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Seagate FreeAgent 500 GB 3.5-Inch USB 2.0 Hard Drive ST305004FDA1E1-RK | 
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| Brand: Seagate
Category: CE
List Price: $129.99
Buy New: $95.00
You Save: $34.99 (27%)
New (7) Used (3) from $77.99
Rating:  262 reviews
Sales Rank: 553
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Hard Drive Size: 500
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6
Dimensions (in): 10 x 10 x 5
Warranty: 5 years warranty
MPN: ST305004FDA1E1-RK
Model: ST305004FDA1E1-RK
UPC: 763649003008
EAN: 0763649003008
ASIN: B000ND75C0
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | 500 GB external hard drive connects to your computer via USB cable | | • | 7200 RPM spindle speed and 8MB buffer memory for high-speed performance and fast read times | | • | Footprint is no bigger than a stapler; Just plug it in and you're ready to go | | • | Backup CDs, DVDs or store files and programs for on-the-go | | • | Includes external drive, USB 2.0 cable, AC power adapter, and quick start guide; 5-year limited warranty |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Product Description
When its time to back up and protect your digital content--photos, music, documents, and more--it doesn't get much easier than the Seagate Free Agent Desktop USB Portable Hard Drive. Simply plug it in to any power source, connect the USB cable to any computer, and you're ready to go. This hip-looking hard drive takes up less room on your desk than an ordinary stapler, giving you more space for your other desktop items. 
Powerful storage device with a sleek new design. | 
Takes up less room on your desk than a stapler. | 
Keep all your digital content in a safe and secure location. | Portable Performance and Security
If you're still relying on your personal computer or back-up CDs or DVDs to store your digital content or vital personal or family documents, you're running an unnecessary risk. Your computer can only hold so many files and can crash at any time, leaving you helpless to access your content. DVDs and CDs have a place in archiving, but they get easily scratched and lost. It's too risky to store everything in your computer, and too time-consuming and cumbersome to have a drawer full of CDs or DVDs. Computers come and go, but your content should always be nearby. With up to 1000 glorious gigabytes, the Free Agent external hard drive is the best place to gather and access all of your important photos, movies, music, games and documents. Simply plug in the power and the USB cable and you're ready to go. The Seagate Free Agent is big enough to store a huge portion of your digital content in a safe and secure environment, but small enough to let you take that content with you wherever you go. In other words, having the Seagate Free Agent is like having your entire computer with you at all times, but in a package that's a small fraction of the space and weight of your computer. Designed to live peacefully in your home or office, the Free Agent external hard drive is extra quiet and takes up less room on your desk than a stapler. Even the cable ports are base-mounted to help keep your desk free of clutter. We even add a little bit of sophistication to your desktop with the unique espresso brown finish and molten amber illumination. The sleek and slim design of this hard drive--only measures 7.5 x 1.6 x 6.4-inches (H x D x W)--and a weight of less than four pounds. The Seagate Free Agent lets you transfer files seamlessly from your computer via its USB 2.0 connection at a brisk transfer rate of up to 480Mb/sec. The drive delivers a spindle speed of 7,200 RPM, giving you the high-speed performance you need to back your data up quickly and safely. The Seagate Free Agent is ready to use out of the box with a PC, but it can be made Mac-ready in a matter of minutes with Mac OS X's Disk Utility. This portable hard drive is already compatible with Windows Vista (as well as Windows XP and Windows 2000), allowing you to backup your content regardless of operating system upgrades. At this compact size, and with this high performance, you now have the ability to take your data with you anywhere you go, so your digital content finally has room to breathe. A five-year warranty is also included, giving you complete peace of mind.
What's in the Box
FreeAgent Desktop drive, USB 2.0 cable, AC power adapter, and quick start guide.
