Seagate ST3300601CB-RK 300 GB External Hard Drive with FireWire and USB 2.0 Interface

This is a great device and a good value, especially if you are seeking simple backups, or if you already have backup software you like.

The backup software included only does full, uncompressed backups (essentially just copies file and directories), so if you ever want to backup only changed files, you would have to do so manually. So the backup procedure is simple, and it's easy to locate your files for restore since they are stored in a non-proprietary format), but there's not the versatility of incremental or differential backups, compression, or any other bells and whistles.

This is not a big knock on the device however; few drives come with great hardware out of the box, this is still a great deal.

Have used a lot of external hard drives and seagates have always been tops for quality and longevity
With a 5 year warranty, how can you beat it?
Love the dual connections as not all my computers have USB 2.0
Once again, I've used Seagate for years and recommend them highly

clean, fast, huge enough, great price too. Thankfully, I bought this and backed up my Emac, several times now, and have not had my old baby die first!

This drive does not have a fan. Instead, it puts itself into sleep mode after five to ten minutes of inactivity in order to stay cooler. What this means is that when you need it, you have to wait several seconds for it to wake up. This becomes extremely annoying very quickly. This design flaw is built into the hardware so there is no software setting to overide it. To make things even more annoying, you'll get an error message from Windows telling you "The file is in use by another program" if you try to do anything with the file you're trying to save while the disk drive is waking up, causing another interuption to your work. What a piece of junk!

I read many reviews for this product most of them positive so I joined the herd and bought one myself...and they're right! Its a great external hard drive for the price, quiet (to me), and sturdy. Bought it about a month and a half ago and have almost filled it up already (musician, running audio apps) and have not (so far) run into any problems with it. Converted to NTSC format to get larger files on and was seamless. I use it for storage and to run apps from so its GREAT...FIVE STARS! You won't be disappointed!

External is very quiet= easy to set-up, no problems- so far - so good

I bought the harddrive for editing movies. It has been very reliable so far for MANY hours of editing and I would definitely recommend this harddrive brand for that purpose.

Bought this drive to back up my data on my MacBook--bought it because of the Seagate name. It's nice drive with a sturdy, if somewhat bulky, plastic enclosure, dual firewire 400 ports and one USB 2.0 port, an combo on/off/backup button on the front. Comes with thick cables and a power adapter.

The drive worked fine for six months, but then failed. It powers on and spins up, but will not respond to the power button and won't mount--just makes a spinning sound with occasional pauses, so none of my recovery software can see it.

The drive has a power-saving mode that you can not disable--goes to sleep after 10 minutes or so. Unfortunately, the power light goes off too so you can't tell if it's still running, then it takes a few seconds to come back on when you try to access the drive. Good for the environment, bad for my workflow.

Guess I need a back-up for my back-up. :(

what can i say, its a seagate. works great, affordable price, great brand.

Used this drive to export 80 min HDV presentation (230 Gig) from
Avid Xpress Application- working fine so far, quiet, resilient
(took a couple knocks), although the 300 gig advertised is
only 279.


This is a product I truly feel is a must have for computer users. I love the fact that it is both Firewire (1394) and USB 2.0 compatible. I use either connection frequently based on which system I am working on. The 300GB of space, though at times might seem small (video work), actually makes the development I do easier and with less overhead on the system. I own several different Seagate USB 2.0 products and this is the best investment I made.

I work in the IT world, and I kept trying to deploy Enterprise-type backup solutions for my home LAN, like Retrospect backing up to Windows Server. What a nightmare. However, this USB Hard Drive and included backup utility, BounceBack have worked just great. Bounceback isn't super sophisticated, but it always works. One thing I really like is that when I mount the Seagate, I can actually see the backed-up files. With tools like Retrospect, all you see are some incomprehensible backup files. I can highly recommend this, and definitely plan on adding more as my storage needs increase.

This hard drive was well rated and I purchased it. I was doing well until I tried installing the enclosed program "BounceBack Express". This caused my brand new computer with Windows XP to lock up. I was able to retrieve most of my data but had to reinstall XP. When I tried BounceBack again, the same thing happened. This time I was able to use System Restore. The drive works flawlessly without the special software.

The backup seems to be working fine and I have restored a file. At this point, I haven't used it that much and I will have to learn the procedures that will allow me to go directly to my purposes.

I got this external hard drive for my dell laptop. I conected using USB 2.0, and I got a good transfer rate. Now I can get all my backup and music file in one place, instead of a lot of cd's or data DVD's. It is easy to carry out, and I don't have any problems to use it in other computers.

