Customer Reviews

Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500 GB USB 2.0/FireWire 400/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive ST305004FPA1E3-RK

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I've wanted an external hard drive for months now, and I thought for sure I'd get one of the Western Digital My Book drives -- very cool book-like design. But after reading all the middling reviews on the My Book drive, I finally elected to look elsewhere. The Seagate drives had good reviews (esp. the 360Gb drive, not so much the 500Gb drive, tho I don't understand why the disparity exists because they're essentially the same thing, only one is bigger).

The Seagate drive arrived last week so I fitted the FireWire adapter to the drive and set to work backing up each of my 4 computers. Worked just fine in every case using Norton Ghost (I didn't use the software that came with the Seagate drive). I was getting about 35Gb of data movement per hour using Norton Ghost to create the backup files and FireWire to transport them from my wife's laptop to the Seagate drive, but be aware that includes using disk verification after the backup is finished. I had similar results backing up three other computers in my home.

The drive is quiet! I can't really hear it, especially over the fan noise coming from my computer.

The drive is cool-looking! The amber glow -- which so distressed another reviewer that he had to put duct tape over it -- is hardly that bright at all, certainly nothing that ought to trouble anybody. Far better than those bright blue LED lights in use on so many computers and peripherals.

The drive has a great warranty! It has a five-year warranty. Note that he Western Digital My Book has only a ONE YEAR warranty. If you have confidence in the quality of your product, you'll have a longer warranty.

The only complaint I have, and if I could have, I'd have given this product only 4.5 stars instead of 5, is that you have the awkward design that requires the user to fit into the base of the drive an adapter that will either make the drive work with USB 2.0 or with FireWire 400. It's not a big deal, but I could see that somewhere down the line, I'll want to back-up using USB, but I won't remember where I put that dumb USB adapter. It would have been much nicer to have both USB and FireWire plugs in the base together.

Seagate did a nice job with packaging: The instruction manual essentially just said, "Plug it in, and it'll start working" (which was correct). It comes with both FireWire and USB cables, but be aware that the FireWire cable has big plugs at both ends, so it'll connect fine to most desktops, but for connecting with laptops, you'll most likely need a separate FireWire cable with the small plug to fit into the laptop FireWire port.

In all, it's worth 4.5 stars, but I can't do that with Amazon's rating system, but I like the drive a lot so I'm giving it the full 5 stars just so you'll consider this Seagate drive when you're in the market for an external drive. It's worth your notice!

I really love this drive and I have had no issues with it whatsoever. It is my favorite out of my 6 different Firewire drives. I am using it on a G4 Powerbook running 10.4.9, so I can say that there are no problems HERE with Mac compatibility. I have also used it with my G5 iMac.

What I like best about it is that it turns itself on and off when I wake and sleep my Powerbook, so that is one less thing to think about. I have been using it alot to record TV with an EyeTV device (no monthly fees to pay), so I often set up my Powerbook to wake and sleep itself when I am not home, and the drive wakes and sleeps right along with the Mac. The 7200-rpm drive records my audio/video with almost no glitches, unlike my (other) portable Firewire-bus powered drives which have frequent glitches (skipping etc), or my internal drive which isn't very usable for recording TV due to far too many glitches.

I also find that the drive is as cool as a cucumber. Those who had overheating apparently had defective fan control as well as their other problems. There are unfortunately lemons amongst all products.

The one thing I don't like about the drive is that the Firewire interface module is separate from the USB2/eSATA interface module (and takes the place of it in the base), so that I can't arbitrarily decide to use the drive with USB2 instead of Firewire (without spending a few minutes shuffling the parts around), but Firewire has better performance for sustained transfers anyway so I don't have much need to use USB2.

PCWorld's Editors Choice rating persuaded me to plunge into this all-too-often disappointing market. Foremost, the FreeAgent runs cool (just hand warm), it has an external powersupply (critical, as any mechanical device draws lots of juice from USB port - shortening battery life, etc). There is an on-off switch (surprisingly many units lack it); the modular design not only looks good, but provides connectivity options to select USB, USB/eSATA or firewire connection. Nice touch, the drive comes pre-formatted for the NTFS file system. Even after 3+ hours of continuous use (surface scan), the unit became warmer but not hot - a credit to sound engineering design. If you like freebies, there's a trial version of backup software, an offer to store your data via internet, and some other utilities -- personally, I just wipe them out.

