Seagate FreeAgent 500 GB 3.5-Inch USB 2.0 Hard Drive ST305004FDA1E1-RK

Seagate drives are known for their quality. This 500GB external drive comes with a 5 year limited warranty, which is very unusual and much appreciated.

Setup is the simplest I've ever seen on any computer component: plug in the USB 2.0 cable and the power cable (with wall wart) using your Windows computer and you're done! No CDs, nothing! It's already formatted with NTFS.

The only drawbacks I see are:
No on/off switch
The bow of a ship design (Seagate, get it?) only allows you to see the yellow power on light from the right side.
Actual capacity is really about 465GB.

Still this is an excellent buy, and with the warranty, you can't go too wrong.


Pros: Quietest external hard drive I have seen and runs with very low vibration. I also have the Western Digital My Book Premium 500GB that is much louder and causes much more vibration on the desk and is warmer. Well designed case, including a thinner than normal USB cable, a 1 piece AC adapter that is about 1.5"x3" in size, and all cables plug neatly at the bottom of the base. Works as expected on a Mac. Uses perpendicular magnetic recording technology.

Cons: Limited to only a USB2 interface. This limits Sustained Read/Write speeds to roughly 18MB/sec whereas an external hard drive on Firewire would have Sustained Read/Write speeds of around 30MB/sec. There is a very hard to find and much more expensive Firewire version though.

I am an extremely price conscious buyer, and at 3+ GB per dollar value, this drive certainly has my vote. The performance is great - it's quieter and faster than any of my internal hard disk drives, so I'm not complaining about the lack of firewire support or any such. So long as my data gets backed up accurately, I do not care if I lose a few seconds here and there - I lose them all the time anyway. It looks awesome as well, and at that price and warranty, there just isn't a better purchase around...

Just bought this hard disk a month back..Looks great for the price.. No probs so far.


Having used Western Digital external (and internal) hard drives for years, I finally got tired of their phantom bugs (especially the external drives).

I've been running the Seagate Free Agent 500GB drive as my backup for a couple of months now and the thing just purrs along. The design is very pleasing. Makes little to no noise at all. And it's stylish as well. Absolutely no complaints.

When I purchased the drive it immediately brought a smile to me as I opened up the very clean and fun packaging. Some simple, yet inviting stickers saying "hi". And a manual sitting right on top that says "This will only take a minute". I actually enjoyed the packaging (yeah, I know, weird).

And Seagate was right - in less than a minute, my drive was recognized by Windows XP and up and running. Plug and Play. That's it.

I'm not sure what the fuss about the lack of firewire support is about. USB 2.0 transfer rates are nearly as fast (if not faster in some respects) than firewire. Over the course of several gigs of file transfer, you may notice a few seconds difference either way. Does it really matter?

Finally, it's nice to know that Seagate hasn't diminished their warranty over the years. Unlike many of the other larger manufacturers who have reduced their warranty to a year or less (Western Digital, et al), Seagate has maintained a warranty of 5 years.

Simply put: It just works.

After I backed up 250GB of data, the power supply failed. I have had this drive for less than a week. Seagate's podcast site also lists a customer who had the same failure. This is still a new drive to the market, so I don't think this problem is being reported yet. Buyer beware. Otherwise, this is a great drive.

If your sole purpose is to offload archives, then this is a great product. Most people don't think twice of backing up their existing data. Also, each version of windows comes with a backup program which originated from the Veritas Brand of Software. You can easily set the Free Agent Hardware and make it an active drive, then setup the Backup Software within MS 2000, XP, or Vista.

I've read reviews that seem to point out the burden of USB2 write speed. It makes no difference if the interface is Firewire or USB if the intent is to just backup data. If it takes a few extra seconds or minutes, no big deal. Either way the data will get to the disk and you can rest peacefully.

After going through a number of hard drives, all of which work without problems, my favorite design is this new Seagate "Free Agent" line, which haa a compact and attractive form factor. Prices are highly competitive; consider their even larger 750Gb unit in this line; you always need more storage than you think. It's only a matter of time before 1TB and larger show up in this same attractive form factor; the mind boggles at such capacity, but if one stores music and video it is quickly absorbed. The pricing is almost as low (and still falling) as storing on good quality DVDs, even in compressed DivX format, and the convenience makes it good value. Imagine storing many hundreds of movies or music albums in such a compact physical format.