I've never been disappointed in a Seagate product and this drive is no exception. The setup was very, very easy. Literally all you have to do is plug in the AC-Power adapter and plug in the data cable. Windows (any version later that Windows 2000 will do - I definitely wouldn't bother to use this drive on an obsolete O/S) immediately recognized the drive and added it to "My Computer." I know it's fashionable to bash Microsoft - but they're number one for one simple reason: most of the time their stuff works and it doesn't take a PhD or a million dollars.

The final word on the software: you don't need it. Throw it away. No, really go ahead; I'll wait. Thank you.

One note about the data interface, while the drive comes with both USB and Firewire (IEEE 1394a) cables, you're going to want to use the Firewire. USB works, but it's dog slow. If you're used to the speeds from your interior drives, then USB speeds are going to be unacceptable. I have a Belkin IEEE 1394a PCI express card (available on Amazon) and it worked great. With a 300GB drive for backup's you're going to want the speed.

Another suggestion - once you've installed the drive, and Window recognizes it, you'll want to format it to NTFS. There are numerous advantages to NTFS over Fat32 (when using a Microsoft O/S) but that is not the focus of this review.

To format to NTFS, right click on My Computer. Select Manage from the pop-up menu. Once the Computer Management menu pops up, browse down to Disk Management. You'll see your new Seagate drive (named SEA_DISK by default). Right click on the drive and select Format, making sure to choose NTFS. Then go away for a while: with 300GB, it's going to take at least an hour (and probably longer) to format.

Keep in mind that this is only a suggestion. It's just my opinion that NTFS is better and after all - who the heck am I? So, if you goof it up, then I'm not responsible, proceed at your own peril, your mileage may vary, etc., etc. You've been warned.

In the title of this review, I called this a simple backup solution. And it is - provided you go to the next step. If you're backing up your important files, then go all the way. Buy a second drive (at less than a dollar a GB, it's a bargain) and take the time to backup at least monthly, storing one of the drives in another physical location - I use a safe deposit box. By alternating drives I'm never more than a month out of date and if disaster strikes, my most important financial and personal (think of all those photos you've stored from your digital camera) datafiles will be safe, taking some of the bite out of tragedy. Or something like that! ;-)

All in all, I couldn't be happier with this drive. Highly recommended!

For the price this provided a great amount of external storage for my photo albums. My laptop is running alot faster without all that extra stuff.

This is certainly one of the best external hard drives that I have ever owned. It really is reliable and has a much better build quality than many of the others that I have used. The 16 mb cache also makes a difference for those huge file transfers which I am apt to do. Firewire connectivity is also a great advtantage. Theoretically it should be slower than USB 2 but the type of connection to the PC allows it to be faster and to transfer files much more quickly.
All in all, a great hard drive and one I truly reccomend.

Here are the issues :

1. Backup software is just crap, with errors
2. Disk is very noisy.
3. Disk is slow in comparison to Western Digital with exactly the same speed and cache.

But amazon is great, returning the item is more easier than regular store.
I'm now a permanent customer of Amazon.com

Thanks


I needed a larger drive to backup my internal hard disks so I read the reviews. This drive looked good with some concerns about the software so I purchased the drive as I already have backup software.

Amazon shipped quick. The drive arrived and when I plugged it into my Macintosh G4 firewire port the drive icon appeared on the desktop. Next I downloaded and read part of the Bounceback software manual.

I discovered that THE ABILITY TO MAKE THE BACKUP A BOOTABLE DRIVE IS NOT AVAILABLE IN THE SHIPPED SOFTWARE. To get that feature you must upgrade to the pro version and as best I could tell the software is nothing more than a shell over the ditto command that comes with the OS anyway so I trashed the software.

The Disk Utility that came with Mac OS 10.4 reformatted the drive as a HFS journaled drive with no problems and my old standby CarbonCopyCloner made a duplicate of my main drive onto the new drive. It also made a disk image of my second internal drive.

To test the backup, I started the machine using the backup as the boot drive and manually mounted the disk image of my second drive then unmounted both my internal drives. I was pleased to find that the machine ran perfectly from the backup drive and was almost as fast. I restarted back to my normal configuration and turned the drive off. Once per week I start the drive and make a new disk image of my running drives. It works flawlessly.

The only complaint I have with the drive is the startup process requires you to press the start button until the blue light comes on. The light is a little hard to see with my thumb on the button so I just feel for the drive to spin up and let go.

