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• Seagate FreeAgent Desktop External 500GB Hard Drive

• Price Range

  $86.99 - $164.0
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• Specs • Add Your Review

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• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: agautam

  Updated:07-31-07

  Duration of ownership:

  Strengths: 465 GB, Cheap, Preformatted to NTFS, Easy and Quick Installation, 5-Year Limited Warranty, Small, Quiet, Does not get too hot

  Weaknesses: No Backup Software, Cannot be open

  Overall Evaluation: This is a great hard drive. This Plug and Play device allows the user to drops files easily on the hard drive. Plus, a third-party backup software (like McAfee's) can be used to back up software. It is also cheap and so far reliable.

• Overall Rating
  4 Star Review

  Reviewed by: evophile

  Updated:07-29-07

  Duration of ownership:

  Strengths: Small footprint, unique design, good value, great warranty

  Weaknesses: no on/off switch, looks kind of weird

  Overall Evaluation: Seagates 500 external HD is a pretty cool little thing. The design is quite unique with a glowing yellow light that pulses when in use.The footprint is small, so it can fit in the most crowded of spaces. With it you get Seagate's exceptional warranty policy.The only downfall is that there is no on/off switch, the unit only turns off or on when your computer does the same. Also the cache is quite small for a 500gb drive.But in the end, this HD is a great value.

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: kevallen4723

  Updated:07-26-07

  Duration of ownership:

  Strengths: Large Hard-driveInexpensiveEasy to set-up

  Weaknesses:

  Overall Evaluation: The Seagate external 500 drive is built for simplicity. Large print, easy-to-follow instructions had me using the drive in the first 3 minutes it was out of the box!! The cost is amazing for a 500 drive and I am able to backup everything from home and work and free up some space on my home computer.

• Overall Rating
  4 Star Review

  Reviewed by: kasidid

  Updated:07-14-07

  Duration of ownership:2 Months

  Strengths: 5-Year warranty. Good-looking

  Weaknesses: No on/off switch.

  Overall Evaluation: I originally decided to buy this hard drive because it is the external hard drive from well-known manufacturer and the price at that time was very reasonable. Moreover, this hard drive is covered by Seagate 5-year warranty. The yellow light is unique. You can't find any other hard drive that use the yellow light. The body is made of plastic which may increase the accumulation of heat inside the hard drive, especially in summer. However, this hard drive has good power management system that turns the hard drive off when user doesn't use it for long time and reactivates it when needed. The unacceptable thing for this hard drive is that there is no on/off switch. It may be suitable for anyone who wants to leave the external hard drive on all the time.

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: ppitono

  Updated:07-13-07

  Duration of ownership:14 Days

  Strengths: Good looking, runs cool and quiet

  Weaknesses: none so far

  Overall Evaluation: I am very satisfied with my FreeAgent Desktop External 500GB Hard Drive. It looks really nice standing next to my computer. It runs really fast and quiet without any heat coming out. If you need big capacity external hard drive that is small in size and easy to move around, this one might fit you well. I really recommend it.

• Overall Rating
  4 Star Review

  Reviewed by: corprolite

  Updated:07-03-07

  Duration of ownership:1 Months

  Strengths: 5 year warranty from Seagate is a big selling point. The case is very modern looking and seems almost like a piece of art versus a storage drive. Small and very quiet

  Weaknesses: another wall wart to add to the collection. base is not detachable, no power switch, it powers up and down based on computer

  Overall Evaluation: I got this thing to finally have a reliable, well made, backup drive that I could forget about. I am still trying to get together a software backup method that I like and it is unfortunate that this drive doesn't have any basic software (other versions do apparently). Other than that it is extremely quiet, and high performing, and I have pretty much forgotten about it. I have had some very minor glitches with it not powering up after a sleep or hibernation. It doesn't have a powerswitch so it is supposed to power on and off with the computer and if there was anything I would change it would be this feature. I don't like the idea of a backup drive being constantly on since I was one of those people who had been using multiple hard drives for years with no problems so I was pretty lazy with backups. Then just like clockwork I had 2 brand new drives (maxtor) fail within a month of each other. One was my fault (I was adjusting partitions) and the other was a physical failure. Maxtor was great about replacing it, but I lost my music collection.Overall this Seagate is a great product and it seems to have pretty high reviews on several other sites. Shop around as right now it seems to be failling in price quite quickly. I bought it for 159 at circuit city and within 2 weeks have price matched down to 119.

