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Back to FreeAgent Pro External 750GB Hard Drive

Seagate FreeAgent Pro External 750GB Hard Drive
Price Range
$166.99 - $413.09

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Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: steinwaytony2

Updated:08-23-07

Duration of ownership:2 Weeks

Strengths: Great transfer rates with eSATA

Weaknesses: No SATA cable included -- that's why I bought the thing!

Overall Evaluation: Extremely aesthetically pleasing. The pictures make the case look like a cheap plastic, but it's actually a brushed, heavy metal. Great-looking thing to have on your desk. It's also a HD, and my transfer rates with eSATA have been quite impressive.
Overall Rating
3 Star Review

Reviewed by: BaKUJiNN

Updated:08-17-07

Duration of ownership:1 Days

Strengths: Gigantic 750GB of storage; looks nice to the eye compared to other typical computer hardware; has a 5-year limited warranty; apparently it also functions as a heater which would be good for cold winters

Weaknesses: No eSATA cable; very simple instructional manual, or rather, pamphlet (may be difficult for those not so computer savvy); the fact that it also seems to function as a heater brings up questions about the safety of your data...

Overall Evaluation: I jumped on this baby because I saw a good deal for it, and I was looking for a high capacity external hard drive anyway. 750GB is quite a bit for those who don't download a ton of "special movies" all the time. *hint hint, nudge nudge*The first thing you will notice when you open the box is how slick the design of the hard drive is, it looks very modern and simple, with a very smooth black exterior, and it looks even better when it is plugged in -- the orange you see in the product pictures isn't just some clear orange plastic casing, there is also lighting inside of the case that turns on when it is plugged in that makes that clear orange plastic bright and nifty-looking. Definitely adds a coolness factor to the whole thing.Speaking of coolness, or the lack thereof, is the temperature of this sucker. Maybe if you live in Alaska, this would be a benefit for you, but right now I'm in California where you regularly spend your summers roasting in high temperatures. This piece of hardware DOES NOT help the situation AT ALL. I spent a good amount of time today transfering files from my old external hard drive to this new one, and man, does this thing heat up fast, and stay hot. With all seriousness, I'm actually a little afraid of the security of my data because I don't want this thing to overheat and melt down. I already did read some user reviews about how this thing gets hot, but man, I didn't know it would get THIS hot. You could probably fry some eggs on this thing. As long as you don't use this hard drive 24/7, things should work out okay, at least for a while (which is why I ended up getting this, since I only turn on my external hard drive once every few days).For a while, it took me some time to find out where the "ventilation" was on this heating machine. It took me a while, because it was actually brilliantly placed UNDER THE BASE of the hard drive, which is quite a peculiar location. If you don't know by now, this external hard drive is designed only to be stood vertically upright, so by putting the ventilation area under the base... well... you'll be getting a LOT of air circulation straight from your desk (that's sarcasm, folks)... what's even worse is that you put your hand at the ventilation area and feel no air passing out whatsoever. Oh boy.But the thing DOES have a 5-year limited warranty, so if the heat ends up frying your drive, you'll have a good amount of time to get a replacement. But yeah, good luck replacing the up to 750GB you just lost...I used the included USB 2.0 cord and the USB 2.0 works fine, I'm getting the speeds that I expect from a USB 2.0 connection. Although I don't have an eSATA port, it would have been nice to have the cable thrown into the package in case I end up upgrading to a new computer that has one.One of the themes of this product is simplicity, you can see it in the design of the case and you can see it in their approach to advertising for this product and in the product's instructional manual. The manual, or rather, pamphlet, has instructions that aren't very descriptive, which might give difficulty to computer noobs, but in all honestly, it's not that hard to use an external drive. Honestly, the instructions are to the effect of "plug in the power and the USB cable, and BING! BAM! BOOM! you're done."
Overall Rating
2 Star Review

Reviewed by: rubyfiorito

Updated:08-12-07

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Lots of hard drive space;Price is reasonable;Fast data transfer;Very easy to set up;5 Year Warranty

Weaknesses: Operates at a very high temp;ON/OFF switch is tricky;Doesn't always turn off completely;Needs a lot of air circulation space

Overall Evaluation: I bought two of these hard drives hoping that they would perform reliably like my other SeaGate drives. In general, it works fine and is reasonably fast for large file transfers. However, the drive gets really hot (to the point where I had to call SeaGate to find out if the temperature was normal). Also, the ON/OFF switch is tricky. It took me a few tries to figure out that you have to stroke the button gently to get it to turn on. But to turn it off, you have to press down for a second. My last complaint is that I bought two and since they run so hot, they need a lot of air circulation space (at least 4 inches all around). So much for saving space. I will be switching these for one Maxtor 1.5TB drive in the near future, which has it's own internal cooling system.
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: Adaminchicago

Updated:07-29-07

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: fast drive, very quiet, stylish design, great software bundle

Weaknesses: not stackable

Overall Evaluation: The new FreeAgent design looks great, and the optional light is cool. FreeAgent Tools and Autobackup are strong pieces of software. I just prefer a stackable design, which makes buying a second drive in this design less desirable.
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: SDTechDeals

Updated:07-02-07

Duration of ownership:3 Weeks

Strengths: 750GB; eSata; 5-year warranty

Weaknesses: Cannot stack drives on desktop; no eSata cable; Power button is hidden on the base, and is not documented