There is minimal vibration and no noise. My system is set to let the drive spin down when it is idle and I must place my hand on the drive to tell when it is running.

So far I have been running it for 1 month with no problems and I expect a long service life. I asked technical support why they only warranty the drive for 1 year in this configuration when the internal version of the drive is covered for 5 years. Their response was quick (24 hours) and they explained that many people move the drive while it was still spinning which put excessive strain on the drive and the portable drives were subject to more bouncing and dropping than internal drives so they were forced to lower the guarantee to one year, but he assured me the drive inside was the same one that had the longer warranty when installed as an internal drive. He also stated firmly that the warranty on this unit was only ONE year.

I would have liked to have given 5 stars, but some people might buy the drive expecting more from the software than they will get.

I've had this drive for only a week so I can't speak to it's long term stability. Also, I haven't used the backup software, I don't need it and it sounds like it's crap from the reviews on here. Setup was very easy for me under XP Home. Plug it in and away you go. It comes in FAT32 format which is considerate since that's the most widely compatible, but I did reformat in NTFS. Reformatting is really easy and there are instructions included for those that aren't familiar with that aspect of windows. This drive comes with a 6 pin firewire connector - which if you have a laptop you might have a 4 pin port. 6 pin to 4 pin cables are available and this drive is fully compatible (the other two pins carry power - this drive is powered by the included ac adapter). A few things: the drive does spin down after a period of non-use. I like this because I'm going to leave this on 24/7 and I don't want it spinning the whole time. Response from sleep is quick, just a second or two at most. Second, the AC adapter is bulky, however I like this also because the brink isn't inside the drive creating heat. But, if you're looking for a portable drive to lug around you might take that into consideration. Also the drive is a bit bulky, it's a large thick square, plastic casing: nothing fancy. It runs pretty cool and is quite silent (it sits right next to my laptop), maybe a click or two when the heads start moving. Great drive, good amount of storage, good price (even better if you shop around), just be careful - have a secondary backup for your most important data (photos, docs, etc).

Update: (5/4/07) Still going good. Works fine with Vista.

The advertizing literature seemed to suggest that it could be used on both a Mac and PC. This was true but what was not obvious was that it could not be used easily to share files between a PC and a MAC. I needed to buy an extra piece of software to perform this magic. But this was not the disk's fault. The disc is working flawlessly and really was "plug-n-play".

This is a great hard drive. It never gets warm! I leave it all day on and never gets hot. I have never had any problem with it and I use it for entire backup of my company. It is great.

This is a great external hard drive; it filled my backup needs and has yet to leave me with anything to complain about. I like that it came formatted in Fat32. I know it would work much faster if I partitioned into a Mac or Windows only file system, but the convenience of Fat32 is that it works across any platform. But if you are using the drive with only Windows or only Mac, definitely reformat the drive to NFTS or Mac FS respectfully to get maximum speed and performance.

I did not bother trying to use the included backup software because I've heard mixed messages about it. Their is always alternative backup software. These are the best free backup programs on the net: iBackup for Mac OS X, and Synctoy for Windows XP. Once you upgrade to Windows Vista or Mac OS Leopard, you will not need to install any backup utility, since they both come standard with excellent backup programs. Or, if you're really old fashion, you can always backup manually with the old copy and paste or drag and drop.

All in all, this was an excellent purchase. I looked around, and this really was the best deal for a high quality large volume storage device.

I have no complaints so far about the drive itself. I plugged it into the USB port and Windows XP recognized it right away. I then installed the BounceBack 7.0 software that came with the product. The installation was uneventful. After the installation completed, I ran a back-up which ran all night and into the following afternoon. I wasn't in any hurry so the time it took to do the backup wasn't a problem for me. After the backup completed, I shut down Windows normally. The next time I tried to startup Windows, I ended up with a blue screen with error messages flashing by. Eventually, I was able to get into safe mode and restore to a system backup taken prior to the BounceBack installation (I didn't realize that I could just have uninstalled BounceBack from safe mode). I have called SeaGate tech support and spoken to three different people in an attempt to get some software for my drive. They have all told me different and conflicting things and so far I still don't have any software. I plan on making another call today.

If you are running Windows XP and are looking for something that will be quick and easy to install and you actually want software with your drive, I would stay away from this product until they start shipping software that isn't toxic. I don't know if the same problems would occur with other operating systems but I would check into whether the BounceBack software will work on your operating system (and not crash it) before ordering this product.

