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

Other products by Seagate

Product Details

Data Sheet [133kb PDF]

• Item Weight: 7 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6 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)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #21,833 in Electronics (See Bestsellers in Electronics)
• 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

409 of 412 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

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.

208 of 213 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 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).

56 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars BEWARE THE WARRANTY, February 4, 2005

By	Reviewer "Karen" (Honolulu, HI) - See all my reviews

WARNING! The warranty for Seagate products may not be what you think it is. I bought a Seagate external 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?