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

Easy setup with my Windows XP desktop and about 4hrs for the inital backup of 50GB of data using USB.

The bundled backup software seems to work well allowing you a variety of backup options. After the inital backup it runs incrementals and seems to make a sppedy job of it.

The 200GB is plenty of additional space for photos or video.

Much better than my previous Maxtor drive which expired after only 12 months use.

Easy to set up and easy to use. I am quite pleased so far. It is also pretty fast, and pretty quiet.

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).

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?

I have owned a Seagate external 160GB for quite a while. I find no problems with it except for an occasional "hang" when booting up with it on. This is because it is used to back up my root drive and my motherboard doesn't know whether to follow the internal or external drive. So I just keep it off when booting up and have no problems. In fact, I even have no problems with a Windows "restart." I needed more space so I decided to get the Seagate 400 GB external drive. I, like everyone else who has tried the 350GB and 400GB drives, had a horrible experience with the larger drive. Amazon let me return it (with return postage paid by Amazon) and once I had my credit, I bought this drive. The 200GB is every bit as reliable as the 160. It is quiet and has no problems with the dvd files I transfer to it. In addition, all you have to do is tell Windows not to use write caching and you can turn the drive off without needed to use Windows' safely remove hardware procedure. This slows the transfer rate down, but is very convenient. As much as the 400GB is a total waste, the 200GB is wonderful. I may even buy another one and recommend it heartily.

The drive is okay, even though the transformer makes low noise when plug into the power outlet. I had it exchanged, but the second one has the same problem. But the Bounceback backup software that comes with it is a piece of junk! It does not have a restore function. This means you would have to manually copy and paste to restore your files.

Well, Seagate is known in the industry as the best. And now that I finally have one, I can say that I agree. It is quite, fast, reliable, it is everything you want in a hard drive. Believe me, I will spend the extra money for a seagate anyday of the week, b/c it is worth it.

I recently bought the Seagate 200 GB hard drive as a backup for my (constantly crashing) Dell laptop. I've had it about one month now and I love it.

I immediately loaded it up with photos, documents, programs and music and haven't had any problems. It is also virtually silent, so you don't have to worry about any whirring noises distracting you from your work.

After reading reviews of other brands, I am also very impressed with how cool it stays. Because it is my primary hard drive now, I leave it running whenever I am using the computer to work or listen to music (more or less ALL the time) and it never feels warm.

Compared to external hard drives that I've seen, this one is also fairly light in comparison and slim enough that it scoots right in among the other items on your computer desk without much rearranging.

I would highly recommend this item.

Edit: It is now 6 months later and I still love my harddrive, but I wanted to issue a general warning. The harddrive claims to be compatible with both Mac and PC, but in reality it is compatible with either Mac OR PC. My husband and I are amatuer computer users overall, and didn't realize until it was too late that the HD can only operate on one or the other, or it will get confused and crash. We'd been using it on our Dell for several months when we bought a PowerBook and hooked it up to it as well and .... well, temporarily killed the Seagate. Oops. Fortunately, it can be saved with a simply software purchase and help from a computer-geek friend, but the hassle this has caused is rather annoying.

Fortunately, Seagate's customer service reps were very helpful in helping us deal with this problem and didn't make us feel dumb for not knowing better :)

First, our office has tons of Seagate drives so I can say with confidence that they make a GREAT product. Usually they also do an excellent job supporting it... Except for this one. Apparently (and it took me 3 weeks to discover it) this drive is one of those "hybrid" products where the actual drive was made by Seagate but all of the software to run it was made by CMS. What that means for the user is that in order to use all of the "One Touch" button features that this drive touts, you need to go buy software from CMS for and EXTRA $69.95. It took me 3 weeks of fighting with Seagate to get it for free.

Morale of the story... this is an EXCELLENT external drive, as long as you treat it like a regular drive. If you want to use any of the "extra" value-add features that they advertise be prepared for an uphill battle. It is quiet, quick and easy to use as a normal drive but don't expect anything fancy out of it.

I had initially given a strong review. I wish I could take it back. nothing but trouble and these guys are really nasty with wrranty. dead so early and a refurb?

I got this drive primarily as a backup drive as I'm a video editor, and my storage needs just keep expanding. (this drive puts me up to 752GB of storage)

Also, though not really surprising, while this drive has good reviews thus far (and I can't guess into the future as to how long this drive will last), the 300GB and 400GB models have been torn apart in terms of reliability. I'll just say this, as the drive storage increases, as of writing this review, it seems as if we've hit a bit of a wall in terms of reliably storing all that data successfully on these drives. Hitachi's new vertical storage technology that they're working on now may fix that, but for now, I don't trust drives over 200GB, and again, the reviews for the 300GB and 400GB models prove that. 200GB and under though should be fine, and this is my third external drive now, and I've never had a problem, PC or Mac. (at work, a 1TB LaCie drive did die though, reaffirming the current over 200GB problem)

The drive itself is quite stylish, though the casing feels both sturdy, and cheap at the same time. Standing vertically the sides feel nice and secure, and the feet slide in and lock, and I don't think the drive is going to end up falling over, but the top bit of the plastic case feels a bit cheap. It doesn't take much space at all vertically though, and looks nice. They can also be stacked horizontally according to the box. I've tried this with two Western Digital external drives, and it seemed as if heat might be a problem, but the Seagate drive runs noticably cooler, so horizontal stacking would probably work fine.

It comes with two firewire ports, a USB port, the appropriate cabling and external power supply, and an on-off switch plus access lights on the front.

The front also has a button which is supposed to launch a one-touch backup software. Sadly, the software seems to suck, and is very sluggish. In its defense, I do have 300,000+ files I wanted to backup, but it took forever just for it to count the files. (plus it installed very slowly) In short, I didn't trust the backup software, uninstalled it, and just used Microsoft Backup for now.

Of course, as with all hard drives, you lose space once they're formatted, and this drive is really 186GB.

Again, I can't see into the future and say this drive will hold my data forever reliably. But for now, it works, and I've never had a problem with a Seagate drive, or a drive under 200GB. The warranty is only a year though on Seagate externals, as opposed to five year for the internals, which does suck.

I have a 300 GB hard drive that I just bought January 2005. A week ago, the drive took a dump and I have been contacting their tech support back and forth. I even tried their FAQ section and mentioned it to the tech people. Still, they gave me the same things I need to do and nothing new. With regards to their data recovery, do not try it as I was told by their people that it is steep ($500-$1200). That's too much to pay when it is their own product that gone bad in the first place.