I received great service, as usual, drive arrived 5 days prior to expected delivery date. Worked just like advertised right out of the box. Has ability to run from firewire or USB which was the selling point for me. It kept USB ports open for other devices.

I plugged it in, XP recognized it, I loaded the backup software and backed up all three computers on our little house-net. Smooth and fast. Terrific product.

I had a huge problem with audible interferrence when connected to my computer (via FW and USB, powered-up and off) and i tried 3 different computers. seagate customer service was no help. i'm forced to try and take the drive out and put it in another housing.

Pros:
1. affordable
2. quick read/write
3. usb and firewire
4. small footprint

Cons:
1. spins down after 10 minutes of innactivity - no way to change this!
2. problems unmounting in order to disconnect!
3. created horrible and audible interferrence thru my speakers!

I recently purchased the Seagate ST3300601CB-RK, and am very pleased so far. It was a replacement for a LaCie Porsche external, which constantly had corrupted directories, documents would disappear and reappear, etc. Not so with the Seagate. It works reliably as promised, and the included backup software, while not perfect, does the job well and is a great improvement over XP's built in tools. My only complaint so far would be that it's a little loud, and developed a slight whine when using the vertical stand.


This is a wonderful drive for the money with a dual firewire/USB interface. I'm using this with a Mac Mini with firewire. It's quiet, stackable, and pretty quick. I had to knock off half a star for some design deficiencies. Two grumbles - I cannot power this on and off through an external switch, such as a power distribution center. The drive has a combination on/off and click-backup switch which always comes up in the "power off" state. That's a minor annoyance. The second annoyance is that the firewire pass-through only operates while the drive in powered up. So, unless you have your drive up all the time, you will loose a firewire port for no good reason. Short of that - great drive for the money and I'm happy with it.


I have had no problems with this drive, no complaints other than a month after I bought this, I found another drive with 200 more gigs for only $20 more. But I'm still glad I bought this one.

I overloaded my computer with images and found this product to store them on. No worry now of loosing them and no thousands of CD backups. Very easy to store your photos and retreive as needed. Compact, easy easy to install. Why did I wait so long.

I divided this 300 gig unit into two partitions, one for programs and one big one for music. I've got around 120 gigs of music in it now and it works great. Relative ease to set up (I'm a novice), and the "Bounceback" software is great. I only turn the unit on once a day, open the Bounceback program, and back up My Music folder. Takes about 15 minutes. It's fast. The initial COMPLETE BACKUP of 120 gigs took about 2 hours with the USB connection. The design is very appealing, it makes no noise that I can hear. I'm very happy with the product and the service from Amazon.

I have used this item for several weeks and am completely satisfied with its performance. I had an external hard drive from another manufacturer which I used for 5 years, but after it caused my system to crash X2, I decided to switch to Seagate. Very easy to operate and a great comfort to know that my important data can be restored if needed.

I recently had an internal hard drive crash (insert gasp! here). Drive was sent to two different "data-recovery" firms that were unable to retrieve my data. Rather than purchasing a new internal for an aging system, I decided to build an updated system and to add backup in the form of an external drive. After much research (and warnings from reliable IT sources about using anything Western Digital), I decided to go with this unit based on research, reviews, reputation and price. The Maxtor units scored somewhat better in CNET tests, but the price per GB and Seagate reputation swayed the decision. Incidentally, my crashed drive is a Western Digital Caviar series which, I've learned is prone to premature and frequent failure. On to the Seagate:

Unit arrived well-boxed and includes USB & FireWire cables, 2-part power cable, software disc including BounceBack (we'll get to that later) and full instructions. I opted for desktop vertical mounting using the included plastic snap-in base. Drive installed easily using USB port. Push the button to turn it on and WinXP/SP2 auto-recognizes it with a built-in driver and assigns it a drive letter. Have not partitioned it yet but have reformatted to NTFS and has yielded me approx 286GB. Operation is smooth and quiet aside from the normal head access clicks. Goes into sleep mode when not accessed for a period of time. Nice silver/black case blends well with newer systems. Have used it approx 1 week now with no issues EXCEPT:

Installed the included BounceBack software put out by CMS Software. Restarted system to complete the install and XP crashed immediately upon booting. I decided to email CMS tech support. My question & their response follow:
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To: CMS Support
Subject: bounceback express crashes XP

Hello.

Just purchased/installed Seagate 300GB St3300601CB-RK ext h/drv with the Bounceback Express software. Hooked up drive per instructions w/usb, tried to install the software but it crashes XP on the restart. I have to boot in safe mode in order to uninstall Bounceback, then system boots normally. The file it's identifying as the cause is "IASTOR.SYS". Would like to use the software, please advise how to proceed.