The one hitch (not Seagate's problem) is the external eSATA controller; I purchased a Highpoint RR1522A which has 2 external ports and allows for RAID control of two drives. The controller works fine when the machine is awake, but seems to have problems reinitializing after a wakeup call, causing endless pulsating access to the HDD (??boot attempt) and sufficiently heavy power drain to activate the UPS alarm. Maybe have to return to the (slower) USB data link.

I need an external hard drive for backing up my music and pictures. I am choosing between MyBook and FreeAgent. I thought I would end up bought MyBook. Surprisingly, I got this Seagate FreeAgent Pro.

The drive is pretty solid and the design is better than I expected. It's pretty slick too. It has triple interface - USB, Firewire 400, and eSATA. I have tried USB and currently I am using Fireware 400. It performs better. The drive is pre-formated to NTFS. If you are a Mac user, you will need to reformat it before you can use the drive. But Mac OSX will prompt you to do it. It will be useful when you use Time Machine on the upcomning OSX 10.5.

Moreover, I have also tried FreeAgent Pro software and AutoBackup on my XP. Since I have another backup software (Acronis True Image 10), I found those Seagate is not useful. I end-up uninstall all of them (FreeAgent Pro tools and AutoBackup).

The pro version has a on/off switch on the drive. If you want to turn it off manually, you can do it easily. The non-pro version doesn't has it. But I don't need the on/off switch at all. The hard drive will turn to sleep-mode after the drive is inactive for 15 minutes. The light is dimmer when the drive is in sleep-mode. Western Digital My Book doesn't has this feature. Moreover, FreeAgent will turn itself off when my computer is off. It's good and convenient!

The other main reason I bought Seagate FreeAgent Pro because it has five years warranty! Even the regular version of FreeAgent has 5 year warranty too! This is the key reason! Most MyBook has only 1 year warranty. Only My Book Pro, or World edition has 3 years.

Since I didn't use the software FreeAgent provided, I was thinking about getting a regular version of FreeAgent instead of FreeAgent Pro. I went to the store and have noticd that the plastic material it use on the regular FreeAgent is significantly different. It looks cheap. The pro version looks a lot better and more elegant. Mroeover, it has additional interface.

There are something I don't like on this product: The Firewire conponent is a separate. Therefore, I need to unscrew the eSATA and USB component and put in the Firewire component if I want to use it.

Overall, the drive is pretty quiet and the hard drive itself is only mild warm. However, I have notice the interface component is very hot!! I concern me whether it's only my machine or in general. If you have the machine, you can hold the FreeAgent and touch the bottom of the unit, You might feel the bottom is hot! I probably will send an email to Seagate to find out whether it's normal or not. Other than this, this product is great!

I've owned this drive for 8 months and mainly use it with my MacBook Pro. I've partitioned and formatted it without any difficulties, however whenever I unplug the firewire cable (after dismounting the drive) and it goes into sleep mode, it never wakes up again. The only way I've managed to work around this is to unplug the power cable and plug it back in which becomes annoying after a while. In addition to that I only found out that the firewire and USB connections are on separate modules after purchasing it, which requires removing one and attaching the other one to use the two different interfaces. I don't do that often, but it's still another inconvenience. I've purchased, used, and recommended various Seagate drives before, unfortunately this one seems to favor looks rather than functionality and therefore don't recommend it to others.

The drive arrived quickly, well packaged, easily set up and running. It is quiet and the bundled software worked well. (Although when I first installed the autobackup it had a pop-up window offering a $[...] discount on additional licensed copies, and I bypassed and have never been able to get the discount code again. If you are like me and like to have licensed software, write down the discount code the first time it pops up and you'll be able to use it against the $[...] price of add'l licenses.)

I also bought a "TrendNet" firewire card from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006PRMJG/102-9726663-2521740), which was the lowest price 400 card available.

