Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB eSATA and USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

Seagate FreeAgent Pro

FreeAgent Pro 750GB eSATA and USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Review, by Melissa J. Perenson March 2, 2007

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• Latest User Reviews 7 reviews
• Reviewed by: Lipstick22

  Duration of ownership: 6 Months

  Strengths: None!!!!! Seagate Hard drives lasted about 6 months and died!!!!

  Weaknesses: Seagate hard drives just die!!!!

  Overall: All Seagate hard drives are designed to do one thing and one thing only and that is to crash. Seagate products ‘CRASH, CRASH, AND CRASH. I bought 5 different Seagate hard drives and all have failed. 3 500gb, 1 700+GB and one 300gb: Never again!!!!! The money isn’t the problem. The problem is that they lose your current work along with your history of past work. No body needs that! I definitely will not recommend any Seagate hard drive products to back up your work. If you want to lose your work, projects and anything that is important to you then by all means buy Seagate hard drives. Then Seagate hits you with a $700.00 retrieval fee for any lost information they recover from your hard drives failure. Seagate=Crash, Crash, and Crash:

• Reviewed by: rbartels

  Duration of ownership: 6 Months

  Strengths: Lots of space, when it works

  Weaknesses: Failed within weeks

  Overall: We bought the hard drive (750GB version) in August 2007. By September, it had burned up. We called for warranty service, after which they gladly sent us a spare. One problem, all of our digital pictures and home videos for the last 15 years was on the drive. We sent the failed drive into Seagate's Data Recovery Service to get the data off of it. After two weeks, Seagate charged us $300 for the warranty replacement without any notification. It took several hour long yelling matches with Warranty Support to finally get them to recognize that they actually had the failed drive and to refund our money (we had to threaten them with reporting a fraudulent transaction to the credit card company before they finally confessed). After $1900 to their Data Recovery Services department, they sent us both the replacement drive and the failed drive (we had made explicitly clear that they should send it directly to their warranty department). While we have our digital life back (literally), I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone. Run, don't walk, away from any Seagate FreeAgent products. They're record in taking care of their customers is less than abysmal.

• Reviewed by: rocketracer

  Duration of ownership: 2 Months

  Strengths: Great space. Looks cool.

  Weaknesses: Useless with eSATA. This drive turned my server into a 50 pound paperweight because the eSATA interface is so slow..worse than dialup.

  Overall: I used one of these for storage via USB and it worked great. When I decided to setup a raid, I figured it was a safe bet to buy this model again. I think that I was getting like 1 MB per hour or something astronomically slow. If you need sata, get the internal version. I purchased those (also seagate) and they worked just fine.

• Reviewed by: spaul40

  Duration of ownership: 3 Months

  Strengths: The easiest drive to set up that I've encountered. Speed of eSATA transfer rate is equivalent to my internal SATA ll drives. No noise at all. Sharp looking - especially at night with the yellow-orange band of light and the Seagate logo lit up. 5 year warantee. The backup software included says it is good for only 30 days but there is a code in the small setup book that makes it permanent.

  Weaknesses: No eSATA cable (but I knew this before I purchased the drive). Regarding the "difficult to activate" power button, I turned it on when I first installed the unit and haven't touched it since. Not a bid deal!

  Overall: This 750GB external drive is excellent. The Memeo people (they make the backup software on the drive) give outstanding tech support (less than one hour resonse to an email question I posed to them). Don't bother calling Seagate if it is a software backup problem. Just email the folks at Memeo. Am using it to back up my home server.

• Reviewed by: jkc054

  Duration of ownership: 1 Week

  Strengths: Large capacity drive for the price, I paid $99 when it was on sale.

  Weaknesses: Autobackup software does not work properly if you have more than one user account on your Windows XP computer.

  Overall: First of all, I own the 320 GB version, other than the capacity, it is the same drive. On my Windows XP computer I have both an Administrative account to log into, and a Limited account for everyone else. Autobackup did not function properly (did not automatically turn on when I powered up the computer, sporadically automatically backed up newly added files), and in general did not work as advertised, even after I changed the second account from Limited privileges to Administrative privileges. I have had problems with other software when using more than one account, this is as much a problem with Microsoft Windows as it is the other software. I believe this is caused by Microsoft and the restrictions they place on system resources when a Limited account is created. If you have only one account on your Windows computer, which by default has to have Adminstrative privileges, I assume Autobackup will work as advertised. The Seagate Level I technical support call center is out of India, they were not very helpful. I ended up talking to a Level II technician, who supposedly was based in the United States, when I was disconnected while on hold. He never called me back. I faxed a complaint to Seagate about there terrible technical support and they contacted me immediately and I was able to speak with another technician in the United States, but we could not get the software to work with my current configuration of more than one account. I have not seen any other reviews mention this problem.