Thx, Al

CMS RESPONSE:

That file is an Intel storage driver. This is a common problem on the new Core 2 Duo systems, and we are currently working to get a fix made available. Right now, we just don't have anything, sorry. You can contact your system manufacturer and see if they have a new version of the driver, possibly.

CMS Tech Support
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So, if you have a Core 2 Duo, (or Pentium D) like me, this software is useless to you at the moment. I have not researched a fix to this yet, but I'm sure one is out there or in the works. You can still use the drive for it's intended purpose, backing up your files or additional storage, it's just a little more work.

I definitely recommend this drive. The price is great for the size. They just need to update their software for the new multi-core systems. A final word of advice: if you care about your pictures, video, important files, etc., BACK IT UP or risk losing it like I did. It CAN happen to you.

At 279 gig, it is just right to back up my media files. It is fast enough to watch a movie from this drive (I am using the USB hookup} but loads slower than my 200 gig internal drive. Very quiet! It starts up automatically in a few seconds. I have only used this drive on a daily basis for a couple of months, but it seems like it will last a long time.
For a hundred and a half bucks I am pleased with it.

Great product. Easy to install with the instructions and each backup is quick and seamless. I don't like how it reminds me when I haven't backed-up for a while but it's no problem. Quiet machine, I'm glad I chose the Seagate ST3300...

Bounce Back Express software is included. It is easy to install and backup of computer hard disk is easy.
But they offer an upgrade software for about 50 dollars from CMS company called Bounce Back Pro. The installation is not simple for Windows Xp. I could install it with the help of CMS which required installing a substitute file, sent to me E-mail to allow the program to be installed in a way that it would not interfere with booting Windows XP. I thought all was well using a special procedure for the initial backup, but apparently you have to use the same special procedure with subsequent backup instead of using their software Backup Icon. I gave up and I only use the software supplied with the hardware purchased from Amazon.

After having a computer stolen this past summer and losing a lot of my data (do a weekly back-up, people), I bought this to use as my back-up drive. It has far more memory than I need at this point, but it's reassuring to know that I can do a weekly back-up of all my data and settings and not get a message that I'm out of space. It's small enough that it's easy to store in a drawer or on a bookshelf, and it couldn't be simpler to use. Plug it in, turn it on, and you're good to go. I don't use the software that came with it, so I can't speak to that, but overall, I'm very happy with this drive.

Works well, is slightly bulky as are all big external hard drives ... power button can be a pain sometimes but never a major issue. Would recommend to all.

Works great. Easy to set up and use. Looks cool too.

This drive has been working really well for me. I back up files from my Linux and Windows boxes without a problem. The FireWire is really nice to have. Would definitely recommend.

This external hard drive is a little more expensive but is easy to set up and get going. I have already needed to restore files because of an internal hard drive problem. Seagate is worth the price and the Bounce Back software works very well.

This unit worked fine with my old gateway pc, however, my new dell pc was not compatible with one button back up software. have to do it manually. Pray to God that you never have to call Seagate for Tech. Support. I was on hold for over an hour. They did not fix the bugs. They emailed me a bogus link for a different version software. I gave up. Will continue to manually back up my files.

This product was rated well in consumer reports magazine. Ease of use was a deciding factor for me. Backing up is a no brainer, just a push of a button. You don't even have to schedule backups because you get a pop up reminder asking if you want to back up if it has been at least 7 days. I can't speak about recovering back up info. since I haven't had a need
(and hopefully I never will) but having the peace of mind is great when you have much data to lose.
Buying from Amazon was a plus because it cost me $50.00 less than at Best Buy.

I have been using this drive for about 8 months. No complaints whatsoever. Fast & quiet. I use it exclusively for offline storage of my photos, mp3s, and system image back-ups. Thus, while I have had it for some time, it has been used only when needed for transfer of files to/from it. The drive sits on my desk, and it not something I do move about, or would move about. I have smaller USB drives for portability. For my scope of experience with the product: easily five stars.

This is the second one of these I have. Actually, my son uses them to do film. It is reliable but the quality of memory seems at times a bit less than the internal drive on the computer. Maybe the firewire is just not fast enough to keep up when there are a lot of effects being used. I have used these on an eMac and on a G4 powerbook. The last project was done on the powerbook and other than the shorft delay that sometimes happens, I have no complaints.