I JUST GOT THIS IN THE MAIL THE OTHER DAY. RELOADED ITUNES ON TO MY NEW DRIVE AND TRANSFERRED MY LIBRARY. ALL IS WELL.
WHOO HOO! THIS THING IS SUPER SMALL, QUIET, EASY, AND CUTE!

I HAVE SO MUCH MORE FUN GETTING MY TUNES AND CASTS.
THE 5YR WARRANTY IS A SUPER BONUS!

NO ON/OFF BUTTON, BUT HEY, WILL I REALLY NEED IT?
THANKS TONS, SEAGATE!

I can't get too technical, but for the average music, pics, and video fiend goes, This is a great external. No hassles, just plug and play. Turns off by itself when comp is off. Not big at all and looks pretty sleek on the desk. I liked it so much, I bought 2!

Pros: Noiseless, fast, easy to setup, saves desk/table space.
Cons: No power off switch, when rebooting PC while connected sometimes the machine hangs (could be an isolated problem).

Overall its worth the money!!!

If anyone can be in love with a piece of hardware it is I. I have forged a union with my Seagate External hard drive that will last until eternity or until I fill up the available 500 GBs (rather...465 GBs), whichever comes sooner. It was a wise decision on my part to buy the 500GB drive as I am already filling it up surprisingly quickly.

Installation was exceptionally easy. So easy in fact that I didn't believe the instructions. I figured I had to be missing something. So before I did anything, I came back here to read the reviews to see what others said about their installation. Sure enough, all you have to do is plug the sucker in and presto, it is recognized and your computer loaded with all the necessary software to run it. Within a couple of minutes, I was copying files to it.

I used the Windows XP Backup program to back up my documents and settings onto the drive without a hitch. Once I was sure my music files were safely on the external drive and fully accessible, I (nervously)deleted them off my computer. I could almost hear my computer breathe a sigh of relief after being unburdened with such a heavy load. The "Low Disk Space" warning prompts my computer flashed me with increasing frequency were my cues that it was about collapse under the weight. I have now modified my download settings to load music files directly onto the external drive, skipping my computer altogether. Now it's up to Seagate to keep them safe and sound.

To give you an idea of the speed of the USB connection, it took exactly one hour (well, 1 hour 4 minutes) to copy 52 GBs worth of music files onto it. I have no idea what FireWire is but the USB connection is plenty fast and works well enough for me. (Though what do I know, I thought tapes were just fine when CDs and DVDs first came out.)

Techies be prepared to laugh at me but not understanding what kind of software is loaded on this external drive, I was initially afraid to play music files from it because I wasn't sure if I had to install Media Player on it as well. I was worried I might crash the drive or something if I opened a music file with no ability for the drive to play it. (I can hear you laughing now). I took a leap of faith that somehow the external drive would find Media Player on my computer and open it to play the music file. I closed my eyes, held my breath, double-clicked on a MP3 file and waited to see what happened. To my relief, Media Player opened and music filled my ears!!

It would be nice if Seagate provided a hardcopy user guide with their product. It only came with installation instructions but no support materials. I would have liked something to flip through to familiarize myself with the product without having to go online to find information. Especially since Seagate's website is not the most user-friendly I have discovered.

The drive idles quietly and is hardly noticeable when performing a task. I think there is a fan inside that comes on from time to time but it is fairly quiet as well.

The 5 year warranty is great. I don't think I have ever registered any product for warranty coverage; most warranty periods are so short and not usually worth the effort. However, Seagate's 5-year coverage is worth its weight in gold.

By the by, the glowing light is pretty neat. It makes drive look alive while it does its thing. And since there is no on/off switch, it reassures me that it is on and functioning.

As a note of caution, I have read on other forums the dangers of disconnecting the external drive without performing a safe removal first. I recall several people saying they lost files that way. Yikes!! I believe most said Seagate is pretty good in rendering assistance with this problem and are typically able to restore their files. Regardless, I taped a sticky note to my computer to remind myself never to directly unplug the external drive because I know one day I would unplug it without thinking.

In any event, fingers crossed on reliability but everything else is performing smoothly so far.