The Seagate 200 GB USB 2.0 and FireWire External Drive is an excellent value! I have been using mine now for several months now, and have not encountered a problem. I must say that I am not the most efficient in dealing with computers or technically savvy, but I was able to get this out of the box and connected to my desktop within a few minutes.

I use this external hard drive mainly for important back-ups for my desktop as well as I have put a few games on it. I have it connected using the USB 2.0 and not the FireWire, and the transfer time is good.

A definite recommendation to those that are running out of Hard Drive space on their Desktop, as well as an excellent back-up for any laptop.

Plain and simple. I started backing up my CPU to this lovely little peripheral and then the CPU fried (not because of the hard-drive, of course). Thanks to my 200 GB hard drive, my data was spared a gruseome death and it has proved itself worth every penny.

Speed is great. Installation painfully simple (plug & play on WinXP). I'm now using it to backup as well as store my audio files for ProTool! This thing rocks. Thank you, Seagate!

Although there is no way I can predict how long this drive will hold itself, it is so far working perfectly. I hope the drive to stay healthy for years at least.

I bought this drive about 2 weeks ago, to use it mainly as movie storage. Since then, the drive was running at least 10 hrs per day for playing movies, but the drive is still working without a problem.

I use this drive via firewire connection(not because I specifically prefer the type of connection, but all of my usb ports (10 of them) are in use), and data transfer rate is very satisfactory; difference not very noticeable(other people may feel differently) from that of my other 2 WD internal hard drives.

Design is simple and luxurious, and the unit emits little heat after hours of use. It's a bit heavy, but I personally don't trust featherweight toy-like storage drives.

One complaint: the drive is pre-formatted in FAT32, so I had to re-format the unit; it took a while. Other than that, I am completely satisfied with the drive so far.

Update (Aug 2, 2005):
- I now have two of this drive. However, the first one sometimes makes subtle ticking sounds(I don't know why), but it seems that it isn't really a problem.

Update (Dec 8, 2006):
- I have been using three of this drive for about an year; left turned-on 24 hours almost every day(I rarely turn off my PC). Yet, none of them failed so far. It's probably because that I only store big(minimum 200mb) media files in these drive. If you store massive number of small files, maybe the drive show different result.

My OS is Win2000.
I purchased the Seagate 200 gig external drive.(CD, firewire & usb cables inc.)
I purchased a Belkin USB 2.0/firewire PCI 6 port internal card..which installed easily.(CD,cables inc., $ 52.00)
It allows for 2 USB & 2 fire external ports, and 2 ports inside the computer.
No problems or hitches with any procedures. (rare for me)
If you run Win 2000 or XP, and you are updated with all security paks, you won't need the cd's drivers. The ext. drive will show up as a drive letter in 'my computer', and the computer finds the new hardware.
It can be used for a complete, regular backup or transfering files for storage. The 'BounceBack' software is simple, not confusing, and with enough selective options. So far, it seems very stable.
Using firewire, I initially backed up 5.4 gb (entire local C drive) in 23 min., smoothly and with minimal noise. I'm assuming my other storage drive (photos & music) will transfer at similar rates. The speed in accessing/reading files on the external is quicker than I expected. (firewire & the computer's processor are two main reasons)
I don't know, or really care, if others are faster. This is sufficient for me. I am more concerned about stability and reliability. So far, this Seagate seems solid.


Thoughts:
- someone else here had reasoned why buying two 200gb drives seems smarter than one 400gb drive. I agreed & followed their advice.
- everyone needs an external drive for storage/back-up.
- turn it off, walk away & everything's safe no matter what happens to your computer.
-whoever invented it deserves all credit/money....




I also own a Maxtor 80 GB I've had for almost five years now and a Western Digital 160 GB drive which I also enjoy as well. This Seagate 200 GB drive tops them both! Not by much though, just enough so that I notice. It's extremely fast to access on my PowerMac G5 and is simply outstanding!
Don't buy Lacie; I bought two and they failed ON THE SECOND DAY OF STORING DATA, which was a highly disappointing buying experience! Their quality has really gone downhill. If you really want to buy the best drives in the business, stick with Seagate and/or Western Digital. Maxtor I hear isn't as good as they used to be.

I just recieved this item, plugged it in (quite the challenge with the rats nest of cables we have) and it just worked.

I use Linux on my machine and my wife uses WinXP, it truly is just plug and play.

This drive is pre-formatted using the Windows FAT32 format, which Windows, Linux and OSX can all read/write with no problems at all.

I can't hear the drive at all, as someone else said, if it wasn't for the blue light on the front, I wouldn't know it was even on!

At less than $10 more than the next size down (160GB) theres no justification for not splashing out on this huge amount of storage.

- Davey

The easiest unit of anything to install and use. Just connect the cables and follow the on screen directions. It even reminds the user if he wishes to make a backup.

Due to my ipod taking up so much space on my laptop, I had to purchase an external HD. I put it off for months wondering if I would have the "tech" expertise to hook it up and make it work (I know little to nothing on computers, and with me, whatever can go wrong does). I have Win XP on my computer. Well let me say it took me longer to open the box than to set it up! All I did was put the external HD into the wall, then into my computer and away I went! No downloading, installing discs, etc. Just plut it into my USB port! No problems, very quiet! Have it not for the blue light, I would not even know it's on! And no problems with it! Trust me, for those who want something simple, this is the one to go with!

I have this drive for about a month now. It works as it should -- backing up data from my 2 computers. I bought it as a replacement for a Maxtor external drive (80GB) which died on me after 2 years of usage. It amazes me how can the life of a backup drive be shorter than my primary drive. I thought I'd try a different brand and decided on this Seagate drive after comparing and reading the reviews.

What I like about this drive:
1. Sturdy casing.
2. Nice look.
3. Power on/off switch.

What I don't like:
Noise. I'm surprised because most reviews praise the quietness. I think it's also louder than my previous Maxtor model. In any case, I'm going to monitor the noise level (hopefully it doesn't indicate a hardware issue).






Be warned, this is a noisy drive - I was misled by some of the reviews here. I've tried two drives, so its not a defect!

