Customer Reviews

Seagate ST3160024A-RK 160 GB External USB 2.0/FireWire Hard Drive

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I purchased the drive for backups and general data storage. On a Windows XP both Fire Wire and USB work great. Fire Wire is only a bit faster than USB but when doing background backups the Fire Wire card is much better as its not as CPU intensive as USB.

The on off switch is great as I don't have to power the drive when not needed. Make sure you turn off the auto play. The drive is as quiet as most drives I have used and doesn't even get warm.

The one button backup only works with the included Bounceback express software so forget using the button with other packages.

As far as the Bouncback software goes. Don't even install it. It is cut down version of the real product and most features don't work. I found that it would include most of the data in subsequent backups so it was not that fast. Seagate made a real mistake with this software. This is why I gave the drive 4 stars instead of 5.

I found a freeware backup package on the net called SyncBack that works much better.

Bottom line great drive but loose the software.
better.

Note:
I installed SyncBack into the bounceback dir and renamed the main program to BBBbackup.exe. Now when I push the button on the drive my SyncBack software loads up.

I had been researching new external hard drives, and it seemed like there wasn't anything worth purchasing until very recently. I purchased the Maxtor OneTouch, but I couldn't get past the numerous problems. I just received this Seagate 2 days ago after returning the Maxtor One Touch.

The Seagate is faster, more quiet, cooler running, and cooler looking. The manual and software operation is as simple and straightforward as you can get. I chose to get the 160GB because the Seagate Barracuda internal harddrive in this product has S.M.A.R.T technology and has been proven to be a reliable, quality unit.

The difference between the Seagate and the Maxtor is clear as soon as you remove it from the box - it is heavy, rugged and solid, while the Maxtor just felt cheaply made. The software installed without any problems on a Win98SE system (unlike Maxtor) and is very easy to configure and use. With the one question I did have, Seagate email tech support got back to me within a few hours.

This product has the quality and features that should make it very popular. If you are looking for a really big external hard drive, there aren't many to choose from, but the Seagate is easily the best.

I was considering a Maxtor external backup drive until I read the customer reviews for both devices. I decided to try the Seagate and am I glad I did! This thing is great and amazon.com had the best price. I ordered it on Monday, got shipping confirmation on Wednesday and had it in my hands on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend - even using the free Super Saver shipping.

Within a few minutes of opening the box, I had it connected to the FireWire port of my Windows XP Pro desktop PC. The PC recognized it almost immediately and I was able to see the new drive in Windows Explorer. Installing the BounceBack Express software added only a few more minutes to the installation. In less than half-an-hour, I completed my first backup.

The drive is quiet and does not get overly hot. With the on/off switch, I don't even bother to turn it on until I'm ready to do a backup, usually late in the day. It comes with a "soap-on-a-rope" power cable that doesn't block adjacent power outlets and both USB and IEEE 1394/Fire Wire interface cables. There is also a second FireWire connector on the back of the drive that allows daisy-chaining devices. The front panel has a power LED, a drive activity LED and a pushbutton to start the backup cycle, which has worked reliably. The outline of the pushbutton flashes red during a backup. I've had the drive less than a week, so I can't speak to the long-term reliability. Seagate has been making disk drives for a long time and I trust their name brand reputation.

We all know that we should backup our data - just in case - but how many of us do? For me, even though I had good intentions, the difficulty of actually doing the backup won out and I found myself doing it less and less. Over the years I did backup to floppy disks, until it took dozens of floppies to complete it. Then I moved to Zip disks and eventually the same thing happened. Next came CD-RW's, but that proved lengthy and sometimes gave me unreadable CD's. No more! As easy as this drive and software is to use, there's no excuse for not backing up your data.

I did run into ONE PROBLEM which was fairly quickly resolved:

Just like the reviewer "An electronics fan" mentioned in his review of April 30, 2004, I found that during subsequent backups, many files that had not changed were being backed up again unnecessarily. Not all, but more than half, numbering in the thousands. It was harmless except for adding a lot of needless time to the backup process, but it annoyed me. I e-mailed Seagate tech support and was told that it was due to my antivirus software scanning files which made the BounceBack Express software think the file had changed and needed to be backed up again. WRONG! I tested with my antivirus software disabled and the same thing happened.

I e-mailed the same question to tech support at CMSProducts, who wrote the BounceBack program. They told me it was due to the fact that the drive in the PC was formatted differently (NTFS) than the external Seagate drive (FAT32). This situation most likely exists for Windows 2000 and Windows XP users. I didn't really understand why this formatting difference would cause my problem, but I followed the formatting instructions in the Seagate installation guide (which only states that "you may want to use an NTFS or a Mac file system...") and reformatted the external drive to NTFS, which only took a few minutes. VOILA - PROBLEM SOLVED!! Subsequent backups copied only the few files (less than 100 in my case) that had changed since the last backup - even with my antivirus program running.

This issue should be better explained in the printed Seagate installation manual, the BounceBack user,s manual on the installation CD and on the support pages of both companies' web sites.