• Reviewed by: kilo21010

  Duration of ownership: 2 Months

  Strengths: Ease of use,ready backup,great looks

  Weaknesses: None so far

  Overall: I purchased the 259 gig model,I was mainly interested in backing up files on a new computer,having Vista.The Vista lacks capabilities of backing sufficienly to hard drive. I am a home user,don't save huge volumes of movies,etc. I find this to be an exellent choice for my needs,& paid under $100. for it!!! Can carry the data from one computer to another easily.

• Reviewed by: poucherw

  Duration of ownership: 1 Day

  Strengths: pretty

  Weaknesses: tools don't work with eSATA backup software is the 29 day trial version robocopy mirrors don't appear in the diretory properly

  Overall: It sure is pretty! It has a fine evaluation. So I wasted 3 hours buying it, trying it, and returning it. Using eSata, the Seagate tools don't work. The backup software requires you to buy it after 29 days. Robocopied mirrors didn't show up as visible in the directory window. I'm glad I bought it at BestBuy.

• Reviewed by: TeckieMaven

  Strengths: Good for what I use it for--video editing, work doc storage, etc.

  Weaknesses: FLIMSY USB port. Apparently it is glued and not soldered to the board, so it comes apart rather easily.

  Overall: Warranty service sucks. When the USB port came apart, I contacted Seagate and was promised I would be sent a new module within a week. Two weeks later, I was sent an email telling me I was not getting the module because they no longer make them. They could not provide me an eSATA cable so I could access my drive that way. However, they did tell me I could send the entire drive back and get a new one. If I wanted my data off the drive, they would be happy to refer me to their service to have it "recovered" for MORE than what I paid for the drive. I am about thisclose to tearing the unit apart and then move the drive to a univeral external case.To their (dubious) credit, they sent me a consolation gift of an international power supply kit. Of course, since the port is not accessible, this is like offering a fish the keys to one's car...

• Reviewed by: lamqle

  Strengths: huge capacity, esata connection, seagate 5 year warranty

  Weaknesses: no firewire in this version, automatic backup software is only a trial software for 30 days, must stand upright, no esata cable

  Overall: so far i've really liked using this hard drive. i've backed up all of my hard drives (2x 320gb drives) and using the esata connection i was able to do it very quickly. it runs quiet. i installed the backup software, but with only a 30 day trial, it's not even worth using i do wish there was a power "switch" instead of this weird "button"

• Reviewed by:

  Strengths: Quiet

  Weaknesses: It is faster with USB than with eSATA, Drive is cripled with slow access times and low performance via firmware

  Overall: This drive is designed to be used with a DVR not a computer. HD Tune speed ratings: USB transfer rates range from 29 - to 30 MB/sec with 29.7 being the average and a 21 ms access time and 27 MB/Sec burst rate. eSATA transfer rate ranger from 17 - 45 MB/Sec with 37 being the average and a 23 ms access time and a 20 MB/Sec burst rate.

• Reviewed by: DLHelling

  Strengths: Tremendous capacity - External SATA/USB configuration

  Weaknesses: None

  Overall: Seagate does it again - With this drive you get External SATA/USB configuration - 16mb buffer - Pre-installed back-up software.Seagate reliability with 5 year warranty.I am able to back up all document and financial files along with my music and photos to this drive.My only regret was I had not saved and purchased 3 of these as I have 3 external USB drives currently:Maxtor and Seagate both 500 GB and a Seagate 400 GB.Not intended as an endorsement but item was purchased at Best Buy for $ 194.99.I will purchase an addition one of these - indeed may return to get two more.I wholeheartedly recommend this unit.Deserves 6 star ratingThank you.

• Reviewed by: Karthik99

  Strengths: Quiet & 5 Yr warranty

  Weaknesses: Difficult to locate the hidden power button

  Overall: I compared between Western Digital & Seagate and finally bought this because of the 5 year warranty and good reviews. I am using this for the last 2 month. Satisfied so far. But I still haven't mastered the art of using the Power off button.