I returned the first shipment of this external hard drive because it would wake up every couple of minutes and produce a loud clicking sound that lasts for a good 20 seconds. Very noisy! And this occurs with or without the usb connection to my pc so its not due to the drive being accessed.

The background hum of the unit is also quite loud; my notebook Presario X1000 is much quieter.

Amazon shipped me a replacement drive (cudo's for Amazon on how easy they make this)! Unfortunately, the new drive does the same clicking every couple of minutes and the hum is as annoying. If you want an always-on drive on your desktop, I'd suggest looking elsewhere.

My recommendation; buy an external enclosure seperate, then get a Maxtor 200G Diamondmax plus hard drive and stick it inside. I did this for my other computer and it is completely silent!

I plan to return this second drive as well, very disappointed.

So far this been a great hard drive, good deal for the money. Easy to install, easy to partition (etc.) (at least for MacOS X). Fast, reliable. So far so good!

If you have not yet suffered a complete and total hardrive crash, just wait , you will. Be prepared with an exact copy of all your data with this Seagate External Drive. Setup is as easy as plugging in to a power source and a USB or Firewire port. Using a USB port I copied 30 gigabytes in far less than two hours. It's a great feeling knowing that everything is backed up. Options allow you to be selective so that regularly scheduled backups only require a few minutes.

A few reviewers' complained about the noise, it's minimal during backup and afterwards there is a neat little on/off switch on the back. I suspect that the drive noises that you hear after backup are all those little pieces of software attempting to "call home" as they do on your internal drive. This unit is cheap insurance against the day that you get the blue screen of death. A software upgrade, there's always a slight catch, allows the external drive to become a bootable device. Buy it and use it for your peace of mind....Lynn Stubblefield, Nashville, TN

I've been running this drive for about two months now and I'm very satisfied. Right out of the box, the drive mounted under OS X 10.4 (Tiger). It comes formatted with a FAT32 file system. I partitioned the drive and reformatted the partitions to use the Mac OS Extended file system without any problem. I now have Tiger installed on one partition -- its my emergency boot disk. I have a utility automatically backup my iMac to the other partition every night.

The drive is reasonably attractive, as external hard drives go. It can be oriented horizontally or vertically with a supplied pedestal. The drive is very quiet for an external hard drive. It makes no more noise than my 17" G4 iMac. It makes far less noise than the SmartDisk external CrossFire hard drive, also a 7200 RPM drive, which this Seagate replaces. When the drive is not in use, it spins down and makes no noise at all (or at least nothing I can hear over the ambient noise in my home office).

Been using the Seagate for a few months. Like most back up products, you really won't ever know until something bad happens. Recently I had to recover some files I trashed, (hard to do a Mac but possible if you try). Files were there just fine, saving some once in a life time photos. Have not had that catostrophic failure yet. However, with my Windows PC and another Seagate back up product I've had to recover several times and it worked just fine. The reason I picked Seagate this time.

As others note Mac install is up to Mac expectaions, clean - fast.

Plus+

+Software works well with Mac. Every few days it asks if I want to back up. I turn on the drive and say yes. If I say no, it will ask again a few days later.

+You can turn the drive off when not in use.

Only one minor Minus -

-While not loud the drive makes enough noise to completely drown out the iMac and be noticable. (To be fair the iMac G5 is very quiet there is no way you could hear the drive over any Windows desktop PC I've been near.) You can turn it off when not in use, so noise is not really an issue. I've been told the drive is quiet by most standards.

I would buy again.

I got this SEAGATE model after several months of looking.
When I heard about other hard drives dying and losing all the information I knew it would require an extra hundred bucks to get a good external drive.
It has worked smoothly for the last 10 months without a hiccup.
I do recommend this product, but electronics can go out at anytime without warning. When it does I will post it here.

For now this has been a great product
very compatible with various computers old and new

RECOMMENDED


We got this drive for one reason -- to house our iTunes library. I was a little nervous at the thought of transfering the library, but it was very easy, and, but for the sheer size of our 60 gig library, rather quick. All you need to do is transfer your library location, and consolidate. Done.

There is one issue--we had some trouble syncing our iPod. Through trial and error, I figured out that the iPod could not sync with the Seagate when the Seagate was connected with the fire wire -- when we switched to USB 2.0 -- it synced perfectly. (The iPod works with either the firewire or the usb)

The firewire connection did everything else fine, so I presume it is a glitch with iTunes. Anyway, once we figured it out it has been running error free.

Besides the firewire issue, it has been a great addition to our computer (...)!!!

This is a really good buy for the money spent. The external drive works awesome. And it is robust too. Would surely buy another device of the same type if necessary

I probably should rate the external hard drive higher. However in my opinion when something works as advertised, it should receive an average rating. It worked immediately upon being plugged into my IEEE 1394 with my windows XP. The little software program they supplied set me up with the correct disc format and allowed me to partition the drive. I am using the supplied software to backup my system. The disk drive is very quiet, runs cool and the data transfer rate is very high as advertised. I feel good about my purchase.

I just received this drive a month ago, plugged it in, formatted it for Mac OS9 + OSX and it seems to be doing fine. I bought this because I have two of the 160GB drives that have been great for archiving image files for the past year. The reviews are better for the Seagate than LaCie which I have earlier editions of and are running fine after years of use. The Seagate 200GB's power input connection seems solid; the 160GB drives' are looser and can easliy become disconnected causing the power to be interrupted if accidetantally bumped against. I do not use the backup software as I do it manually after every photo session. Just today I received notice that the rebate has been processed. So far, so good.

the drive is a really good backup drive
reliable. good value. easy to transport. versatile
and the software is excellent
the only problem is the time it takes to backup... 30GB takes 70 minutes

I ordered a Seagate 200 GB USB 2.0 Firewire External Drive, after not finding the 200 GB in stock. I found the service and delivery were excellent.


I bought the Seagate 200 GB external drive this summer, and it is one of the quietest external hard drives I have ever owned, and I love that. Yes, there is some clicking and humming when running, but that is nothing compared to the high pitched whirling noises that some external drives have. The installation was simple and easy, and I did not have any problems installing the software. The drive stays relatively warm when running, and does not overheat. I tested it for 13 hours straight, the temp stayed the same, and it ran several backups perfectly. Also, for those of you using USB 1.1, you do not have to go out and buy a USB 2.0 expansion card (unless you really need faster backup). I have an older system, and ran a 27 GB backup via USB 1.1 in about 90 minutes with no problems. In fact, the only real problems I have encountered with this drive have been with the power cord and the backup software.