All things considered, I love this drive and how easy it makes backing up your data.

No more excuses - GET ONE AND BACK UP YOUR DATA!!

Hello. I am very pleased with this external hard drive so far. I got it when it was at one of it's lowest prices (prices go up and down for some reason). I used to have a home made 120gb external hard drive, I hated it! This one is perfect.

Pros:
-Very fast with USB 2.0 or Firewire.
-Practically silent.
-Plug and play with Windows XP and 2000. Just plug it in and it shows it as a second hard drive!
-Comes with all necessary cables.
-ON/OFF switch
-Has a vast amount of storage. I have backed up TONS of music cd's, software cd's, and DVD movies onto this hard drive! Great in case you scratch any of your CD/DVD's!

Cons:
-Has to be plugged in to run, can't be powered by usb ports, etc. I expected this however.
-The software that is comes with is free and is not helpful at all. I recommend using SyncBack which is free but is 100x better than the software included. This also makes the button on the front useless.
-My laptop has one type of Firewire, I forget which kind, while the hard drive requires another type. I had to buy an adapter for $10, no big deal.
-USB 1.1 is slow! If you have a desktop without USB 2.0 or Firewire, this will be slow. Don't think just because you have a new computer it will have USB 2.0. I have a 1-month old Dell that I paid $800 for and it only has USB 1.1. My laptop I paid alot more for and it has USB 2.0 and Firewire. It is very fast if you have USB 2.0 or Firewire!
-It comes preformatted with FAT32. I can understand why they did this for Windows 98 users. However this caused several problems with my XP pc so I had to reformat the hard drive to NTFS file format.
-Power and usb inputs on hard drive are very loose. Sometimes I accidently bump it and the hard drive is disconnected or powered off. This is the worst thing I could find with this drive.

Although all of the cons I have listed, the pros outweigh them by far! I reccomend you get this external hard drive. I have had several others and this is by far the best!

So anyone who is looking for an external hard drive, you found the best!

I read the reviews and pulled the trigger to the tune of $220 last May. It's now 15 months later and I have to give this drive one star. A hard drive HAS TO WORK RELIABLY- PERIOD - and this one just doesn't. The unit worked with Windows 2000 for about 6 months using the Firewire interface. It sat on the desk next to PC and did not travel at all. Around the 7th month, while trying to copy files from it using Windows (I didn't use the backup software included with the drive) the OS started reporting CRC errors. The drive rapidly deteriorated and became unusable, requiring a reformat. A few months later I tried to use it again to backup some files from a Windows XP laptop via the USB interface this time (once again, no backup software was used). It copied the data just fine, but during the restore, it reported CRC errors again, couldn't be read from anymore, and prompted for reformatting. Now the warranty is 3 months past and I'm stuck with a $220 paperweight. So no more Seagates (at least externals) for me. After going back and researching a wide range of vendors (Maxtor, LaCie, Western Digital, Iomega) it's clear to me that the consumer-grade external Firewire/USB drives on the market are too hit-or-miss for archival/backup purposes. So...my next move will be to pick the most reliable and dependable internal hard drive I can find and put it in an external enclosure. This will be cheaper and the internal hard drive warranties are significantly longer - 3 to 5 years instead of 1 year. In any case, CD-R, DVD-R, and tape remain the solutions of choice for critical archiving/backup.

The product review says: "So how much will 160 GB actually hold? First off, the drive's capacity as seen by our computer (a PC running Windows XP) was "only" 149.0 GB. While no drive gives you access to all bytes, 10 GB seems like a lot to go missing."

In my opinion, someone who doesn't understand how hard drive sizes are computed shouldn't be writing reviews for Amazon.com - this is basic stuff...

There are two ways manufactures advertise sizes: powers of 10 (that is, 1K = 1000 bytes) and powers of two (or 1K = 1024 bytes). Like other vendors, Seagate states the capacity of drive using a power of 10 number: 160GB = 160,000,000,000 bytes. If you convert this to a power of two number (which is how Windows displays disk sizes), you'll find that it equates exactly to 149.0 GB. There are no "missing" bytes as the review author claims - you get the same 160 billion bytes either way.

(Note: there seems to be a pricing error on Amazon.com as of today. I bought it from Amazon for $170 last week.)

Just got my new Seagate 160GB external drive and set it up in under a minute after unwrapping. The first thing I did was to reformat the drive into NTFS, which allows for gigantic file sizes, is faster than the old FAT, and provides for security features under Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP Professional.

(Note: You should definitely convert the drive to an NTFS volume if you use it only with Win2k or WinXP. Seagate provides a disk mgmt utility but it's very confusing to use. Instead, simply use Windows' built-in convert command to convert the drive without formatting and without losing any information you might have already put on the drive. Go to a DOS prompt and type "help convert" to see the options for "convert." A typical use is: c:\>CONVERT E: /FS:NTFS --> this converts the E: drive, which in my system is the Seagate when plugged in, to NTFS. The process only takes about a minute if you do this on the fresh drive.)