UPDATE:

I have now noticed a slight delay when accessing files on the external drive. And it does sometimes hang up my computer for a second or so--especially when waking up from hibernation. Also, it's funny but sometimes when I am doing something on the net (usually music related), the external drive will wake up from its hibernation as if it is anticipating I will soon require its services. How it knows I am about to download a file to it is beyond me. And also, sometimes it will wake up when it notices my computer has woken as well. It's almost like it just wants to see what's going on from time to time. Strange, this little drive is. Cute, but very strange. Nonetheless, it is still performing wonderfully.

i have three computers and this drive has had problems on all of them. if i leave it connected and restart, the drive does not show up on my computer. it seems to only be recognized when i plug it in one out of every 3-4 times. nothing but problems from day one with this drive. also does not shut itself off when not in use like western digital's mybook or the buffalo drivestation. i have several external drives and have never had this much problems till i got this hard drive. i would rate it with a zero but there is no option on amazon for that.

As a lot of peaple said, the capacity is only 465GB, because they count 1000000 Kb = 1 Gb. Is a lilte bit big because of the base. Excelent waranty and good product.

Fast. Reliable. Just works & works well. No power off switch, so it powers on/off with the PC (the USB connection triggers this).

Overally, good drive. Far superior to the WesternDigital drives IMO.

I used this in a tropical rainforest under far from ideal (or rated) conditions. No problems.

The good:

Seagate harddrive inside... quiet, fairly fast, fairly reliable, good quality.

The bad:

Enclosure design could be nicer. The "base" part makes it more annoying to travel with than need be. The funky asymmetric shape wastes some space. The light is pretty, but the slow "pulse" is not a very clear/obvious indicator of access and it is only visible from the left.

Also, there are the normal difficulties with USB based "on/off" sensing. Power switches are not a bad thing! Your computer goes to sleep (or any other condition where USB is powered down), and the drive will shutdown. Unfortunately, it isn't very likely to wake back up when the computer does... just pull the cable and reinsert works most of the time. I'm using it with ext2 (linux) filesystem with no real problems, though I do have to umount/mount on the command line (no autodetect) after the sleep problems (not unique to this drive).

It would be nice if the case was redesigned... put the power circiuts in that front asymmetric part instead of the base, and make the base just a removable "dock" with power and usb plugs passing through (so you don't actually need it unless you are setting the drive on its edge).

The design isn't significantly worse or better than anything else I've seen out there. However, the actual seagate harddrive inside makes the FreeAgent series the one to buy IMO.

As a lot of peaple said, the capacity is only 465GB, because they count 1000000 Kb = 1 Gb. Is a lilte bit big because of the base. Excelent waranty and good product.

Fast. Reliable. Just works & works well. No power off switch, so it powers on/off with the PC (the USB connection triggers this).

Overally, good drive. Far superior to the WesternDigital drives IMO.

I used this in a tropical rainforest under far from ideal (or rated) conditions. No problems.

The good:

Seagate harddrive inside... quiet, fairly fast, fairly reliable, good quality.

The bad:

Enclosure design could be nicer. The "base" part makes it more annoying to travel with than need be. The funky asymmetric shape wastes some space. The light is pretty, but the slow "pulse" is not a very clear/obvious indicator of access and it is only visible from the left.

Also, there are the normal difficulties with USB based "on/off" sensing. Power switches are not a bad thing! Your computer goes to sleep (or any other condition where USB is powered down), and the drive will shutdown. Unfortunately, it isn't very likely to wake back up when the computer does... just pull the cable and reinsert works most of the time. I'm using it with ext2 (linux) filesystem with no real problems, though I do have to umount/mount on the command line (no autodetect) after the sleep problems (not unique to this drive).

It would be nice if the case was redesigned... put the power circiuts in that front asymmetric part instead of the base, and make the base just a removable "dock" with power and usb plugs passing through (so you don't actually need it unless you are setting the drive on its edge).

The design isn't significantly worse or better than anything else I've seen out there. However, the actual seagate harddrive inside makes the FreeAgent series the one to buy IMO.

i have three computers and this drive has had problems on all of them. if i leave it connected and restart, the drive does not show up on my computer. it seems to only be recognized when i plug it in one out of every 3-4 times. nothing but problems from day one with this drive. also does not shut itself off when not in use like western digital's mybook or the buffalo drivestation. i have several external drives and have never had this much problems till i got this hard drive. i would rate it with a zero but there is no option on amazon for that.

I can't get too technical, but for the average music, pics, and video fiend goes, This is a great external. No hassles, just plug and play. Turns off by itself when comp is off. Not big at all and looks pretty sleek on the desk. I liked it so much, I bought 2!