First, about the backup software. The BounceBack Express software that comes with the drive has everything you need to run a basic backup, but does not include some very important features, like the ability to restore the files that you have backed-up! You need to upgrade the software ($49 download, or $59 CD) to use features like Disaster Recovery, Background Backup, Password Protection, Formatter, and Restore. I have not upgraded to the BounceBack Pro, so I cannot tell you if the extra features are worth the price. I do think that Seagate should have insisted that these features be included in the CMS BounceBack software. It seems rather underhanded to cut the software down so people will have to shell out another $50-$60 for features that most other software venders include for free. If you do decide not to upgrade make sure that you have another program (like Norton Ghost) that you can use to restore your files in case of an emergency.

Now, about the power cord. This drive requires it's own power source that you need to plug into an outlet or surge protector. A little green light will come on (on the black block attached to the power cord), indicating that it is plugged in. The end that plugs into the drive itself is what keeps giving me problems. Even the slightest movement and the green indicator light turns off and the drive has no power. The first time it happened I did not realize what the problem was. It took me a good 20 minutes of pushing and prodding everything connected to realize that it was the power cord, the part that attaches to the drive itself. I have to plug it in just right for the green indicator light to turn on, but a slight bump and I have no power to the drive. Now to be fair, this is probably a problem that is just limited to a few drives. You may buy this drive and have no problems whatsoever with the power cord, but for those of you who cannot figure out why the drive has no power and everything seems to be plugged in, I would recommend checking that green indicator light before taking the drive back for a refund.

I have been using the drive for a few months now, and I backup every week, with no problems. It is rather compact in size, and has a power switch at the back that you can turn on/off, which is one of my favorite features. I gave this drive 3 stars because of the software limitations and the problems I have had with the power cord. Despite these problems, I am actually very happy with the drive and would recommend it to a friend.


The unit was very easy to install and is very quiet. The upload/download throughput is fast enough for video editing. The backup utility nearly works as advertised (it seems to hang every so often). In fact the only issue I've had is a constant (every 30 minutes) and annoying activation of the drive. It seems to randomly run, without any perceptable reason.

I bought this solely as a backup drive after reading a slew of hard-drive crash horror stories in the news. (In the Circuits section of the New York Times, they seemed to be staging a back-up-your-data-or-die propaganda campaign. I guess it worked.)

If you can snag a mail-in or in-store rebate for this drive, it comes to less than a dollar per gigabyte (even taking into account that the "real" storage capacity is 186 GB), which is a pretty good deal. And ergonomically, it's a nifty little package; footprint is smaller than 3" by 6" when oriented vertically, and it's about the height of a paperback novel. The pedestal is just a light piece of plastic, but when oriented vertically the drive is surprisingly stable. It also comes with the Standard Massive Power Brick, but I'm guessing there's no way to get around that when you shop for these types of drives.

So you plug it in, you load the included software, and that's when this tidy-looking, capacious, bargain hard drive morphs into an irritating, conniving, lying little box that sucks in data slower than Granny sipping her Metamucil. CNET testers seemed to easily surpass 5 MBps transfer speeds (via USB 2.0), but I was well under 4 MBps on my first backup run. For backup purposes, I suppose 3-4 MBps is adequate for most users. But if you're going to be using this drive for general storage and regularly transferring several gigs' worth of data, you better have a lot of patience.

The other major shortcoming with this drive is the backup software, BounceBack Express, which is criminally paltry. To get bootability, advanced restore, and versioning functionality, you have to shell out for the "Pro" version of the software. As the user manual states, "BounceBack Express automatically preserves your files, but it does not provide automatic disaster recovery...Disaster recovery is available as the 'advanced restore' feature in BounceBack Professional." Gee, thanks.

And finally, let's get to the crucial issue that everyone here seems fixated on: the noise. No, it is no Silent Bob. (And it was louder than I expected.) Have you ever trapped a bug or a roach in a drinking glass? The "Seagate Sound" is very similar, albeit quieter. In terms of volume level, I'd compare it to the sound of an old (say, mid-'90s) laptop hard drive booting up--maybe a touch louder than that. If you work in complete silence, do not get this drive. The clicking sounds will drive you batty. However, if you listen to music (or, for that matter, if you can hear the traffic outside your window), then you won't notice it.

I gave two of these drives a chance. Tried the first one for 3 months, then returned it to Seagate for a 2nd drive under warranty for another 3. Both were bad experiences. Physically the drive seemed fine, however, the drive would mysteriously disappear and unmount in the middle of backups, or wouldn't even show up upon system restart. Bizzare. Something really wrong with Seagate's Firewire interfaces I suspect. I can't speak to how well, or poor this drive works on a Windows system with USB.

I read the negative reviews prior to buying mine, and said "must have been isolated incidents"; I should have listened up front, and avoided this drive.

Product is awesome. No noise whatsoever when turned on. Easy and relatively quick file transfer. Easy to use directly out of box.

It does just what it says it will, give you a back up of your entire system. I am a shutterbug, so I store a lot of photos. It takes well over a hour for the unit to go thu my complete system to find what is new,so it can back it up. I do have high speed dsl. It does not duplicate, just takes awhile to find what is new.

Other than that, it is a quality unit, I Like it

Fast! Easy to Use! Ample capacity for backing up today's large hard drives. Quiet! Stylish! Looks great on the desktop.

I also experienced the intermittent clicking noise that R. Hoffman heard. Seagate tech support told me this is normal for this drive - it goes into a self-test mode about every five minutes, which lasts for about one minute, and it cannot be disabled. It is VERY annoying. Otherwise it's not too noisy. The Bounceback Express software has minimal features - if you want to use this drive with a full restore function in the event of an internal computer hard drive failure, you must purchase the professional version of the software for $50-60.

I searched and researched and saw about a kabillion hard drives but the Seagate was the one that kept coming up with the most positive reviews from people.

My review is simply that it does what it's supposed to do. No drama in hooking it to my system. Performs flawlessly whenever I need it to and has withstood the rigors of being carted around town.

Love the dual ability to use USB2.0 of Firewire both of which I informally tested and can't descern any difference in speed. It's my hopes that this drive will continue to give me months if not years reliable service.

Would be nice if I could trick XP into making it my primary dump site. I have to tell XP that this is the spot.

