Customer Reviews

Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750 GB 3.5" USB 2.0/eSATA External Hard Drive

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(32)

 

 

I ordered this hard drive with pretty high expectations, being a SeaGate.
The drive catches the eye, lights up, and is a nice 750GB in size.
The major thing about it - where's the cooling? You have a SATA drive
running in a case, with no heat dissipation at all. I received the drive,
and immediately started copying 100's of GB of data to it. About 4 hours
later, check on the drive. The case is blazing hot (almost burned myself touching the case)- and I have a message on the screen that goes something like: "MFT$ Couldnt be updated. Your data has been lost". I look at the drive in Explorer, and it shows absolutely nothing on the drive. Figuring it's heat related, I turn it off, let it cool, and try reformatting the next day and try again. Same problem 30 mins into copying data. Try reformatting, and trying again... 20 mins later - same. Continually receive messages that the drive couldnt save my data - its all been lost.

I returned the drive to Amazon, got my money back, and got myself a Antec external eSATA enclosure with active cooling (built in 120mm fan)
and a 750GB WD SATA drive. Put it together myself and couldnt be happier with it. Copied all my data to the drive over night, and woke up the next morning not disappointed.

I'm sure the Seagate FreeAgent is a great product for the average user that uses it under normal circumstances, but for constant usage, it cant handle the heat. Maybe I just received a bad drive? But Ive never in my life had a drive (and enclosure) I could cook my breakfast on.

Seagate really did a great job styling this external hard drive. FreeAgent Pro is a work of art. The top part is slick contoured with sides made from what looks like anodized brushed aluminum. Bisecting the top part is a plastic surface, thin on the vertical edges and widening at the top, the surface lights up in amber when the drive is operational. There is also a cut-out Seagate logo that also lights up in that same amber color.

The base is plastic with semi-translucent upper surface. You are not supposed to separate the top and the base during normal drive operations.

The drive comes preloaded with installation of FreeAgent Tools. You can install this utility on Windows 2000, XP or Vista (it will not install on Windows 2003), or you can use the drive straight, without the utility.

Out of the box, the 750 GB Seagate FreeAgent Pro drive has 749,856,440,32 bytes of free space (698 GB).

The preferred way to use the drive, I haven't tried yet, is probably via the faster eSATA interface. I use this drive via USB with included USB cable. Seagate offers no drivers for this drive. It should work with drivers already installed in your operation system. Some USB hubs will not work; if at all possible try using USB ports directly on the back of your computer.

Also choose USB 2.0 ports if your computer has both USB 2.0 and older USB ports. Older USB ports may work. But if the interface is too slow you may stast seeing "Delayed Write Failed" errors (you can try to correct those by increasing the TimeOutValue in registry in the KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Disk key - always be careful with registry modifications, make backups beforehand).

In rare cases some third party software or hardware you installed on you your computer before, may replace or interfere with disk drivers. Look into that possibility if you are having problems.

Now for some negatives I found about this drive.

First, the power switch; it's not a switch at all but a specially marked place on the base where you place your finger, the FreeAgent detects it. I think this is where Seagate has over engineered a little bit. This is very modern and everything, but there is no positive response to the user; it is often hard to figure out, was the button pressed or not.

The whole turning off - turning on situation is a little bit flaky. Sometimes the drive will not turn on (usually it turns on when you plug the USB cable). Then you have to unplug all the cables, including the power cable, and try again.

If the drive is left connected to the computer via USB all time, some commuters get stuck during their initial BIOS loading sequence. That is probably the computer's fault. If you have one of those, then just don't keep the FreeAgent plugged in all the time.

The biggest issue I have with the drive - they forgot to include the drive access light. Yep, that blinking light that lights up when the drive is reading or writing is not there.

Overall I am pleased with this external hard drive. It looks very good. It is quiet. It will allow me to upgrade to eSATA interface from USB. It's big.

In response to Carol's posting, who wrote:
"You get only a short trial period, then the only utility that you can use is the diagnostic utility. "

Actually, the activation code for the software is included with the FreeAgent Pro, so it's the full software. It's in the startup manual that came with the drive.

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 got this drive specifically for the eSATA connection which is much faster than USB. I hooked it up to my Dell and...waited...and waited...and the computer wouldn't boot! Others have had this issue but I found the solution so I thought I'd share: For some reason, on my Dell Precision 390 (and maybe all Dells), the FreeAgent drive inserted itself in the boot sequence ahead of my main drive (which got disabled for some reason). Once I went into the BIOS and removed the FreeAgent drive from the boot sequence and enabled my main Windows drive again, it worked perfectly.

