FreeAgent Desk Hard Drive

by Seagate

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 1.5 x 7.3 x 6 inches ; 2.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• ASIN: B001FFYVQS
• Item model number: ST310005FJA105-RK
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 6, 2008

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

With its huge capacity and sleek design, the Mac-ready FreeAgent® Desk storage solution delivers a powerful yet simple way to help safeguard all your photos, music, videos, and documents. You can get up and running quickly thanks to Mac formatting and Time Machine-readiness, then enjoy blazingly-fast transfer of your content with FireWire 800 and USB interfaces. Enjoy a modern design that complements your Mac system, and take advantage of a vertical profile that maximizes your workspace.

Energy Efficiency

Formatted for Mac, FireWire 800/400 and USB interfaces

Energy Efficient
With its huge capacity and sleek design, the Mac-ready FreeAgent Desk storage solution delivers a powerful yet simple way to help safeguard all your photos, music, videos, and documents. Support for Apple’s power-management utilities helps to conserve energy.

Mac formatted and Time Machine ready
You can get up and running quickly thanks to Mac formatting and Time Machine-readiness, then enjoy blazingly-fast transfer of your content with FireWire 800/400 and USB interfaces.

Stylish Design

Modern Design
Enjoy a modern design that complements your Mac system, and take advantage of a vertical profile that maximizes your workspace.

Key Features

• Conveniently store all your photos, music, videos and documents in one place thanks to generous storage capacity.
• Blazingly fast data transfer with FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 interfaces, and take advantage of support for FireWire 400.
• Enjoy a sleek, modern design that complements your Mac system and maximizes your workspace.
• Get up and running quickly thanks to Mac formatting and Time Machine-readiness.
• Supports Apple power-management utilities.
• Enjoy peace of mind with a 5-year limited warranty from the worldwide leader in storage solutions.

What’s in the Box
FreeAgent® | Desk for Mac external hard drive, FireWire 800 cable, FireWire 800 to 400 cable, USB cable, power supply and quickstart guide. END

Product Description

Seagate FreeAgent Desk Hard Drive ST310005FJA105-RK Hard Drives - External

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 113 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quiet, Quick, and Easy, November 27, 2008

By 

J. Holbrook - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: FreeAgent Desk Hard Drive (Electronics)

The Seagate FreeAgent Deks 1TB for Mac (ST310005FJA105-RK) is a 1TB external drive Seagate is marketing for the Mac fanbase (though the drive could be re-formatted for Windows). I purchased the drive because my iTunes Music folder had soared to 120GB in size, and I needed to move the folder permanently to an external drive to free up space on my internal drive.

The drive is 2.2 lbs and measures 7.28" in H x 1.48" in W x 5.98" in L . It comes with an AC adaptor, a Firewire 800 cable, a Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable (for those with older iMacs, like me, who only have 6-pin Firewire 400 ports), and a USB cable. The FreeAgent Desk itself sits on a small white stand with a rubber pad on the bottom. Unless I've missed something, the stand cannot be removed from the external drive itself. As a result, it must be placed upright. Seagate provides a 5 year limited warranty, so keep your receipt. The FreeAgent Desk is formatted for Mac and Time Machine ready. The brushed steel exterior, plastic white trim, and white cabling complement the iMac's appearance. The cache size isn't readily ascertainable, though the spin speed is 7200 RPM. Details on the drive from Seagate's website can be found here:[...]

After taking it out of the box, the FreeAgent Desk requires only two steps to set it up. First, plug the AC adaptor into the drive and power supply. Second, connect the drive to your iMac using the appropriate cable. I chose the Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable because Firewire transfers (even for a Firewire 400 port) are reportedly faster than a USB 2.0 transfer, and because I need my USB ports for other devices. Because I plan to keep the drive constantly connected, I placed it only about 6 inches from the computer itself.