Only had it about a month but it seems wonderful. I don't usually bother with things like this review but I am pleased with the seamless plug and play operation.

I would definitely buy it again.

Simple, cheap, effective... Nothing to complain about, sits there humming. Transfer rate is high with both USB2 and Firewire, handles large file transfers and backing up well and is surprisingly quick over all.

So uh two thumbs up!

Backup up your files on DVD or even online storage systems, or some other form of backup. I did all the research, I narrowed the list of potential hard drives to two manufacturers ...Seagate and Western Digitial, they were both the two most often manufacturers reviewed as miles ahead of the competition.

So guess what, I bought two backup hard drives from each company, stored the same info on both in case one failed. And guess what they both have failed within the first four months and within the same time frame. That means photos I've taken, music I've recorded and countless other files are gone forever. gone.

Thanks alot. What a waste of money. I don't want a replacement I want my files!

This unit is my first external HD. I have no complaints about its function as a HD, however it emits an extremely high-pitched squeal. This occurs when the unit is *off* but plugged in. It's just on the threshold of human audibility and very quiet, but it's enough to make me wince with aural pain. I need to bend down to my powerstrip and unplug the thing unless it's in immediate use.

Again, a fine HD, but keep it in a closet or on a powerstrip you can control with a switch.

I have had this external drive for about a week now, and I pushed this thing pretty far, and it works great. I originally bought it to increase my laptop memory which was 30GB. But I guess going to 200GB was a bit much, however I'm finding more and more stuff to keep on that drive. I have not tested the drive to see if it is compatable with Suse Linux yet, but I am hopefull. The one great thing about this drive is that it does not overheat at all, the drive itself is silent but that is this clicking sound when I have it store my files. Overall it is a great buy!

My 200GB Seagate USB2/Firewire External HD arrived without delay and was easy to set up. Unfortunately, the automatic backup software does not work with Mac OS 10.4, only earlier OS 10s. A minor shortcoming. It is a quiet HD, and I was able to quickly transfer my computer's contents to it, including my Itunes library. The cord is a little stiff, and takes some wrestling to get it to lay down where I want it, an odd, unnecessary shortcoming it would seem. With Seagate's $30 rebate, the price was right. Though it came highly recommended, I can't say more about the intrinsic quality of the HD because I've had it too short a time. I am taking a chance on giving it 4 stars. If it's still running fine and reliably in 2-3 years, I'll give it 5 stars.

I just returned the Seagate drive I ordered. It attached to my Linksys NSLU2 network link fine, but was very slow compared to my older Maxtor external drive. Also, I was unable to image to it using either Norton Ghost 10 or Acronis True Image 9. I tried hooking directly to USB 2 port and it was still rather slow and kind of noisy. I'm returning it and getting a second Maxtor drive.

I had been impressed by the rave reviews a year back when I purchased this product.
I can tell you that I had nightmarish expereinces with this hard drive connected to my Mac.

This Seagate external hard drive is the most "noisiest" hard drive I have ever used. I had excellent experiences with Western Digital external drives before : Fast and quiet , both on Mac and Windows.

This Seagate drive when used on a Mac via Firewire, goes off to sleep even when I am working on my computer. When it wakes up, it making a grinding hi-pitched noise thats fills the whole room.

And now the saddest part with this Seagate product: Lately I am getting a -36 error while backing up my files from this drive to DVDs. And the next day, after I repaired my disk, 80 % of the files on the drive were zero bytes in size!!!! Shocking!!

This product is NOT SUITABLE for use on a Mac. It may receive excellent ratings from Windows users, but certainly mac users would like to differ.

(...)if you have already selected a particular model, check if it clearly mentions on the box that it can be used with a Mac too. (Look for the Mac OS X logo)

Good Luck!!

I have used these devices for two years now as part of my video editing arsenal for amateur/semi-pro video productions. I own 5 and adopted them as solutions for my work team (software development) to back up developers notebooks as well. I have only one failure to report, when one was knocked from a table while operating. It is useful to note that Seagate cautions against moving the drives while "ON", but this warning was not very prominent. The drives seem to be very fragile in this state. On the other hand, they have survived a similar fall while unplugged, much to my delight.

This is my second Seagate external hard drive, having bought the 160 gb a couple of years ago(and it still runs fine). I think Seagate makes quality hard drives, and this unit is no exception.

I use this unit to backup my IBM Thinkpad laptop and for video editing. I have my own backup software(IBM Rescue and Recovery, and also Acronis TrueImage 9.0) so the included backup software is not important to me. This unit works flawlessly with the software that I use.

Setup is very simple. I have Windows XP Pro and have had no problems having my computer recognize the external hard drive. The choice of USB or firewire connection is also very handy.

The unit comes in a FAT format, which has limitations for video editing. However, the included software made converting to a NTFS file system a breeze.

I have read comments calling the unit noisy, and can only say that everything is relative. Yes, there is a slight noise when the unit is working, but nothing that most people would find annoying or distracting.

Turning the unit on and off is easily accomplished with a button in the front.

Finally, although the unit does not come with a carrying case, you can easily find a case in a store like Target if you want to transport it between home and office.

I have read various negative comments, and can only say that I have not experienced any of the problems that those persons had. I definitely recommend this unit for backups, storage and video editing.



Beware of warranty terms and conditions. Is one year starting from the date your retailer purchased it.
The drive stoped working after two months for no apparent reason; sent back and received a refurbished one from manufacturer; second drive stopped working after four months.

Used it for a month, it worked great and then dumped all my PC files on it so I could upgrade my PC. After upgrading I reconnected the External drive to restore my files and it never worked again. USB ports are fine as my camera and jukebox player are still recognized. Sent my HD out for Data Recovery and was told the heads crashed and they could not guarantee me how many files could be recoverd. The cost is anywhere from 800 to 2,000. This is the only time in 20 some years i've expierenced a hard disk crash. Seagate only warrants their externals for one year and Data Recovery is not warranted at all. So don't be like me and put 100% confidence in a HD without additional backups.

Do not buy Seagate External Hard Drives. It worked great initially so backed up my files. On buying a new computer I attempted to reload files I had backed up and the Seagate drive was dead. Warranty replacement is not satisfactory either as the replacement drive is inferior in quality to drive returned. I have not backed up on the replacement drive but do not expect it to work any different than the original drive purchased. However, at the present time the computer does recognize the replacement drive, but for how long? Very unreliable product for the price.

