Seagate ST302504FDA1E1-RK FreeAgent Desktop 250 GB 3.5" USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

by Seagate

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11 x 10 x 5 inches ; 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000NDBRJC
• Item model number: ST302504FDA1E1-RK
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (191 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004

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

Computers come and go, but your content should always be nearby. . The FreeAgent desktop 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. Takes up less room on your desk than a stapler and to help eliminate the slightest bit of worry, we've even included a five-year limited warranty.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

116 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Works great - at first, November 15, 2007

By 

Reader (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seagate ST302504FDA1E1-RK FreeAgent Desktop 250 GB 3.5" USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (Personal Computers)

The FreeAgent is everything great that NEW buyers say it is. Lots of storage and a snap to set up. The problem is (and I'm about to return my second one) - the defect rate is pretty high. After about six weeks of use (just sitting on my desk, not moved from computer to computer or handled), I got messages saying the device had malfunctioned and my computer no longer recognized the drive. I went through all of the troubleshooting procedures on Seagate's website and nothing worked; finally, when I called the vendor about it they offered me an immediate replacement. The tech support rep I spoke to had seen the same issue so often he issued me an RA and sent me a new one before I even sent the old one back. Unfortunately the same thing happened with the new replacement drive, after about two months.

I haven't decided which product to replace this with, but my advice would be to not only find out about the bells & whistles but to ask about reliability and defect rates. Personally I was very troubled about sending back the drives just to get a refund when they have all my personal data on them.

50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A breeze to get it running!, April 8, 2007

By 

Todd Justman "Regional Man of Mystery" (Detroit, MI) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Seagate ST302504FDA1E1-RK FreeAgent Desktop 250 GB 3.5" USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (Personal Computers)

It's not often that a technical product is geared towards the non-techie. It's rarer that it delivers a product that works for a non-techie. Certainly external hard drives are nothing challenging anymore, but Seagate embraces non-technical folks with quirky packaging and a ridiculously short setup manual that includes the estimated time to completion - in minutes and seconds!. Not only is the Free Agent truly plug and play but the look is clean, sharp, cool, and eye-catching. You won't mind having this sit on your desk. This thing takes longer to get out of the box than it takes to get it functioning. Seriously!

Of course I'm something of a techie, so in order to get a truly non-technical seal of approval, you'll have to read a review from a grannie. I wouldn't hold your breath.

My only gripe in order to truly make this device fully functional would be to address the obvious next steps: how do I do a full system backup? How do I copy files? Seagate makes an error in not cross-promoting an equally easy-to-use backup third party software. Of course all Windows XP users have Microsoft Backup available, which includes an easy-to-use wizard to get you going.

As someone who has had a few hard drives fail on him in the past, I remark at how long it took me to get one of these things. Remember, all hard drive manufacturers measure the reliability of a hard drive in terms of "mean time to failure," which implies that all hard drives eventually fail. With a backup hard disk, you always are operating with a safety net!

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid, simple set-up, July 22, 2007

By 

Jon M. (SF Bay Area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seagate ST302504FDA1E1-RK FreeAgent Desktop 250 GB 3.5" USB 2.0 External Hard Drive (Personal Computers)

I'm a technical/knowledgebase writer for a large software company and whenever I get a new product, I'm really aware of the set up process and documentation to improve on my own work.

With that, I'm surprised to hear some of the bad reviews of this product. The manual is a simple, one sheet that gives you 5 steps to set it up totally in pictures and a single line of text. In fact, it was easier than that for me on My Winddows XP Pro machines: I yanked it out of the box, plugged in both the usb and power supply, and it was recognized immediately and worked perfectly. I didn't install any software.

Also, keep in mind that it uses USB 2.0. If you are running USB 1.0 on an older computer it won't transfer as fast.

Additionally, my girlfriend has an older, USB 1.0 laptop running XP Home, and I recommended this to her because it has a power supply. This means if you are looking to buy one of the USB 2.0 powered portable/external HD's, it won't have the juice to work. But since this runs off AC current (plus into the wall), she has no issues and has been totally happy storing her MP3 collection it.

As for power consumption, yes, it keeps spinning. BUT, these hard drives are generally meant as backup or storage of media files. Since it only turns on when the computer boots up, this is fine for most applications. The effort to unplug the drive from the back is no different then reaching for an on/off switch. Additionally, if you are using it to play back you MP3 or video collection, the drive will have to spin up anyway to play them back.

I'd highly recommend this drive for experienced and non-techies alike - and, yes, would buy it for my mom. A drive this easy to use keeps guys like me out of business ;^)