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: sierra_nevadas

  Updated:06-26-07

  Duration of ownership:1 Months

  Strengths: Looks cool, once you get used to it; auto power on/off; small desktop footprint; awesome warranty

  Weaknesses: Gotta get used to it's looks!

  Overall Evaluation: I've been a fan of seagate's for a long-time, primarily due to their willingness to stand behind their products and offer an industry leading 5-year warranty. This was true for all their internal hard drives, but their external drives used to only have 1-year. All competitors only offer 1-year as well. However, with Seagate's FreeAgent line, they upped the anty, offering an awesome 5-years for all their external drives! That was my reason for finally pulling the trigger on buying an external unit, versus building my own (buy internal drive with 5-year warranty, along with an enclosure).Okay, enough background. What do I think of the drive? Well, other than the time it took to get used to it's looks, I am quite happy. I now think it's cool on my desktop here at work. I use it to perform backups of my MP3 library that I have at home, with the benefit of being able to play them here at work. It's surprising small. The pictures make it look huge, but it really isn't!It's plenty fast for what I need it for. But note that Seagate also sells to Pro versions: one adds an esata port, while the other adds both esata & firewire. The pro versions also have a 16mb cache, versus the 8mb cache on this one. I doubt you'd notice the performance difference between the two different cache sizes.The unit has no power on/off switch, which is kind of annoying. I'd like to turn it off over the weekend, or evening. It will turn off on it's own if you power the computer down, but I don't do that with my computer at work. So keep this in mind before purchasing.Overall, I'm happy with the unit. I only wish it was cheaper! :-)

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: lauren52

  Updated:06-26-07

  Duration of ownership:7 Days

  Strengths: Easy instructions, very fast setup, quiet operation, fast file transfers, small desktop footprint, sturdy and attractive design

  Weaknesses: I believe that it comes with its own software but this didn't load on my computer when I plugged it in, which I plan to look in to. Lack of power button (powers itself on/off with your computer).

  Overall Evaluation: I have been using Windows Explorer to transfer files between the drive and my computer since the software it comes with didn't install, and I also have software that allows me to create a backup file for my computer that I'm using with it. The drive took almost no time to set up- it configured itself quickly after I plugged it in to my computer's USB port. 5-year warranty included is also a plus.

• Overall Rating
  5 Star Review

  Reviewed by: mksalwan

  Updated:05-30-07

  Duration of ownership:

  Strengths: 500 GB capacity, Seagate Brand, Great Size, Easy for Travel

  Weaknesses: No Firewire, Warranty is short

  Overall Evaluation: I bought this from Circuit City earlier this month and am very pleased with it. It is a great size. I outgrew my 250 GB WD Mybook and this has been a suitable replacement. I do miss the firewire and its speed, but this is not too bad for transfers. I would prefer a firewire, especially for large transfers. 500 GB is a great space for now, but if you have a large collection of MP3s, files, pictures, movies, etc. then it fills up fast.I would recommend this to anyone who is looking at this as an option.

• Overall Rating
  2 Star Review

  Reviewed by: jerrymcdon

  Updated:05-02-07

  Duration of ownership:14 Days

  Strengths: Quiet, that's about it.

  Weaknesses: No On/Off Switch!!No standard USB device cable, uses harder-to-find camera cable.Annoying yellow light tries to be "cool", instead it's an ugly and annoying color.Cheesy, cheap brown plastic case.

  Overall Evaluation: I'm reminded of the phrase, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!". The previous Seagate drives were beautifully styled, sophisticated and elegant. And they had on-off switches in front ... they were clearly the best on the market. The only drawback they had was an annoying switch-on and periodic thermal recalibrate noise. And the on-off switches should have been improved, they had to be held in for several seconds before it would "take". But these ugly things were designed by an idiot. And no on-off button, that really is incredibly stupid. And no user information manual, which is fine for those of us who know how to use these things, but I know a good portion of purchasers wouldn't have a clue. I'm appalled Seagate put out something so stupid, the product manager needs to get fired. The shade of yellow light they picked is incredibly tasteless .... nobody told them that yellow is everybody's least favorite color?? How about the cheap chocolate brown plastic case? What is this, earth-tones '70's? All in all, a very poor evolution of what was a superb product -- almost as bad as Western Digital's appalling "My Book"'s. Who pays these idiot product designers??

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Seagate FreeAgent Desktop External 500GB Hard Drive

$86.99(31 sellers) • Avg User Rating •Specs