It has been 20+ days now and it is working fine. I have heard problems with other companies' Hard Drives , so finally decided to go with seagate which is working fine.

The only thing that needs to be taken care is the sound is makes...which sometimes seems irritating--otherwise it goes good....Also, sometimes when u try to shut it down through "Safely Remove hardware", it says file is in use (though that's not true)---

Data transfer rate is OK.

But Seeing the reviews of other hard drives, I would still recommend this one--Which seems better among others.

Hope this helps,

Ankush

Seagate hard drives are dependable and solid. The Backup express software was easy to install and has been nudging me to back up my laptop almost every day (annoying, but a good thing). Not a bad choice for the price.

I've been using mine for several weeks now, mostly to store backups of my music collection, and I've been perfectly happy with it. It works fine, it requires absolutely no setup, and the speed with which I can access it over the USB connection is acceptably fast. And when mounted vertically on the stand, it takes up very little space on my computer desk.

Seagate always makes a good product.

I use this Seagate 200GB Drive to save special files from my other two hard drives and open back and forth with no troubles!

I like the off/on switch. No problems with re-booting.

Highly recommend Seagate Drives.

Its pretty good with USB 2.0 and Firewire Interface, but the disk makes lots of noise during operation. Also it looks slightly bulky compared to Other models.

But for the Price its really worth.

Easy setup, easy to use. Besides having both USB 2.0 and FireWire jacks (cables provided) for lightning fast data transfer rates, this great drive features vertical as well as horizontal (stackable) positioning. It also has dual FireWire jacks to enable daisy-chaining of multiple devices. Backups are literally push-button easy (multi-function button on front panel) and the backup/restore software is very user friendly too. As if all that good stuff weren't enough, this drive even comes with an easy-to-read Quick Start User Guide, which covers setup, backup/restore software installation and usage, a troubleshooting section (probably unnecessary for most installations), and a 24/7 toll-free technical support phone number--haven't had to use it yet!

This hard drive backed up my entire My Documents directory without any trouble. It took a good 2 hours for all the data to transfer for the first time. I thought that was a bit slow. However, since then, it only takes about 5 minutes to back up.

This external drive was purchased in order to provide backup storage for multiple machines with multiple operating systems. Out of the box it was recognised by WinXP and installed after plugging the unit into the rear USB port of the computer. The external hard drive also has firewire connectivity that will allow another unit of this type to be daisy chained to it via the firewire port if the firewire is not used to connect to a computer.

Being aware that WinXP is somewhat vulnerable to virus software et al the decision was made to move the external backup drive to a Linux machine in order to provide added security for the backups. As this drive arrives preconfigured for the Windows environment, this was not to be a plug and play move. After a little configuration of the Linux software however, the external drive installed very well to the Linux machine and is now a permanent fixture on it.

The external drive is quiet when both idle and busy, in fact, sometimes a check of the drive light in the on/off switch is done in order to obtain visual confirmation that the backups are actually occuring.

There was no surprise with the actual size of the storage capacity of the drive. It is advertised as having 200GB but years ago the hard drive industry decided to rewrite the definition of the size of a byte to be 1000 bits as opposed to the industry standard of 1024 bits per byte.

Overall considering the cost, flexibility, functionality and expandability of the external hard drive, this is an excellent buy.

I unwrapped the contraption and began working with it. It produced many noises. It then caused my computer to crash. i could no longer store anything with it. Tech support said it was due to a faulty cord. I then replaced my computer now it works fine.

I got this external drive to back up my pictures and hard drive. I've had it for 2 months and so far so good! It was easy to set up.

My computer guy was VERY excited that I do manual backup. He said that the software is horrid, but the hardware is great.

I sleep better at night knowing I've got a backup system in place!

Beware when buying from a third party.If there is a problem you are on your own..!!!!
I was sent the wrong product I returned it immediately and it was over a month before I got a refund.I never was fully reimbursed for the return delivery...!
Amazon is getting a bad reputation for not looking after their customers when there are problems.....Check this out online with consumer sites.....
Shame on you Amazon.....never again.There are too many other places to shop that know how to treat customers, why waste your time and money!

This drive performs just as advertised and the backup software is very easy to use. I highly recommend it!

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.

Where else can you get a good external hardrive aat a cost of around $0.88/GB? Its quiet and works great. Anyone who wrote a bad review either had damage in shipping, or didn't check the product specs carefully enough.

I'm delighted with the product and my online transactions with Amazon. I have an iMac and following the well written instructions, the HD was up and running in no time. It is quiet and fast using a firewire connection. A good price and free delivery sweetened the transaction.

I ordered it last week and it came 3 days early. I was expecting it Thursday.

So easy to use right out of the box you don't even need instructions. Of course, you should read them anyway. It's not 200gb.. More like 186 but I didn't care. I already backed up the bulk of my files and only used 3gb.

Nice on/off button but you have to press and hold the button for at least 4 or 5 seconds to power it on and off. Like other customers have said already, keep it off when you're not using it. Plug it out too to conserve energy and protect yourself from possible hackers.

We got this 200GB drive to help us with the additional task of backing up files between offices when we realized that our Seagate 160GB drive would not be enough to do both things: daily backups and data transfer between locations. Now this 200GB monster is sitting in one of the offices for our daily backups and the 160 GB (also a Seagate) is going back and forth and they are both holding up extremely well.

The two only downsides to the 200GB drive:
-It can be a bit noisy (I find it noticeably noisier than its 160GB counterpart), including the times when it's not in use.
-It is not precisely compact in design. But having seeing how many overheating issues arise in limited spaces such as the insides of laptops, I am not sure having a roomy case is such a bad thing after all.

All in all, I'd recommend this external drive for daily backups any day. I am sticking with Seagate!

Very convenient and useful device. I'm using it for about year time and planning to buy one more similar hard drive from Seagate.

I'm a car guy, not a computer guy, and I wish that for every piece of online advice telling me to build my own hard drive, I could have advised people to rebuild their own engines.

OK. I wanted a straightforward external drive to store the usual pictures, music, etc, and I was surprised to discover that narrowing the list down to a few worthy candidates was much more difficult than I thought. For every drive that got a rave review, there was more than one alternate viewpoint that said it was the worst electronic device ever made. That was true of this Seagate drive as well, though it had the best balance (on Amazon, at least) of good versus bad reviews.