I purchased this product and within two weeks it died on me. Lost all the data that I had transfered to it. Luckily I had backups. I returned it to Seagate and they sent me a new one. It's been about 3 months and everything is working fine so far with the replacement. Although I'm a little nervous that the same may happen again. The backup software that comes with it is great. However, If I had to do it again I would buy a Western Digital.

I've had trouble "safely removing" this drive after back-up. If they provide dire warnings about the consequnces of not safely removing, they should make it easier to safely remove it. Technical support was not much help, telling me that to safely remove it, virus protection has to be disabled, and printers, too, and then getting impatient with me when I wondered why that should be necessary.
Wouldn't buy it again.

So far, so good. After over two months of use my only complaint would be that the drive often seems to go in "sleep" mode. When i try to access a file on it after a period of inactivity it takes about 3 seconds for the disk to wake up. Given the price/disk space ratio, this is definitely something I can live with..

I purchased the Seagate hard drive to back up my Macbook which was acting up. It has been great, the software is easy to use and, after the first time, backs up the information quickly with firewire. The information is also easy to access just as if it were an internal drive. I have not needed to use the restore feature yet, and hopefully won't have to, but so far I would highly recommend it.

I sent my new Macbook Pro(Intel Pentium II) back twice to the factory and had it gutted to find the problem of it crashing. It turns out it is the Bounceback Express Software that this device comes with. The software is like a virus itself because it constantly is working to find updates. It would freeze up my cursor and scramble the keyboard lettering.

As for this drive it works great with out the software and is very fast to upload using firewire. I would NOT put that evil software in your precious system. I also read on these reviews that some of these devices can have virusses inside so be weary of that.

This is my first external hard drive, and so far I am extremely impressed. It is extremely simple to use and install, and seems to be of good quality. I recommend it because it works well, is cheap, and is a Seagate, which is THE name in hard drives, or so I have heard.

I purchased this to do automatic backups of my hd, and I've also been using it as a central storage location for two iTunes libraries. Two computers iTunes point to one common library, works great. Very quiet, no performance issues. I've got it attached via USB to one computer that is networked to the other via Ethernet. Using Windows networking/sharing and Acronis True Image backup software.

I believe thi to be a good product from a well known company.
It is used as a backup of my harddrive which I can disconnect easily and store in the safe

I SWITCHED FROM A 160GB MAXTOR MODEL 1 TO THIS DRIVE. THE MAXTOR WAS MUCH FASTER & EASY TO INSTALL AND OPERATE. THIS DRIVE IS SLOW AND NOT EASY TO USE. THIS MAY BE DUE TO THE FACT THE I AM STILL RUNNING WINDOWS 98se.

The Seagate 300 connects to my iMac with a firewire. The drive has been working well, although I no longer use the software that came with it, as the software did not work. The software that came with the drive is called BounceBack. It would constantly crash and was not compatible with my iMac. The customer service from BounceBack was very poor, and they could not solve my problems with the software. I now use the backup software that came with my .mac account, and it works fine. Remember if you buy this drive for a mac you will need to format the drive to be mac compatible. I would buy this drive again although the experience with the software was very frustrating.

I bought this one based on Consumer Reports high rating. It works great and is virtually silent. My only negative comment is that I couldn't get the "one touch backup software" to function properly. (Maybe I'm too impatient.)

The Seagate Backup Drive has given me piece of mind. A friend of mine is receiving one for the New Year because it does the job!

What else can you ask from an external hard drive? The firewire was easy to hook up to my iMac G4 and once I copied my entire current contents on it, I was able to mount the disk image so I can use it as a start-up. It was cheap enough and takes up no space at all.

I have been using the Seagate 300 GB External Hard Drive now for a little over two months. It is very quiet, easy to use and works great. Excellent equipment for the price. Have not had any problems.

I have been using this drive for the last three months pretty intensely for video editing. It has never crashed or had any problems, but it does seem to stop spinning if you arn't actively using it. It will start spinning again once you access a file, but it takes a moment to get going. Also, it is made of pretty cheap plastic that feels somewhat flimsy. I think it does the trick for the most part... it just doesn't feel like it will last forever. It's cheaper for a reason.
-Kenny

I have only had this hard drive for 2 months and Amazons' survey came so I responded; usually I would wait longer. But so far so good. Everything works good including the backup software. Good equipment for the money.

The Seagate 300gb external drive is very compact, quuiet, easy to use and reliable. The third party software is fairly easy to use but has two drawbacks. The upgrade to a full version costs nearly half the price of the hardware and the reminder pop up is an annoying nucisance.

