Seagate External 400GB Hard Drive (USB 2.0/FireWire, 7200 RPM, 8MB)

• Reviewed by: deshwasi

  Strengths: Great Size. USB & Firewire. Good software.

  Weaknesses: None.

  Overall: This is a great size drive for backing up the whole system or just storing lots of movies/video/music etc. and carrying it around. It has both USB & Firewire interfaces for max compatibility and th eincluded backup software works well. All in all a great buy although a bit pricey.

• Reviewed by: hoge

  Strengths: None

  Weaknesses: Completely useless with the "Delayed Write Failed" error

  Overall: I kept getting the "Delayed Write Failed" error while I was using this hard drive. Once I got the error, all I could do was to restart the computer. I googled for a solution for days to no avail. I tried a number of registry tweaks, two versions of Windows(2000 SP4 and XP SP2), and even different chipsets (VIA and Intel),but all were in vain. I bought this product because my friend had the 300GB model of the same lineand it seemed working fine.However, after all this, along with the negative reviewes I found here,I don't think I would ever buy another product from Seagate.

• Reviewed by: ledojoh

  Strengths: Easy setup. Fast enough to watch videos from. Quiet.

  Weaknesses: About 6-8 second wait time from sleep mode. Noise/drone.

  Overall: This is a great drive. Added 400GB to my notebook. The setup was a breeze--plug-n-play, literally. The access time is great, too. I thought it'd be slow, but it's not. I can watch DVD-quality movies from it with no problems. If you connect 2 Firewires, it'll transfer at 800 Mbits. I like the design too. I'll be getting another one, and you can stack them.The noise is not too bad, either. Depends on where you place it. I'd like it absolutely quiet, but.... I had it on my desk and it would drone--not too loud, but none-the-less. I've got it on a shelf now, and it's quiet.

• Reviewed by: JamesFL2005

  Strengths: None - totally unreliable

  Weaknesses: Intermittent write errors. Tried everything recommended by microsoft - caching, no caching, system page registry tweak, etc

  Overall: I've never written one of these before but I am really disappointed with this product. After decades of buying computer products, this is one of the worst. It has a serious write error problem that does not appear to be fixable with any Windows XP tweaks. Has the same problem with both my Dell Desktop and Dell 600m laptop running Windows XP. After a write error, the computer must be shut down to disconnect the drive. Completely useless for partition backups or copying large files. I've used a Maxtor 120GB and it has worked flawlessly over the years. I bought Seagate because of their good reputation in the past but this drive was a severe disappointment. No acknowledgement to date on their web site that they have a problem. Example: You can copy a 4GB image and it will work one time and then fail with a write error the next time. (Delayed Write Failed error) Trying Microsoft article 330174 using a value of 0xFFFFFFFF for system pages did not fix the problem. This is the typical workaround fix for the Delayed Write Failed problem with large capacity drives. I've come to the conclusion there is a basic design flaw with the drive itself.

• Reviewed by: lordboots

  Strengths: Um, it's fast when it works

  Weaknesses: They have this one-way ticket to shutdown feature, it's called the "sleep" mode. It will NOT come back to life when it sleeps. The host computer must be rebooted to start it back up.

  Overall: I've been dealing with Seagate support on this, and they don't seem to care that the drive does this. It's losing data, it shuts down whenever it feels like it, right in the middle of a program using it. Frankly, it's not a hard drive, it's a paperweight. If SeaGate doesn't write a fix for it, I'll make sure to recommend to every company I work for now and in the future to NEVER buy SeaGate drives in the future. What the heck were they thinking when they designed this?Their developers should put down the crack pipe and write proper firmware for their drives.