Pros: Noiseless, fast, easy to setup, saves desk/table space.
Cons: No power off switch, when rebooting PC while connected sometimes the machine hangs (could be an isolated problem).

Overall its worth the money!!!

If anyone can be in love with a piece of hardware it is I. I have forged a union with my Seagate External hard drive that will last until eternity or until I fill up the available 500 GBs (rather...465 GBs), whichever comes sooner. It was a wise decision on my part to buy the 500GB drive as I am already filling it up surprisingly quickly.

Installation was exceptionally easy. So easy in fact that I didn't believe the instructions. I figured I had to be missing something. So before I did anything, I came back here to read the reviews to see what others said about their installation. Sure enough, all you have to do is plug the sucker in and presto, it is recognized and your computer loaded with all the necessary software to run it. Within a couple of minutes, I was copying files to it.

I used the Windows XP Backup program to back up my documents and settings onto the drive without a hitch. Once I was sure my music files were safely on the external drive and fully accessible, I (nervously)deleted them off my computer. I could almost hear my computer breathe a sigh of relief after being unburdened with such a heavy load. The "Low Disk Space" warning prompts my computer flashed me with increasing frequency were my cues that it was about collapse under the weight. I have now modified my download settings to load music files directly onto the external drive, skipping my computer altogether. Now it's up to Seagate to keep them safe and sound.

To give you an idea of the speed of the USB connection, it took exactly one hour (well, 1 hour 4 minutes) to copy 52 GBs worth of music files onto it. I have no idea what FireWire is but the USB connection is plenty fast and works well enough for me. (Though what do I know, I thought tapes were just fine when CDs and DVDs first came out.)

Techies be prepared to laugh at me but not understanding what kind of software is loaded on this external drive, I was initially afraid to play music files from it because I wasn't sure if I had to install Media Player on it as well. I was worried I might crash the drive or something if I opened a music file with no ability for the drive to play it. (I can hear you laughing now). I took a leap of faith that somehow the external drive would find Media Player on my computer and open it to play the music file. I closed my eyes, held my breath, double-clicked on a MP3 file and waited to see what happened. To my relief, Media Player opened and music filled my ears!!

It would be nice if Seagate provided a hardcopy user guide with their product. It only came with installation instructions but no support materials. I would have liked something to flip through to familiarize myself with the product without having to go online to find information. Especially since Seagate's website is not the most user-friendly I have discovered.

The drive idles quietly and is hardly noticeable when performing a task. I think there is a fan inside that comes on from time to time but it is fairly quiet as well.

The 5 year warranty is great. I don't think I have ever registered any product for warranty coverage; most warranty periods are so short and not usually worth the effort. However, Seagate's 5-year coverage is worth its weight in gold.

By the by, the glowing light is pretty neat. It makes drive look alive while it does its thing. And since there is no on/off switch, it reassures me that it is on and functioning.

As a note of caution, I have read on other forums the dangers of disconnecting the external drive without performing a safe removal first. I recall several people saying they lost files that way. Yikes!! I believe most said Seagate is pretty good in rendering assistance with this problem and are typically able to restore their files. Regardless, I taped a sticky note to my computer to remind myself never to directly unplug the external drive because I know one day I would unplug it without thinking.

In any event, fingers crossed on reliability but everything else is performing smoothly so far.

UPDATE:

I have now noticed a slight delay when accessing files on the external drive. And it does sometimes hang up my computer for a second or so--especially when waking up from hibernation. Also, it's funny but sometimes when I am doing something on the net (usually music related), the external drive will wake up from its hibernation as if it is anticipating I will soon require its services. How it knows I am about to download a file to it is beyond me. And also, sometimes it will wake up when it notices my computer has woken as well. It's almost like it just wants to see what's going on from time to time. Strange, this little drive is. Cute, but very strange. Nonetheless, it is still performing wonderfully.

After going through a number of hard drives, all of which work without problems, my favorite design is this new Seagate "Free Agent" line, which haa a compact and attractive form factor. Prices are highly competitive; consider their even larger 750Gb unit in this line; you always need more storage than you think. It's only a matter of time before 1TB and larger show up in this same attractive form factor; the mind boggles at such capacity, but if one stores music and video it is quickly absorbed. The pricing is almost as low (and still falling) as storing on good quality DVDs, even in compressed DivX format, and the convenience makes it good value. Imagine storing many hundreds of movies or music albums in such a compact physical format.