Externally, the Seagate is pretty compact, measuring about 7"x7"x2.5". Assembled in the U.S., the unit looks and feels solid. It's equally friendly with Windows and Macintosh, supporting plug-and-play on both platforms and the included backup software has both versions. (I use Retrospect myself.)

This 7200RPM drive is fast. I use it over USB 2.0 and it's the fastest external drive I've tested. I did the testing by copying a couple very large files and also by copying a large number of small files (e.g., IE cookies). Both tests showcased the drive's raw speed. I'm pretty happy as I plan to use this as my video editing drive.

The bundle comes with a nicely written and nicely printed getting started guide, a USB cable, a 6-pin IEEE 1394 cable, a stand, and the two-piece power adapter. The last item is the disappointment in this otherwise well-designed package. The AC adapter is an ugly brick, and there's a separate power cord. The PS2-style connector also feels loose, so be careful not to knock it out of the socket on the drive.

Fast, quiet, plug-and-play, fairly stylish, and supporting both USB 2 and IEEE 1394, this Seagate drive looks like the definite winner in the external drive category. If you want more space there's a 200GB version available.

I just hope this will last me a long time, as my last external drive (a Maxtor) died after just a year.

This is a fantastic device!!!

Pros

Very fast. Files transfer very quickly, I've had no complaints.

Very Quiet. You can barely hear this guy at work.

Reliable. Well, I haven't had it for too long, but Seagate is a trusted name who will stand by their products.

Easy setup. On XP, it was just as easy as plugging it in.

Convenience. I have three computers I use often. Sharing data between the three has never been easier. I back up all of my data on this one drive so I have all of my data everywhere I go!!

Portable. It doesn't add too much bulk to my laptop bag and it fits easily (and literally) in the Palm of my hand. When I visited my in-laws last Christmas it was great to just hook this up to their computer and download all of my family's digital photos to them in just a few minutes.

It just looks cool!!

Very light at only 9.5 oz.

Cons

Can't think of any. This is my first choice when purchasing an external hard drive. You can't go wrong.

This is my first Seagate product, but I don't think it'll be my last. I was shopping for an external hard drive primarily for backup purposes, but also just thought that it would be a handy gadget to have. I've had good luck with Maxtor in the past, but the Seagate just looked like a better deal, and I'd heard that the Maxtor externals can get a little hot. The Ximeta Netdisk is a cool concept, being a NAS device (accessed over the network rather than by USB/Firewire), but it requires drivers which I don't like, and the software has a few gotchas.

The Seagate drive comes nicely packaged with a stand to set it on it's side, USB AND Firewire cables, and a CD with BounceBack Express backup software. The only slight complaint I have is that the drive comes with very little documentation, just a few pages on how to plug it in basically. But honestly, if you're running Win XP or 2000, all you do is turn it on and plug it in and it's ready to use. So how much documentation do you need?

The drive comes preformatted with the FAT32 file system, so if you're running XP or 2000 you should delete this partition and reformat to NTFS. You can do this either via the MS Management Console or using Seagate's own DiscWizard software that's on the CD. Be aware that formatting a drive this size can take over an hour.

The drive is quiet, and runs fairly cool. Performance seems very respectable over Firewire, I haven't tried USB since my old PC doesn't support USB 2.0. My first backup using the included software took just under an hour to back up about 10.5GB. My PC is an old one with an ATA100 interface, so my internal drive was probably the bottleneck. Anyway, I highly recommend this drive. Seagate now has a 200GB version that seems identical except of course for the capacity.

WARNING! The warranty for Seagate products may not be what you think it is. I bought a Seagate 160 GB External USB 2.0/FireWire Hard Drive. The outside of the box says "fully guaranteed - A worry-free one-year warranty covers all parts and labor"; BEWARE, this warranty is not for you - it is for the retailer that sells it to you. This warranty starts the day that Seagate sells it to the distributor. So, if you buy it from a retailer and it has sat on their shelf for a number of months, your warranty is less than a year.

I learned the hard way - I bought the Seagate hard drive on the 22nd of January 2004. It stopped working in late December of 2004. When I called Seagate warranty support to inquire about the warranty, Seagate informed me that the warranty expired on December 2nd, 2004. I called the retailer to ask them about the issue. They did not know that the warranty started prior to my purchase and told me that there was no way for them to know how long that hard drive had been in their possession. They recommended that I call Seagate warranty support back to escalate the issue since it was within 45 days of the end of the warranty and within one year of my purchase.

I had to call Seagate warranty support seven times in a month to try to get some answers. Twice they told me that they were going to call me back and never did. Finally, on the seventh call, they informed me that they would not replace my drive. Dealing with the warranty support team was a miserable experience and after this experience, I would never recommend buying a Seagate product to anyone. Spend a bit more money on a product with a real warranty, just in case something goes wrong. After all, if the company has that little confidence in their product, why should you trust in it?