Mac OSX Leopard immediately recognized the drive. The preferences window for Time Machine, which I hadn't used before, popped up on its own and asked me whether I wanted to use the external drive as the backup drive for Time Machine. I did, but before I completed the Time Machine setup, I wanted to move my iTunes Music folder so the first Time Machine backup would mirror the internal drive as I wanted it to be, not as it was. I turned off Time Machine in the "preferences" window, printed out and carefully followed the instructions I'd previously found online for moving my iTunes Music folder to an external drive, and waited for the 120GB transfer to complete. I didn't time the transfer, but it took between 30 minutes and 1 hour or so. After the transfer was complete and my iMac's hard drive no longer had dangerously low space, I re-opened Time Machine preferences, turned it "on," and allowed it to do its magic. After heading out of the room to watch a Christmas movie with my wife and children, I stopped back in and found Time Machine had already completed two backups to the external drive (now only 57 GB of data).

As other reviews have noted, the drive, when active, has a white light emanating from the bottom of the unit, creating a pool of light under the drive and on top of the foot of the stand. Also, the Seagate logo on the front of the drive is backlit by a white light. Both lights go off when the drive goes to sleep. The drive is extremely quiet. It sits on my desktop near my computer and generally cannot be heard. I can hear it spin up as it comes out of sleep mode (a faint, high-pitched sound, followed by a click), and, if I listen closely, can hear a low background hum after it finishes spinning up and begins actively working. I was concerned about noise level since the drive sits directly on my desktop, but so far the noise level is fine.

My media (both music and video) streams perfectly from the FreeAgent Desk through iTunes, although there is 3-4 second lag in start time if the FreeAgent Desk is in sleep mode when I click "play" in iTunes. Once the external drive spins up, the media plays as if I were running it off the internal drive. We also have an Apple TV which is synced to our iMac, and we were able to play a movie now residing on the FreeAgent Desk drive through Apple TV without a hitch. Now that Apple TV and iTunes are using the iTunes Music folder on the FreeAgent Desk, I can continue adding media without worrying about the amount of disk space it's taking up on my internal drive.

All in all, a great purchase. Sleek, quiet, and a ton of space. Note: If you use your external hard drive both to back up files (i.e., Time Machine) and to store active files (i.e., iTunes Music folder), just remember that the active files on the external hard drive are not being backed up. You may want to have a plan to ensure these files are backed up as well.

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Roomy, Fast, Light Too Bright, November 1, 2008

By 

Michael (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: FreeAgent Desk Hard Drive (Electronics)

Since my Mac Mini came with an 80GB hard drive, I was desperate for more storage. After much research, the Seagate FreeAgent 1TB external hard drive was the best solution for me. The drive is clad in brush metal and white plastic trim, which matches the color of most Mac Desktops. It transfers data pretty quickly through the Firewire.

Besides unpacking the drive, you only have to do two things to get this drive up and running, plug in the power cord and connect the drive to your Mac. It couldn't be any easier. The connectivity of the drive gives you a few options. There are 2 Firewire 800 ports and 1 USB 2.0 port.

Here's where the details matter. Seagate included all the necessary cables so that you don't have to spend extra money or extra time to get running. It's a really nice touch considering the high price you have to pay for FireWire cables from the local electronic store.

There is one flaw with this drive. There is no on or off switch. The drive simply goes to "sleep" when not in use. This becomes a problem if your Mac, line mine, is your media center in the living room. When watching a movie, the drive can come back to life and glow in the background. There isn't a way to disable the lighting effect on the drive too. Trust me, I've looked. I think another reviewer had the same issues.

Conclusion: 1 TB of storage is more than enough for my Mini. Will the drive work with a PC? Yes it will. Just use the USB port. I would recommend this drive to anyone looking for additional storage.

What's in the box:

Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1TB drive

1 FireWire 800 cable

1 FireWire 800 to FireWire 400 cable

1 USB 2.0 cable

Power adaptor

Documentation

44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Mounting problems, March 2, 2009

By 

Kay B "Kay B" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: FreeAgent Desk Hard Drive (Electronics)

The hard drive "dismounts" when my iMac goes to sleep and I receive an "error--external device not disconnected appropriately". The hard drive then has to be unplugged and the computer restarted in order for the drive to again be mounted. I spent 45minutes on hold with Seagate service before speaking with a technician. Though nice, he was of no assistance in solving the issue. Although the product is "for MAC", blogs reveal that other Mac users have had the same problems. Wish I had read those earlier. I cannot recommend this product. Read the 5 year warranty carefully. If given a replacement, it may be a "refurbished" product.