Seagate Technology 200 GB USB 2.0 and FireWire External Drive ( ST3200823A-RK )

by Seagate

Product Details

Data Sheet [133kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 5.4 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002ER5B6
• Item model number: ST3200823A-RK
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (115 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 9, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com

High-capacity 7200 disc drives, from the world’s premier provider of high-capacity storage, provide our customers years of reliable service and high performance. Using advanced manufacturing techniques and extensive design experience, Seagate engineers have built the world’s only ninth-generation 7200-RPM desktop disc drive. Seagate disc drives enable bigger profit margins for system builders with enhanced reliability, higher performance and innovative features.

For serious work, or serious fun, this is the ultimate drive for your digital world. This beautifully compact drive gives you an astonishing 200GB of storage capacity and blazingly fast performance. With our advanced features and software, it's incredibly easy to work with everything from film, video, and audio files to the latest memory-intensive games--and much more.

What's in the Box:
External drive, USB 2.0 cable, FireWire 1394a cable, AC adapter and power cord, quick installation guide and backup software CD, warranty information

Product Description

200GB External Hard Drive with easy pushbutton backup solution For serious work, or serious fun, this is the ultimate drive for your digital world. This beautifully compact drive gives you an astonishing 200GB of storage capacity and blazingly fast performance. With our advanced features and software, it's incredibly easy to work with everything from film, video, and audio files to the latest memory-intensive games-and much more. 7200 RPM Speed 8MB Cache Complete package includes external drive, USB 2.0 cable, FireWire 1394a cable, AC adapter and power cord, quick installation guide and backup software CD 1-Year Parts and Labor Seagate USA Warranty with Lifetime Seagate Tech Support

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

408 of 411 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent and versatile external hard drive, August 14, 2004

By 

critical care md (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seagate Technology 200 GB USB 2.0 and FireWire External Drive ( ST3200823A-RK ) (Personal Computers)

I decided to purchase an external hard drive primarily to serve as backup data storage for both my laptop and desktop computers. I looked in several stores, asked questions, and read a number of reviews (including here on Amazon). The reviews on Amazon were most helpful.

Costwise, this version was a better deal than the 160GB model, on a "dollars per GB" basis. Also, 200 GB is quite a bit, and so there is plenty of extra room for files other than backups.

If you have USB 2 or firewire capabilities (any computer made in the last few years should have at least USB), set up is essentially plug and play. I have Win XP which simply recognized the drive as another hard drive, gave it a letter, and I was operational in less than a minute. It took me longer to open the box than get the drive working.

Transfer rates seem quite fast with USB 2.0; I did not time it, but backing up 12 GB on my laptop took at most 10 minutes, which included the backup program's compression efforts. When moving or accessing regular files, I cannot see any difference between this and my internal hard drives. I suspect that USB 1.1 would be painfully slow; if you don't have USB 2 or firewire, consider getting a PCI card which supports one or both of these connections ($50 at most), for use with whatever external drive you purchase.

The drive is very quiet, and has its own on/off switch. I think this feature is mandatory, especially if you are not going to use the drive all the time. Without a separate power switch, the drive will be on and spinning, causing wear and tear, even if you aren't using it (or you will have to unplug it). With a switch, the choice is up to you.

Aesthetically, I found the black and silver case subdued and appealing. Two small blue lights are on the front, one for power and one which lights when you are accessing the drive. Apparently, in reviews of other products, some were rather garish (not a problem here).

You can stack and daisy chain multiple units via the firewire outlets, and the unit comes with both a USB 2 and firewire cable.

I have only had this unit for about a month, but Seagate has a very good reputation for quality. Western Digital and Maxtor have similar drives which cost somewhat less, but after reading others' reviews of them (including different sized drives), I went with this one because of Seagate's reputation, the power switch, ability to use either USB or firewire, and easy expansion/daisy chaining options.

We will see how it holds up over time, but for now I am quite happy.

205 of 210 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quiet, small, with on-off switch (but only 185GB), October 13, 2004

By 

Bob Carpenter (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seagate Technology 200 GB USB 2.0 and FireWire External Drive ( ST3200823A-RK ) (Personal Computers)

This drive from Seagate I bought for work backups is in every way superior to the 200GB and 250GB Western Digital externals I have at home.

The most impressive difference is the sound. The Western Digitals sound like blenders by comparison. But I also appreciate the on-off switch (though you should eject the removable hardware first if you're using Windows XP); the Western Digitals are on until they're unplugged. With my nest of cables, the switch is very handy.

In terms of dimensions, the Seagate's a bit wider and fatter, but not as long. It's a little more subdued in appearance, but I'd still prefer something more generic. I don't need a giant Seagate logo reminding where it came from. The Seagate also feels more solidly built, but I haven't been using any of the three drives for anything other than occasional backups. This is especially true of the connector plugs, which are rock solid on the Seagate, but slip all over on the Western Digital.

I have also had great experience with the Barracuda family of drives from Seagate, which is the drive in this box. Reviews I've read online say FireWire's faster than USB 2.0 for this drive, but I haven't raced them myself. Either way, it's going to be slow compared to built-in drives.

Like the Western Digitals, this one was ready to go with Windows XP right out of the box. I have my own backup scripts, so I didn't need to try the built-in one.

My one complaint is that like Western Digital, Seagate reports drive sizes in billions of bytes, so it's only really 185GB (a GB is 2**30 = 1024*1024*1024 bytes).

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars BEWARE, March 6, 2006

By 

Patrick M. Reily (Cedar Mountain, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Seagate Technology 200 GB USB 2.0 and FireWire External Drive ( ST3200823A-RK ) (Personal Computers)

This drive will not work on a hub! You need to have a direct cpu port.

Also the software is BounceBack Express and does not give you a recovery backup. For that you need to pop for about $60.00 more, even though their web page misleads you into thinking a bootable backup is part of Express.

Also, please look to see what is installed. There is no icon put on the desktop for "Settings" which is the real program. If you move from one machine to another and use a "one button" backup you will lose all your prior backup.