Product Description
With a footprint no bigger than a stapler, the Seagate FreeAgent is an external desktop hard drive that can fit anywhere. The FreeAgent is designed to conveniently hold all of your digital content in one place. This drive can hold 500GB worth of data and is ready to go as soon as you plug it in. Mac Compatibility - Power PC G3, G4, or G5 running OS X 10.3.9 (or higher), or Intel Core Duo or Core Solo running OS X 10.4.6 (or higher) (drive is formatted NTFS, you will need to reformat for Mac using Disk Utility) 5-Year Limited Manufacturer Warranty Unit Dimensions - 7.5 (h) x 1.6 (w) (w/o 3.2 base) x 6.4 (d)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 257 more reviews...
 Archive Space Solution May 21, 2007
David Carlin (Philadelphia, PA USA)
154 out of 162 found this review helpful
If your sole purpose is to offload archives, then this is a great product. Most people don't think twice of backing up their existing data. Also, each version of windows comes with a backup program which originated from the Veritas Brand of Software. You can easily set the Free Agent Hardware and make it an active drive, then setup the Backup Software within MS 2000, XP, or Vista.
I've read reviews that seem to point out the burden of USB2 write speed. It makes no difference if the interface is Firewire or USB if the intent is to just backup data. If it takes a few extra seconds or minutes, no big deal. Either way the data will get to the disk and you can rest peacefully.
Update as of September 02, 2007: It appears my drive has began failing. I've heard from various sources that this series of Drives lacks cooling capacity. I've left mine plugged in for a few hours to begin noticing Windows Cache errors reading and writing from the drive. If the drive is left to cool, it is fine when plugged in. This is a major problem and I am considering having the drive replaced. Also, I've used the Seagate tools and it failed to run the tools on the detected FreeAgent Drive. Weird? I'll say.
Very Quiet and Low Vibration April 18, 2007
P. Vu (San Diego, CA USA)
76 out of 82 found this review helpful
Pros: Quietest external hard drive I have seen and runs with very low vibration. I also have the Western Digital My Book Premium 500GB that is much louder and causes much more vibration on the desk and is warmer. Well designed case, including a thinner than normal USB cable, a 1 piece AC adapter that is about 1.5"x3" in size, and all cables plug neatly at the bottom of the base. Works as expected on a Mac. Uses perpendicular magnetic recording technology.
Cons: Limited to only a USB2 interface. This limits Sustained Read/Write speeds to roughly 18MB/sec whereas an external hard drive on Firewire would have Sustained Read/Write speeds of around 30MB/sec. There is a very hard to find and much more expensive Firewire version though.
Plug & Play and you're up and running June 7, 2007
Niki M. (Alexandria, VA)
30 out of 33 found this review helpful
If anyone can be in love with a piece of hardware it is I. I have forged a union with my Seagate External hard drive that will last until eternity or until I fill up the available 500 GBs (rather...465 GBs), whichever comes sooner. It was a wise decision on my part to buy the 500GB drive as I am already filling it up surprisingly quickly. (You'd be surprised how much more stuff you download when you know you have plenty of disk space to play with.)
Installation was exceptionally easy. So easy in fact that I didn't believe the instructions. I figured I had to be missing something. So before I did anything, I came back here to read the reviews to see what others said about their installation. Sure enough, all you have to do is plug the sucker in and presto, it is recognized and your computer loaded with all the necessary software to run it. Within a couple of minutes, I was copying files to it.
I used the Windows XP Backup program to back up my documents and settings onto the drive without a hitch. And, once I was sure my music files were safely on the external drive and fully accessible, I (nervously)deleted them off my computer. I could almost hear my computer breathe a sigh of relief after being unburdened with such a heavy load. The "Low Disk Space" warning prompts my computer flashed me with increasing frequency were my cues that it was about collapse under the weight. I have now modified my download settings to load music files directly onto the external drive, skipping my computer altogether. Now it's up to Seagate to keep them safe and sound.
To give you an idea of the speed of the USB connection, it took exactly one hour (well, 1 hour 4 minutes) to copy 52 GBs worth of music files onto it. I have no idea what FireWire is but the USB connection is plenty fast and works well enough for me. (Though what do I know, I thought tapes were just fine when CDs and DVDs first came out.)
