s in the Box
FreeAgent® | Desk external hard drive, FreeAgent software pre-loaded on drive (Windows only), Quickstart guide, Base stand, Attachable feet, USB cable and Power supply. END

Product Description

The FreeAgent Desk storage solution includes easy-to-use software that helps keep your information safe and private with automatic backup and encryption of your important files and folders. Environmentally smart utilities help save energy by putting your FreeAgent drive in sleep mode once it has been idle for 15 minutes. Its design is sleek and modern, so you can take advantage of its flexibility to lie on its side or stand upright to maximize your workspace.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

125 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Failed Out of the Box - Common Failure, January 22, 2009

By 

Sam "Sam" (OKC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1.5 TB External Hard Drive - Silver (ST315005FDA2E1-RK, Recertified) (Personal Computers)

I do computer repairs.

I normally don't like to see reviews that rate a product with only one star because they got an "out of box failure" but I will have to add myself to the category of people that will not give a product the benefit of a doubt.

I already have a 500gb Maxtor that has worked perfectly. I back up a lot of customers machines in my line of work and like to keep their data for a few months in the event they have a failure, so that was the reason I needed even a larger external hard drive. Also I liked the fact this had an esata connection for my own personal computer.

I plugged the power in and started hearing a double clicking sound. It didn't sound good from my experience with hard drives. I then connected the USB connector. Nothing happened. I waited a while longer and, pulled up the directory and the drive was there. Created a folder and ran across the instructions again. It should have installed the software when the USB was connected.

So I shut it down (and powered down), rebooted my computer and went through the same process again. This time it worked as expected. No clicking sounds... just normal drive activity. It installed the software automatically. Good... I was happy... must have just been a fluke.

A few seconds later I got an error, "delayed write failure" and an explanation the data was not written.

I've never been too impressed with Seagate. I always liked Maxtor (before they were bought out) better with Western Digital in second place.

I decided to give it another chance. I uninstalled the software, ran a scan on the registry and cleaned it up. Started all over again with a new USB port, just to be safe. Exact same thing as my first experience. Started the double clicking sound, pause, then double clicking sound.

Once again, Seagate is not up to prime time. It will probably be a number of years before I try Seagate again. Too bad, because I like the company as I know some people that work there. I think the engineering is top of the line but production must really suffer.

Amazon reviews are so valuable. A quick search found the delayed write failure a common problem when it dies. I took it back (BestBuy) and got a 1 tb Western Digital (My Book). It is very quite... a little larger than the Seagate (about the size of my Maxtor), and much quieter (almost no sound) operation than my Maxtor and Seagate (when it wasn't clicking, but simply accessing data). I've only had the WD for a couple of hours so I can't attest to the software or how it will perform in the future, but I can say that I have been very pleased with the Maxtor. I've had the Maxtor for about a year.

Just looking at the reviews here and my own experience, I would say avoid this product... especially this model.

==============
It's now 2 years later and the Western Digital is still going strong with no problems.

209 of 230 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mac OS X 10.5 and your external drive..., December 25, 2008

By 

Charles E. Paulsen "Chucksen" (Clio, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive ST310005FDA2E1-RK (Silver) (Personal Computers)

I ordered this drive because of the capacity and the price figuring that when it arrived I would simply reformat it as HFS+ and plug it into my Macintosh Network. The problem was that every time I tried to use Disk Utility to reformat it I kept getting an error (I forget the exact verbiage). Not only that but when I attached it to my PC running XP Home it wouldn't even recognize it as a hard drive - it thought it was a DVD drive.

I poked around on the Seagate website and found this troubleshooting procedure which solved my issue:

1. Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
2. Click on the Partition tab
3. Click on the Current Volume Scheme drop-down menu and select One (1) partition.
4. Click Options. From the Partition Schemes provided:
5. Click on the GUID Partition Table radio button
-OR-
Click on the Apple Partition Map radio button
6. Click OK. Select other options as desired (e.g., Volume Name, Format, etc.).
7. Click Apply. The Partition Disk screen opens.
8. Click Partition. At this point, the volume dismounts from the desktop and the drive is partitioned and formatted.
Note: When Volumes are created, Time Machine may open asking if you would like to use the volume for backups. Click Cancel to proceed.
When finished, select the Disk Utility from the Apple Menu and choose Quit Disk Utility

I can't blame Seagate, the box clearly said the drive was for an XP or Vista PC, so that's why I am giving it 5 stars. I am anticipating that this drive will perform as well as the 300 gb external Seagate I have been using for the last three years

213 of 237 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Started out great! Then it died... LEMONS!, December 28, 2008

By 

N. W. Campbeln "Campbeln" (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1.5 TB External Hard Drive - Silver (ST315005FDA2E1-RK, Recertified) (Personal Computers)

As has been mentioned on here and other sites (Tiger, New Egg, etc) this drive is from a great company with a great history, but this LEMON POS has gotta be weeks from being recalled.

Mine worked great under OSX with MacFUSE/NTFS-3G and XP for about 2 weeks. Then the little punk died along with 200gig or so of my data. The disk didn't move off my desk the entire time, no drops, knocks or otherwise.

I love Seagate and I really love their FreeAgent drives (which is why I bought this even after reading the negative reviews here and elsewhere) but this model is a LEMON! DO NOT PURCHASE THIS DRIVE! There's a reason other reviews have mentioned instant RMAs, these things have a high failure rate - hence the no questions asked returns.

Seagate: Recall this POS and reissue a new model with these issues fixed. This is sullying your good name!

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