Setting up the drive itself on Mac OSX was mostly a breeze, though the initializing instructions that came with the drive didn't exactly jibe with what was actually on screen. The difference was something minor--I think the instructions said to click "initialize," while the on-screen button was marked "erase." I believe that all the drives are shipped with PC formatting, and reformatting for Mac is necessary.

The drive, though advertised at 200GB, has about 185 GB once it's initialized and ready to go. From my understanding that's pretty much standard fare for external drives.

I have it hooked up via FireWire, and it's plenty fast--the only thing that has been really time-consuming so far was the very first complete backup. The backup software that comes with the drive is called BounceBack, and it's a bit balky--I haven't yet figured out how to set preferences for automatic backup and such.

So far, the only real complaint I have is a minor one--I have the drive sitting next to my computer, and it does make constant noise when its working. It's no louder than the computer itself, but its noticable. I have no basis for comparison, but it's a bit louder than I expected.

I'll give it 4 stars because of the noise, but operation so far has been seamless. Knock on wood, as far as I can tell no one makes a foolproof external drive.

A very easy way to back up and to expand storage capacity. So easy that I might never again replace a hard drive that has grown too small.

The on-off switch is kinda hard to turn on sometimes. It takes a particular touch. I have a 250GB and both switches are like that. Otherwise they would get four stars. Also, when stacked horizontially (like pancakes) they do not interlock nearly as securely as you would hope. Except for the bottom drive, the cords kinda pull at them and the interlockiing design is not very tight. They are fine on the stands that they come with to stand up like books, if there is room. There is much more space between them when on the stands like books.

But I have driven around with them several times and no problem, no data corruption, they always start and each is fast enough that I cannot tell any speed difference from good internal hard drive of similar capacity. The drives have not met an XP computer that they could not instantly work with via the USB 2.0 port. I have not used the firewire port.

I have it set to Windows. A Macbook could read all of the files on the drive and I could copy them to the Macbook drive. I could not copy from the Macbook to the external drive set up for Windows, which was fair enough.

Video and music take up so much space that for an off-site back up I would now buy a 400GB for backup, if the 400 GB is as reliable.

The Seagate is easy to set up, reminds me to do a back up if I go beyond 7 days, and all it takes is the touch of a button to effect the back up.

The external drive is also compact and quiet.

I bought this external hard drive about six months ago when my computer began exhibiting signs of old age and music overload. I have been able to store at least 60GB of material on it so far with ZERO problems. For the most part it works flawlessly. Setting it up was a little confusing mostly because the instructions are somewhat bungled. My only complaint with the hard drive itself is an intermittent buzzing sound that comes out of it. But, overall, I am very pleased with it.

For the price and the Name, this is a nice buy. The only reason I would not give it 5 stars is that i cannot determine how to consistently turn it on or off, especially off. It amazes me as I lay on the floor next to it, trying to place my finger with the precise angle and pressure the switch evidently needs. I thought on and off switches had been perefected some time ago....

When one of you tells me what the secret is, then I will revisit and add a star. So tell me! I am about to sign off and loathe this hassle. Otherwise, mine is quick, I knew about the 186gb and it is very quiet.

I've had this external hard drive for over a year and I haven't had any problems so far. In fact I am ordering one for my father for Christmas. Like the other reviewer said it is a 185GB drive. I also have a Seagate 400GB drive as well. I have the drives partitioned for my MP3's, Photos, Videos, & Backup programs (I've loaded all the program disks that have came with my computer and aftermarket disks to the external hard drive so that I don't have to go searching for them.) You can burn data CDs directly from the external drives but the transfer rate is too slow to burn DVDs. It's usually best to burn from your internal hard drive anyway.

About the on/off switch, after you perform the "Safely remove hardware" procedure, press & hold the power button for about 5 seconds. This allows the unit to safely power down.
Jeff

Good product..
Combination of firewire and usb helps a lot..
transfer rate is good and is good deal on amazon..

This Seagate external drive was very easy to install (truly plug and play) and performs very well - quiet, good transfer rate and no failures or data errors even under heavy use.
But there are a couple of features that might have made it even better. The drive doesn't seem to allow you to setup a hibernation or power save mode. Also if you plan on switching it off manually, any automatic backup jobs to this drive will not work until you switch on the drive manually. It would have been great if they could have allowed it to be woken up by the computer when needed. Not a big deal. Just a nice to have.
Overall, a great product!!!

I heard that this tye has a fiddly on/off button, but thankfully it does not appear to be the case. If I hold the button for a second it turns on, and about 3-4 of the same turns it off.

It hasnt given me any problems so far. A friend recommended this to me and I would recommend it to others as well.

:)

I've already purchased 4 of these. Very reliable! Not the cheapest but still an excellent value. Also; check out the SimpleTech 250 GB External.

It has worked flawlessly! Just plug and play. No hassles and very quiet.

True plug and play. It just works. What else could you ask for.

This drive's 110v connector came loose and caused loss of partition data--was able to recover data, but this drive had never even been moved from my office, so it's hard to understand how it would come loose except that it is cheaply designed and/or produced.

And of course it's not under warranty--not in the U.S., that is--same drive gets 2 year warranty in the EU, but only 1 year in U.S. What's up with that?

No more Seagate drives for me, thank you.

The "plug and play" aspect of this machine is vastly overrated. After connecting it, I had extreme difficulty getting it to show up on my desktop and the "support" software had the sole advantage of letting me register my purchase online (supposedly enabling me to be first on the list to buy more of this company's subpar products). After rebooting my computer, trying again and having a similar level of success, I decided that I would simply consider the $150 I paid for it to be a life lesson in why I should never purchase anything else from Seagate. If you are a computer networking expert, this machine may perhaps have some virtues that I am unaware of, but for the casual computer user, this is absolutely NOT something you should buy.

Bought it, loaded the disc full of info, and 4 months later, the disc failed completelly... I made the mistake of not having a secondary backup source, so I lost about 20 gigs of personal photography made during the last four years....

Then, I sent the disk to seagate... I specifically told them that my priority was to recover my info, and that the repair of the disk was secondary in my priorities, and they said "OK, we'll get your info AND repair your disk since it is on warranty"... When i heard that, i felt such a relief..

