Seagate 500GB External eSata hard drive

Bestbuy had Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB external hard drives on sale for
$149 this week. Since I'm a fan a Seagate hard drives I picked one up. It
especially seemed like a good deal because it included both USB and eSata
interfaces.

Took one home and hooked it up. The eSata transfer rate was much slower
than USB so I knew something was wrong. A few minutes later the drive self
destructed - it sounded like a blender full of ice cubes!

Took it back the same day and got another one. This time I couldn't get the
eSata interface to work at all. Going back tomorrow to exchange it for a
Western Digital.

The drives are made in China. Hope it isn't a trend.

Very disappointed in Seagate!

Hi!

A few minutes later the drive self destructed - it sounded like a blender
full of ice cubes!

Ouch! I hope you weren't *moving* data to it!

Going back tomorrow to exchange it for a Western Digital.

My Book? If you do, be aware that while the circular "button" at the front
with the integrated power light still exists, but on newer units it is no
longer pressable. If you try with even the slightest effort, you will push
the "button" into the drive. There's nothing in the instructions about this.
And as stupid as it sounds, I swapped drives with Best Buy several times
because the button didn't push. In my defense, both their sales staff and I
expected that it would. All my older ones have power buttons there. The new
one definitely does not--I took it apart to find out.

Turns out they saved $0.0000000001 on the already cheap enclosure design to
axe the power switch. As long as this cheapness doesn't move to the drive
inside...my opinion of Western Digital equipment is pretty high.

The drives are made in China. Hope it isn't a trend.

I don't think you've got anything to worry about there. Seagate has been
making drives in China for a long time...since the days when an 800MB drive
was impressively large.

Since external USB hard drives have their onboard SMART readings ignored (at
least as far as I can tell), you might want to carefully remove the drive
from the enclosure and check its SMART health or even run a tool like
SpinRite on it before you put into use for anything important.

William

If you open up the external case, I would bet that you will find either a Maxtor
drive or a hard drive with a Maxtor design and a Seagate label.

Seagate has long produced drives of decent quality, ever since they acquired
Magnetic Peripherals Inc, a joint venture of CDC and Honeywell noted for
producing high quality SCSI drives and old timey removable drives in large
canisters. If the Maxtor el cheapo mentality takes over Seagate, I'll
definitely take them off my list of preferred drives... Ben Myers

On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:04:06 -0500, "WSZsr" wrote:

Bestbuy had Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB external hard drives on sale for
$149 this week. Since I'm a fan a Seagate hard drives I picked one up. It
especially seemed like a good deal because it included both USB and eSata
interfaces.

Took one home and hooked it up. The eSata transfer rate was much slower
than USB so I knew something was wrong. A few minutes later the drive self
destructed - it sounded like a blender full of ice cubes!

Took it back the same day and got another one. This time I couldn't get the
eSata interface to work at all. Going back tomorrow to exchange it for a
Western Digital.

The drives are made in China. Hope it isn't a trend.

Very disappointed in Seagate!

On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:04:06 -0500, "WSZsr"
wrote:

Bestbuy had Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB external hard drives on sale for
$149 this week. Since I'm a fan a Seagate hard drives I picked one up. It
especially seemed like a good deal because it included both USB and eSata
interfaces.

Took one home and hooked it up. The eSata transfer rate was much slower
than USB so I knew something was wrong. A few minutes later the drive self
destructed - it sounded like a blender full of ice cubes!

Took it back the same day and got another one. This time I couldn't get the
eSata interface to work at all. Going back tomorrow to exchange it for a
Western Digital.

The drives are made in China. Hope it isn't a trend.

Very disappointed in Seagate!

I like the Firewire / USB combo Seagate drives. Generally, Seagate
has been good, but when the 300GB drives first came out there were
problems. I like the enclosures and that they are easily stackable.

On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 19:57:06 -0400, Ben Myers
wrote:

If you open up the external case, I would bet that you will find either a Maxtor
drive or a hard drive with a Maxtor design and a Seagate label.

I hope not -- that woudl be a huge step backwards and I would no
longer buy Seagate.

"WSZsr" wrote in message
...
Bestbuy had Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB external hard drives on sale for
$149 this week. Since I'm a fan a Seagate hard drives I picked one up.
It especially seemed like a good deal because it included both USB and
eSata interfaces.

Took one home and hooked it up. The eSata transfer rate was much slower
than USB so I knew something was wrong. A few minutes later the drive
self destructed - it sounded like a blender full of ice cubes!

Took it back the same day and got another one. This time I couldn't get
the eSata interface to work at all. Going back tomorrow to exchange it
for a Western Digital.

The drives are made in China. Hope it isn't a trend.

Very disappointed in Seagate!


Sorry to hear about that.

I have a 250gb Seagate FreeAgent that I've had only a couple of months and
it seems fine.

Stew,

Are you using eSata or USB? If you are using eSata, how is your transfer
rate? The interchangeable interface board on the bottom of mine gets very
hot!


"WSZsr" wrote in message
...
Bestbuy had Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB external hard drives on sale for
$149 this week. Since I'm a fan a Seagate hard drives I picked one up.
It especially seemed like a good deal because it included both USB and
eSata interfaces.

Took one home and hooked it up. The eSata transfer rate was much slower
than USB so I knew something was wrong. A few minutes later the drive
self destructed - it sounded like a blender full of ice cubes!

Took it back the same day and got another one. This time I couldn't get
the eSata interface to work at all. Going back tomorrow to exchange it
for a Western Digital.

The drives are made in China. Hope it isn't a trend.

Very disappointed in Seagate!


Sorry to hear about that.

I have a 250gb Seagate FreeAgent that I've had only a couple of months and
it seems fine.

"WSZsr" wrote in message
...
Stew,

Are you using eSata or USB? If you are using eSata, how is your transfer
rate? The interchangeable interface board on the bottom of mine gets very
hot!


Ah.......USB.

Using it to copy my RAID1 volume off. It's not a fast process unless I
enable auto-sync......

I picked up the same Seagate Free Agent Pro 500 GB yesterday from Best
Buy. I had researched the drive (to the best of my ability / knowledge)
and thought $150 was a good deal. What's the difference between the
Free Agent Pro and the regular Free Agent? The eSATA support and the
packaged software? If so, I doubt I need the "Pro" version and could get
a better deal on the normal USB 2.0 drive. Thoughts?

I'd be using the drive primarily as a music/photo library, so I'm not
sure the eSATA capabilities are something I even need. I'm in the
market for a new laptop in the next 6 months, and I don't want to go out
of my way to purchase an eSATA capable computer just to support my
drive.

"jar66su" wrote in message
...

I picked up the same Seagate Free Agent Pro 500 GB yesterday from Best
Buy. I had researched the drive (to the best of my ability / knowledge)
and thought $150 was a good deal. What's the difference between the
Free Agent Pro and the regular Free Agent? The eSATA support and the
packaged software? If so, I doubt I need the "Pro" version and could get
a better deal on the normal USB 2.0 drive. Thoughts?

I'd be using the drive primarily as a music/photo library, so I'm not
sure the eSATA capabilities are something I even need. I'm in the
market for a new laptop in the next 6 months, and I don't want to go out
of my way to purchase an eSATA capable computer just to support my
drive.



http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/

At a glance the primary difference seems to be that the FA Pro can utilitize
USB/eSATA and 1394, while the FA desktop can only use USB interface.

My 250gb FA desktop model seems to be fine.

-Stew