Easy to set up, configurable (multiple partitions & file systems), and I like that you can place it vertically or horizontally on your desk. This also comes with tools to help you back up your computer. I've been using it for a few months and have had 0 problems. works as expected.

I use the drive to back up important data. I write a few GB to the drive each time. I was surprise by how fast data transfered onto the hard drive through the USB2.0 interface. It is quiet and I have no complain.

Works really well as a fast backup option and a good way of keeping a laptop hard drive cleaned up.

Excellent drive; connected to the PC via the USB 2.0 interface and used primarily for automated backups. Fast, quiet, reasonably priced. Setup was easy. Highly recommend it.

Used for backing up a huge quantity of high resolution digital images. The drive is fast and quiet in it's operation, while taking up very little space on the desktop. I highly recommend this drive and this brand of drives.

Note: the entire gist of this review is that the drive works perfectly. The rest of these words describe the steps I took using this drive to make back ups of two Macs on the same drive.

I bought this drive to back up an iMac, Powerbook, and to store my music folder.
Set up was very easy: remove from box, plug in power cord, attach firewire cable to computer. The iMac immediately recognized the drive. I then used Disk Utility to create three partitions on the drive. Knowing that I would only use the drive on Macs, I formatted each partition as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". The process was as simple as clicking "add partition," dragging sliders to size them (I sized the two system back ups about 500 MB larger than the actual drive size), and selecting the format for the partitions.
Once the drive was partitioned the Mac then recognized the three new volumes, and diplayed the name I had given to each of them during the partitioning. Each volume was fully functional, allowing me to drag and drop files, create folders.
After some research, I decided to use SuperDuper! to create the back ups. (If this is your first time making back ups, I recommend downloading and reading their manual before even buying a back up drive, as it is a great overview of what backing up to an external drive entails.) After going through a few well described steps in SuperDuper!, my back ups were underway. I put the iMac on one partition, the Powerbook on the second. I simply dragged and dropped the music folder onto the third. After about two hours of doing the initial back ups the Seagate was set up as I had planned.
I did several simple tests to find any bugs in the drive or compatibility, such as powering on and off the drive, the computer, disconnecting and reconnecting, etc., and ran into no issues. I also tried booting both the computers from the external drive by restarting each with the option key held down, then selecting the second and third hard disk icon to boot it from the iMac and Powerbook respectively. Each was able to boot from the the back up perfectly.
For the media files, I went into the relevant programs (e.g. iTunes) and pointed them to the third partition on the back up drive. Media files play identically off the external drive as they did on the computer.
When the drive is connected but not in use it is silent. When it is being used I've noticed a very faint sort of tapping noise and nothing else. It is very faint and I rarely notice it, but it is not silent.
Using this Seagate drive to make back ups, along with SuperDuper!, was a very easy and very smooth process. At $150 for 300GB it also seems like one of the best deals out there at the moment. I am actually back on Amazon now to buy another.
Hope this review was helpful.

The IT Director at my school suggested this brand (he uses two Seagates at home), and the reviews below as well indicated this would be a good purchase. They were all correct. Very simple backups--I used the packaged software. The installation instructions can be wordy at times, but this is probably just to guide that person who gets confused as to where his "Start" button is on the desktop.

Negatives: The detachable plastic base to help the drive stand vertically is pretty flimsy and doesn't do the job. The blue, status indication light is hard to see at times; the blue tends to fade in with the black front-casing. But these are the only things I could find wrong with the whole package! I mention the pathetic light complaint only to illustrate how pleased I am with the product.

Hints: Definitely do as mentioned in a previous review and partition your drive. Note that external drives always have several gigs less than advertised (Approx. 280 of 300 gigs were available after I installed). I was going to get a 250 gig until I heard of this one, so get more than what you planned on.

Got this drive a couple of days ago and so far it's working like a charm. Easy to set up and most importantly quiet. I haven't tested the backup software that comes with it, but I think that's a big plus especially if you don't already have backup software.

I highly recommend partitioning this drive in order to get better use out of it.

This product is well worth the money. It is fast, reliable, and quiet. This has reinforced my faith in Seagate as a leader in data storage technology.

I bought this after reading the reviews and the Consumer Reports recommendation. It was relatively easy to set up, with the emphasis on relatively. You do need to have some familiarity with cables and ports. This is not plug and play with the software all built in, merrily talking to Windows XP and setting itself up while you watch. In addition, the directions presume a degree of knowledge that the average user may not have and skip over some (admittedly basic) steps. Looking back, this is one of those items whose directions would benefit from some simplifying.