Overall Evaluation: My MP3 & DVD rips were filling up the internal drives in my computer, so I wanted to offload to an external drive. As DVDs take up so much space, I wanted to minimize the number of drives I had. While I could have gone with 1TB, they are too darn expensive right now, or are comprised of two drives, so are too big. That's why I went with 750GB: it's not as cost-effective as 320gb or 500gb, but certainly more so than 1TB. While I was annoyed at first that it was missing an eSata cable, I got over it. The drive does take some getting used to! It's cool, yet ugly, at the same time. Kind of like those Toyota Prius cars, it takes some getting used to. While it takes a small footprint on your desktop, the unit cannot be stacked, so if you want more than one, it will take up too much space. For me, it's connected to my media-center PC, so that wasn't important. The unit runs very cool, so it's a perfect fit for my media closet.Note that the power on/off might be kind of funky if you use the eSata port instead of USB. For USB, I plug in the cable, and the unit powers up, I install the software, and everything is good. However, when I plugged in the (not supplied) eSATA cable, nothing happened! No power-on or cool orange light. :-( After a chat with Seagate tech support, they indicated that their is a subtly hidden power port on the base, that you can stroke your finger on to turn the unit on/off! Nowhere in the 39-page downloaded PDF manual does it even mention this. Crazy!!I might be getting another one after the price drops, as the newer DVR boxes have eSata ports, so it's possible to extend the size of your DVR/TiVo storage with one of these.
Overall Rating
1 Star Review

Reviewed by: scottegos2

Updated:06-29-07

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: looks fantasticcool switches

Weaknesses: doesn't work well

Overall Evaluation: Well I wanted to love this, esp. since I got it for $50 less than the cost of a bare 750gb drive! Unfortunately, it didn't work at ALL when connected to an eSATA port -- a fact missed by every single "professional" review site, since none of them bothered to actually test the eSATA connection. Also, even the USB connection had a problem -- it caused my machine to hang in the boot process (even if I turned the drive off). Seagate's tech support FAQ references this problem and suggests removing the USB cable when rebooting. DUH!! Skip this piece of junk.
Overall Rating
1 Star Review

Reviewed by: KarlS

Updated:06-29-07

Duration of ownership:2 Weeks

Strengths: Looks good. eSATA interface. Memeo backup software.

Weaknesses: Memeo backup software. Seagate 5-year "support" is exclusively an ability to review online FAQs; no online ability to actually submit a support request.

Overall Evaluation: Even after the Memeo backup software is installed, every time this eSATA drive is powered up, it autostarts the Memeo software install again, which hangs my PC. I'm going to be forced to dispense with the Memeo software and just reformat the drive so the autostart install ceases.
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: timbrill

Updated:06-20-07

Duration of ownership:3 Weeks

Strengths: quiet, fast, large capacity, ESATA interface, 5 year warranty

Weaknesses: Gimmicky power switch, documentation stored on drive instead of cd

Overall Evaluation: I bought the 750 GB Seagate FreeAgent Pro external hard drive to store my music and movies. The version I'm using has USB 2.0 and ESATA (external SATA) interfaces. If you don't have a computer with a built-in ESATA port you can buy a ESATA card for $50 or so or buy an SATA to ESATA adapter which can turn a internal SATA port into a ESATA compatible port for around $15 to $20 dollars. I'm using one of those adapters and the ESATA interface on the drive. The advantage of using the ESATA port is that it's much faster than USB 2.0 or even firewire and puts less load on the CPU both of which are important when streaming video to and from the drive. The drive has a completely different case design than previous Seagate external hds and has an unusual "touch - point" power switch which frankly I don't like. The drive has no fan which I was concerned about so it's quiet but it runs cool. I had no problem setting up the drive thanks to the printed quick installation guide included with the drive. The main documentation for the drive and its supporting software is included on the drive instead of on a CD. I feel this is a mistake because if the drive crashes you'll lose the documentation. The drive also comes with synchronization and backup software which are ok but nothing to write home about. One very good thing about this drive is that it has a 5 year warranty instead of the 1 year warranty most other external hds come with. I've been using the drive to stream music and movies thus far with no problems. I just hope it will stand up to being on 24/7 instead of the short power on times most external drives are used for.
Overall Rating
5 Star Review

Reviewed by: bonez

Updated:06-16-07

Duration of ownership:

Strengths: Sleek and stylish, great price

Weaknesses: A little slow, but not much

Overall Evaluation: I think these are great external drives. Having 2-750GB drives has been fantastic for having some external swap space. It comes with solid backup software (I use it to mirror my two drives) and I was able to get them for $199/piece. Even better, seagate makes the best consumer drives in the business, IMO and it came with the great 5 year warranty they always honor. Highly recommended
Overall Rating
4 Star Review

Reviewed by: kitchau

Updated:06-15-07

Duration of ownership:2 Weeks

Strengths: Large capacity, eSATA interface

Weaknesses: No eSATA cable included

Overall Evaluation: This is a cool looking external hard drive with both USB 2.0 interface for compatibility and eSATA for speed. It is fairly small and compact. AC adapter is small. Lots of capacity at 750 GB. The orange light has a low glow when on. It doesn't come with an eSATA cable. Only a USB cable. Otherwise a great product.