Today, I received the disk from Seagate, and I opened it's box, and everything was neatlly packaged, and it had a big label that said "repaired"... Then I set it up on its stand, and Voila!! The case that protects the internal HD fell apart!!! Ignoring it, I plugged the HD and MY INFO WASN"T RECOVERED!!!

It's really a shamefull position for Seagate not to honor it's word (they said they we're going to get the info) and, yes, the HD is now functionall, but the case fell off!! I don't even want to consider the quality of the repair that this disk underwent ...

So, for that reason, this HD is going to the trash... I won't ever trust my data to Seagate again...

I've been very happy with this Seagate External Drive. It is extremely quiet. The setup was "plug & play" simple with my Windows XP laptop. I was pleased as punch - so long as I saved files to the unit manually.

By transferring my digital photos to the Seagate External Drive, for example, I was able to free up half of my computer's hard drive - which was my original reason for purchasing this peripheral (so mission accomplished. Hooray!).

Feeling more confident about the unit, I decided to use the included BounceBack Express software (licensed from CMS) to copy - and to automatically update -- other large files, such as "My Documents."

The BounceBack software has an update feature which you can schedule to run automatically - which will also scan your original files to only backup those items which have changed.

After completing the first backup, I turned off and powered down the computer as I do normally - and I had no major problems doing so.

The next day, however, when I came back to use my PC - the unit would no longer boot up to Windows. I entered via the "safe mode," and I tried for an hour to "restore" my system to an earlier date but was not successful.

I finally decided to uninstall the BounceBack software - and my PC immediately returned to normal and booted up on the first try.

(Installing the BounceBack software, by itself, did not create any issues. It was only after I had used the software to backup my files did problems occur.)

Before this Seagate unit, I had been using an Apricorn portable drive for data backup. But this Seagate External Drive gave me 200 GB - for about the same price as an 80 GB portable drive from Apricorn (and others). Such a deal!

Even without the BounceBack software, this Seagate External Drive is still an excellent value!


I've never taken the time to write a review on Amazon before, but I feel that I have to for this product. This thing is absolutely amazing. I'm not a computer programmer - just the average person who uses his computer for work, school, entertainment, etc. It was incredibly easy to set-up and partition, and it has more than enough storage for the average user who uses an MP3 player and wants to keep a back-up of all of their songs. I also have four seasons of my favorite TV shows on this thing. I've had it for over a month now and not problem with it. If you're looking for an external drive, this is the one - good price and great product.

I'm a mac user.....and was concerned if it would work OK.
So far, so good.
It was easy to install.
Pleased with its speed and capacity.

I plugged this hard drive into my computer and used it to backup files. About 2 months later I was copying files and all of a sudden it wasn't recognized anymore...I worked with it but nothing worked. I called Seagate Tech Support and they refused to honor the warranty because they wouldn't be able to tell if it was my fault that it broke...it never left my desk. Very poor drive.

More recently i've purchased a Western Digital MyBook. I have dropped it 4 times and it keeps on trucking. The Seagate one is good if your in the market for a new paperweight.

Before I tear into DHL allow me to say that Amazon.com makes living in Snakebelly rural America a whole lot more enjoyable. Also I have a 160 G Seagate and it works fine. I got this new one for a limited time frame Video project I'm working on. When I order from Amazon my experience is that the item comes quickly.
Enter DHL. (Cue the music) My much needed Seagate External Hard Drive for the last few days has been sitting somewhere in this small town and labeled "Undeliverable." Now I work at home so undeliverable must mean that either their delivery van is out of gas or they can't find their driver. This is consistent with DHL. If a vender told me up front they were using DHL, I'd go somewhere else. Two big thumbs down for DHL.

This external hard drive has worked great for storing my home video files. Easy to set up and partition. (I partitioned into four sectors simply for organizational purposes.) I read some reviews about the on/off button being touchy. If people would read the instructions, they tell you to hold the button momentarily till the machine turns on or shuts off. I've never had a problem with it. This has saved a lot of room on my computer since avi files take up so much space. After I turn the avi files into DVDs, I won't need to keep all of them anyhow. I'll save them as DVDs which will take up less room. Also, I knew nothing about setting up an external hard drive before I purchased this. I followed the instructions and everything works fine (I use a pc with windows XP). I didn't even buy this from Amazon, but I did read alot of the reviews here before purchasing.

This is the easiest piece of computer equipment I have every owned. Although a little expensive, its ease of use is well worth it. I just opened the package, plugged it in and have not yet been disappointed. The fact that it has two choices of access might be a plus for some people. I do not store a lot of information on it, but it is great for my music, audiobooks, and pictures. Those are the things I would really hate to lose if my computer crashed for some reason. This is the first external drive I have had and after much research decided that Seagate was the best choice for me. I don't know a lot about these things, but so far so good.

It took no time at all to get it going, fired right up and has been doing a fine job storing my info. Only complaint: it looks like a toaster or a mini heater. The body could use a redesign, a new "do". Also, it lags a little when I press the start button, never sure if it's on until I see the blue light. All in all, for 200 gigs, I'm more than satisfied with this product.

I have absolutely zero computer skills so the fact that I was able to hook this drive up and get it to work with out any problems proves how great it is.



The combination of a new Dell XPS410 system and the Seagate 200 GB USB 2.0 works well UNLESS you choose to install the CMS Bounceback software included with the Seagate Drive. This product allows for automatic data backup but may render the computer system inoperable due to an apparent driver conflict. The result is the Blue Screen of Death. Possible fixes are available; however, I had to perform a system restore to an earlier point, prior to the software installation to recover computer functionality. This appears to be an Intel/Dell problem and a serious one. So the drive part of the product works fine but installing the accompanying software can result in a very bad day. You can use Google to find out more and possible fixes.

I first purchased this drive in April last year to back up my home computer files and digital pictures. I have been very pleased with the performance and have no complaints. Today I'm purchasing a second one so I can back up the files on my laptop as well. The BounceBack software that comes with it is also easy to use and gets the job done.

I bought this hard drive to store my ProTools recording projects. I first used the hard drive with my Dell 5150 Inspiron laptop and had no trouble what so ever. No software was needed to be installed. The drive worked perfectly. No problems. I recently purchased a Apple iMac and transfered all my files from my pc over to the mac using this drive. Then I reformatted the drive to transfer and save files on the imac. Again no software need. Easy operation and works great with both pc and mac. I recommend this drive to anybody looking to store or backup files.