Other than that initial "hiccup", the drive seems fantastic.

I am mystified as to why reviewers would downgrade the product over Amazon's in-stock or not in-stock problem. I had the same glitch but it was easily fixed and this shipping problem has no bearing on the drive whatsoever. That was just silly.

OK, on to the drive. This kind of product you really want to wait a year to see if it fails, so barring that aspect, I will absolutely give it a full 5 stars in all regards.

Though 25% smaller than the terabyte RAID 0 boxes out there, this Seagate unit is silent as can be, runs cool with no fan of any kind (the case IS a heat-sink) and is eSATA, and could be installed by any child.

The designers really did a fine job of thinking through every aspect of use. You could find a justifiable quibble about the absence of an access LED, but I think they left that off for aesthetic reasons. The thing looks great, dims when in sleep mode, is not obnoxious in any way and is fast.

From first-hand experience, the WD 1000 is fan-noisy, andthe Maxtor 1000 is a disaster: I have gone through 2 of them now and almost never had them on. I wish we could all class-action sue them. Horrible.

This is the first external drive that I really like!

Cannot wait to get my eSATA cable and get off the USB!

The FreeAgent Pro hard drives appear to have poor eSATA interface implementations. Seagate has released a firmware update with fixes some of the problems, but people still seem to have problems even after applying it.

There is a link to the firmware update on the page where I blogged about this topic here: http://blog.noegruts.com/2007/12/seagate-freeagent-pro-esata-problems.html

Hope that's of help to some people.

My hard drive has gotten the same problems with the first one I initially bought and the new one I had replaced by Seagate.....I have no idea what the problem could be. I even got it working for about a week without any problems shut down my computer and hard drive and called HP to reformat and reinstall everything onto my computer....sent it out got it back....wa-la clean slate now it shouldnt be a computer problem....reinstalled everything onto the computer again.....a week later same problem with the hard drive...not to mention A TON OF MY MUSIC COLLECTION NOW HAD SKIPS IN THE SONG WHEN THEY WERE NEVER THERE BEFORE.....I'm a die hard Exact Audio Copy user with .log files all the time to make sure the disc was ripped correctly....My music does not have skips in it....the files transferred were slightly corrupted and when I called support they told me to reformat it.....the drive wouldnt let me......then they told me to run a chkdsk.....wouldnt let me....so I had it replaced....and now I'm going through the same problems......WOULD NOT RECCOMMEND SEAGATE PRODUCT AT ALL!!!

P.S. For all those who say this is complaining I ask you to come deal with this problem yourself. I turn on the hard drive ONLY to backup once every 2 weeks. So it is never over worked ever. It's just a plain and simple faulty product. I love the 5 year warranty I hate having to pay shipping for it every time it breaks though. I might as well buy a new hard drive the rate this thing is breaking over 5 year period.

eSATA connector doesn't work with 2 out of 3 chipsets I've tried. Unit turns itself on and off while it's in use. Runs very hot while on. Base is very hot even when off unless you unplug it.

I managed to get my data off of it and get warranty replacement but it is doing the same thing.

Don't waste your money like I did.

Overall this drive is a good buy and worth the money that I paid for it. It has been a not quite perfect experience so I only gave it a 4 star. On to the review.

Positives:

The drive is fast small and easy to hook up. The backup software is very easy to install and easy to use Backups are a snap Wizards and automation take care of the heavy lifting. It is very quiet compared to other drives that I use. I am sold on Seagate drives because they have been very reliable for me over the years.I am very pleased with the quality of the product. e-sata is a nice plus if I can get it to work more on that later.

Negatives:

Unfortunately, I have been unable to get e-SATA to work for me. I am not sure whether to blame the card or the drive but my card seems to recognize the drive then freezes and refuses to boot when I connect it. When I use USB it boots normally even with the e-sata card in my computer.

The software is great for its simplicity but I found it just too limiting for me. For very basic backups it is fine. There doesn't seem to be a way to do a bare hard drive restore like Ghost. This is very limiting for someone who is used to doing backup, restore and cloning on the corporate level. After trying the backup software for awhile I decided to Go back to using my old copy of Ghost which gets the job done with a lot less overhead on my system.

Summary:
If you are really serious about backups you will do yourself a favor and get this drive and spend some extra money for Norton Ghost. Even through USB, Ghost backed up my complete drive in a reasonable amount of time. If you are on a shoestring then at least you can get this drive and its software to back up your critical data. With as easy and inexpensive as this backup solution is you have no excuse for not backing your stuff up.