I first fired up the drive with the installed USB / eSATA interfaces (because the FireWire card was backordered) and it worked fine with USB 2.0 interface.

When the FireWire card came, I installed it in the desktop PC (Windows XP Home) with no problems. I swapped the drive's interface (instructions included, simple operation) to the FireWire one, plugged it in, and it came up. However, after shutting down the PC the drive didn't come back up and get recognized (the main light around the perimeter was "beaconing" - .5 sec on / off continuously). No explanation of what the error was in Seagate doc or online. Seagate control program did not recognize the drive as installed. Shutdown on the drive did not work. (I did not find until recently that one can remove the drive from within the Network places window - do not expect that to address the problem but will try.)

Microsoft had a "hot fix" (not a release, a partially-tested patch) that sounded like this exact problem, so I registered, downloaded, and installed the hot fix. It did not fix the problem. I am back now to using the USB 2.0 interface, which is no problem, but I was looking forward to the faster FW400.

Otherwise no issues and I would recommend this drive. Installed only a month, but enough to know if initial electronics problems would surface. I'd buy another one.

Update 30 Jan 2008 -- I have a new desktop, tried the firewire card, and it still is a no go. Checked again on Seagate's website, but nothing new. So, the drive is working well as a USB attached unit, but the firewire interface will not work. I suspect there is something in the drive or interface that is not quite ready for prime time.

This drive appeared to be a very good buy until I bought it. It is very sleek, looks cool, and has USB 2.0/eSata/Firewire 400 interfaces. If only all 3 interfaces worked, it would be a great drive and buy. However, I worked for over a week trying to get the eSata interface to work properly. The drive was recognized and accessible through eSata, but when copying data TO the drive, it was only getting around 10KB throughput and would usually hang and fail to copy the data. I soon discovered that I had the same problem with the Firewire interface. Copying data FROM the drive was working fine. The USB interface was also working fine. Also, all three interfaces are not available at the same time without switching the interface element. One element has 1-USB and 1-eSata port while the second element has two Firewire 400 ports. So, the element must be changed to switch between Firewire and any other interface. In the end, I purchased a WD eSata/USB My Book drive and it is working flawlessly.

I'm very happy with mine, installed in seconds on my Windows Vista laptop. I liked that it comes formatted for NTFS as others have mentioned and the 5 year warranty vs. 1 or less for most others. Very quiet. The included utility allows you to turn off the light that surrounds the edge of this device if desired.

I bought this drive mainly due to the eSATA connection option.
What a joke.
3mbs transfer rate when connected eSATA.
USB was much better @ 23mbs & Firewire clocked in @ 34mbs !
Not awesome but at least reaching about 60% of internal speed.

The backup software works... 12.5 hours to back up 50mb of data !

This was my second Freeagent Pro drive. The first had to be returned because both eSATA & Firewire failed within the first several minutes.

I first contacted Seagate support. They responded about 3 days later that they would gladly replace my brand new drive, with a refurb unit ! Add to that the cost shipping both ways and up to 3 months processing time,,, forget it...

I then contacted the company I purchased it from, they paid shipping both ways & I recieved a brand new replacement drive withing 2 weeks.
So far the new drive is working OK.

Conclusion:
I would not recommend this drive to anyone, especially if you intend to use eSATA .

I read good and bad things about this hard drive, and still wanted to give it a try, because every single brand out there have good and bad reviews. I couldn't find any external drive that didn't go wrong with someone.
Anyway, it's great to store. I don't use it for any of the automatic backup and all that, I just wanted to edit video and store huge files, and for that it's a great product.
Another thing is that if you want to use the e-SATA connection, be sure to buy the right e-SATA cable!!! Some cables don't get full contact, so better buy a good brand one,like SIIG ones. You can get a expresscard to use it with your laptop in SATA.
It took me a few weeks to find this tip, so the more people knows it, the better, because i tried several Expresscards and none of them worked, and it was the cable not the cards.

Oh, and the powerup button is great, pretty cool. Some people say theirs doesn't work. I give you an advise.. just put a coin on it and it will work (maybe you don't have good enough conduction in your fingers, who knows).
It's also fanless... so you don't hear a thing.