However, I got it going and from that point, the set up was easy. I set the timer for backups in the early AM of the days after I do the most work (I have only USB1, so it goes pretty slowly) and it did the job perfectly.

Tons of room--my son stores all his music files on it, too.

As I used for a title... Do NOT use free shipping.. I did and Amazon used the lowest class of US Post Office shipping from Springfield Mass on July 30th. As of August 13th I had NOT received the package in Sebago, Maine, only 250 miles away..
Amazon support, however, on learning that the package had not arrived sent me an over-night replacement free of charge.
So, to sum up... Boo! for the Post Office (- 5 stars) and Hurray for Amazon +5 Stars for their attention to the problem with their "Free shipping" by Snail Mail.
I can't imagine the condition of a computer Hard Drive after being in transit for more than 2 weeks...

I found the Seagate external hard drive with firewire and usb 2.0 interface to be extremely quite and very easy to use. All I did was connect it to my new Apple I-mac and it worked perfectly. I have been able to inport and export my film material without difficulty and would highly recommend this product.

I set this up with my Mac G4 PowerBook. Straight out of the box, it linked right up without a hitch. I started backing up my computer (I don't believe in backup software since I've learned from experience and heard horror stories from others that using these programs is just plain stupid). It worked great and fast. I took a break for lunch, during which I dismounted the drive, put the computer to sleep, and powered down the drive. When I came back from lunch...nothing. The drive would simply not show up on either of my Macs. After a discussion with tech support, I tried the FireWire (I'd been using USB2 since it will run through a USB hub), and FireWire came through. Apparently the USB port fried in the 2 hours I'd had it. SeaGate will only give you a rehabbed disk (which, come to think of it, may be more rigorously tested than the new disks), so I'm dealing with Amazon for a replacement. I'm willing to give the Seagate another shot since I'll be using this primarily for backup, not primary storage (chances that both my drives will blow at the same time are pretty remote). But I'm not feeling very encouraged by my experience so far.

What can I say? This baby just runs and runs. It is my third Seagate drive. They are quiet and have a reputation for being solidly built (and look and feel it).
They do get hot, so have enough air around them and some air circulating in the room. Seagate says you can stack them and they are built for that, but I am afraid of the heat and how it might shortend the drive's life.
Highly recommended and I will buy more as needed.

Bought this drive to help migrate my system. I have to say, it's excellent. Plugged it in and my system instantly recognized it as another fixed disk. I'm only using USB 2.0, and I'm astonished at the data throughput. 200 gigs of video files took under three hours to transfer - that's quite fast (the firewire port would be comparable or slightly faster). The larger cache may be helping here.

Noise: drive is audible (standard HDD clicks) in a dead-silent room, but not bad at all. Loud drives are a peeve of mine, and this one's not bad. Quieter than the Maxtor SATA in my system, louder than the Samsung, and louder than the WD.

The form factor is a little goofy. I dunno, the design is totally thick...it's not the sexiest. Maxtor series II drives look way way cooler.

All in all, this is a sweet drive. recommended.

Like many other people, I was hesitant about purchasing a Seagate 300gb external hard drive after the years of poor with the 300gb 8mb cache Seagate hard drive (for some reason, barely anyone seemed to have a problem with the Seagate 200gb and lower versions). But, with the more recent reviews, the hard drives seemed to work well.
I've had my 300 GB 16 mb cache Seagate for over a week now and everything has been working perfectly. So far I've gotten over 100gb on it (college hubs are great). Installation on my Dell Inspiron 9100 laptop with Windows XP was essentially one touch, although I did opt to reformat (and partition to two drives) to us an NTFS file system rather than leave it as a FAT32 file system (you can do a quick search online if your not sure reformatting to use an NTFS file system is worth the effort).
The drive runs very quietly, the slight hum of my laptop easily covers up the little noise it does make. Also, I like the idea of being able to hit a button to turn it off when it's not being used.
It seems like what ever problems they've had producing the 300 GB 8 mb cache version that Amazon started to sell in 2004 was fixed when Amazon began to sell this more recent 300 GB 16 mb cache version in 2006. This is an excellent hard drive and I highly recommend purchasing this product.
Note: I haven't used the BounceBack Express software it comes with to back up my Laptop hard drive due to finals coming around. I'm sure I'll get to it soon and will update my review if any problems should arise.