I JUST GOT THIS IN THE MAIL THE OTHER DAY. RELOADED ITUNES ON TO MY NEW DRIVE AND TRANSFERRED MY LIBRARY. ALL IS WELL.
WHOO HOO! THIS THING IS SUPER SMALL, QUIET, EASY, AND CUTE!

I HAVE SO MUCH MORE FUN GETTING MY TUNES AND CASTS.
THE 5YR WARRANTY IS A SUPER BONUS!

NO ON/OFF BUTTON, BUT HEY, WILL I REALLY NEED IT?
THANKS TONS, SEAGATE!

I am an extremely price conscious buyer, and at 3+ GB per dollar value, this drive certainly has my vote. The performance is great - it's quieter and faster than any of my internal hard disk drives, so I'm not complaining about the lack of firewire support or any such. So long as my data gets backed up accurately, I do not care if I lose a few seconds here and there - I lose them all the time anyway. It looks awesome as well, and at that price and warranty, there just isn't a better purchase around...

Just bought this hard disk a month back..Looks great for the price.. No probs so far.


Having used Western Digital external (and internal) hard drives for years, I finally got tired of their phantom bugs (especially the external drives).

I've been running the Seagate Free Agent 500GB drive as my backup for a couple of months now and the thing just purrs along. The design is very pleasing. Makes little to no noise at all. And it's stylish as well. Absolutely no complaints.

When I purchased the drive it immediately brought a smile to me as I opened up the very clean and fun packaging. Some simple, yet inviting stickers saying "hi". And a manual sitting right on top that says "This will only take a minute". I actually enjoyed the packaging (yeah, I know, weird).

And Seagate was right - in less than a minute, my drive was recognized by Windows XP and up and running. Plug and Play. That's it.

I'm not sure what the fuss about the lack of firewire support is about. USB 2.0 transfer rates are nearly as fast (if not faster in some respects) than firewire. Over the course of several gigs of file transfer, you may notice a few seconds difference either way. Does it really matter?

Finally, it's nice to know that Seagate hasn't diminished their warranty over the years. Unlike many of the other larger manufacturers who have reduced their warranty to a year or less (Western Digital, et al), Seagate has maintained a warranty of 5 years.

Simply put: It just works.

After I backed up 250GB of data, the power supply failed. I have had this drive for less than a week. Seagate's podcast site also lists a customer who had the same failure. This is still a new drive to the market, so I don't think this problem is being reported yet. Buyer beware. Otherwise, this is a great drive.

If your sole purpose is to offload archives, then this is a great product. Most people don't think twice of backing up their existing data. Also, each version of windows comes with a backup program which originated from the Veritas Brand of Software. You can easily set the Free Agent Hardware and make it an active drive, then setup the Backup Software within MS 2000, XP, or Vista.

I've read reviews that seem to point out the burden of USB2 write speed. It makes no difference if the interface is Firewire or USB if the intent is to just backup data. If it takes a few extra seconds or minutes, no big deal. Either way the data will get to the disk and you can rest peacefully.

Pros: Quietest external hard drive I have seen and runs with very low vibration. I also have the Western Digital My Book Premium 500GB that is much louder and causes much more vibration on the desk and is warmer. Well designed case, including a thinner than normal USB cable, a 1 piece AC adapter that is about 1.5"x3" in size, and all cables plug neatly at the bottom of the base. Works as expected on a Mac. Uses perpendicular magnetic recording technology.

Cons: Limited to only a USB2 interface. This limits Sustained Read/Write speeds to roughly 18MB/sec whereas an external hard drive on Firewire would have Sustained Read/Write speeds of around 30MB/sec. There is a very hard to find and much more expensive Firewire version though.

Seagate drives are known for their quality. This 500GB external drive comes with a 5 year limited warranty, which is very unusual and much appreciated.

Setup is the simplest I've ever seen on any computer component: plug in the USB 2.0 cable and the power cable (with wall wart) using your Windows computer and you're done! No CDs, nothing! It's already formatted with NTFS.

The only drawbacks I see are:
No on/off switch
The bow of a ship design (Seagate, get it?) only allows you to see the yellow power on light from the right side.
Actual capacity is really about 465GB.

Still this is an excellent buy, and with the warranty, you can't go too wrong.