Techies be prepared to laugh at me but not understanding what kind of software is loaded on this external drive, I was initially afraid to play music files from it because I wasn't sure if I had to install Media Player on it as well. I was worried I might crash the drive or something if I opened a music file with no ability for the drive to play it. (I can hear you laughing now). I took a leap of faith that somehow the external drive would find Media Player on my computer and open it to play the music file. So I closed my eyes, held my breath, double-clicked on a MP3 file and waited to see what happened. To my relief, Media Player opened and music filled my ears!!
It would be nice if Seagate provided a hardcopy user guide with their product. It only came with installation instructions but no support materials. I would have liked something to flip through to familiarize myself with the product without having to go online to find information. Especially since Seagate's website is not the most user-friendly I have discovered.
The drive idles quietly and is hardly noticeable when performing a task. I think there is a fan inside that comes on from time to time but it is fairly quiet as well.
The 5 year warranty is great. I don't think I have ever registered any product for warranty coverage; most warranty periods are so short they aren't usually worth the effort. However, Seagate's 5-year coverage is worth its weight in gold-or in GBs as the case may be. :-)
By the by, the glowing light is pretty neat. It makes drive look alive while it does its thing. And since there is no on/off switch, it reassures me that it is on and functioning.
As a note of caution, I have read on other forums the dangers of disconnecting the external drive without performing a safe removal first. I recall several people saying they lost files that way. Yikes!! I believe most said Seagate is pretty good in rendering assistance with this problem and are typically able to restore their files, assuming you haven't messed with the corrupted data too much. Regardless, I taped a sticky note to my computer to remind myself never to directly unplug the external drive because I know one day I would unplug it without thinking.
In any event, fingers crossed on reliability but everything else is performing smoothly so far.
UPDATE:
I now noticed a slight delay when accessing files on the external drive. And it does sometimes hang up my computer for a second or so--especially when waking up from hibernation. Also, it's funny but sometimes when I am doing something on the net (usually music related), the external drive will wake up from its hibernation as if it is anticipating I will soon require its services. How it knows I am about to download a file to it is beyond me. And also, sometimes it will wake up when it notices my computer has woken as well. It's almost like it just wants to see what's going on from time to time. Strange, this little drive is. Cute, but very strange. Nonetheless, it is still performing wonderfully.
Know what you're buying May 15, 2008
Hrisko (Fort Worth, TX)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is essentially a Seagate 500 Gig, 7200 rpm, SATA drive in a cheap USB 2.0 compatible case. It comes with some sort of software to "help" you backup data. I right click and select open and use it as another hard drive. Depending on your intended use and degree of sophistication this could be a great product.
PROS: I've had great luck with Seagate drives. I have never lost data on one (fingers crossed). The 7200 spin would be great for video capture and the SATA connection is perfect to make sure this drive will directly plug into your computer if the USB case dies. You could also buy another external drive case if the one supplied fails. I do not use the included software, preferring to just back up data. The included software takes up about 250 megs which I could erase at any point if I need the space. Even without running the software this device goes into power saving mode (the drive spins down) in about 15 minutes. The included USB cord is A to mini-B. This is a great standard connection. I have them sitting around for digital cameras and MP3 players. It's nice not to have worry about finding a proprietary cable.
CONS: Slow interface. But what do you expect? I set it up with 100 gigs of video to back up and go to bed. The next morning it's done. It is a rather flimsy housing and I would see it tipping over easily. The active drive light flashes too slowly for my liking as you must observe it for 10 or 15 seconds to see if it's really active. The housing doesn't have any vents so I could see heat being a problem but haven't experienced that.
CONCLUSION: I looked around and decided that for my purposes (just backing up huge video and data files) this was a perfect drive. I haven't had any problems with heat as the drive spins down, but I also disconnect it and move it to a safe place after I dump data to it. As I said, if the case dies I don't care, this was the same price as an internal SATA Seagate. If it dies I'll crack it open and lock it in my safe. Then if I need to restore something I'll spring for a SATA to eSATA connector (circa $15) or just plug the drive directly into the computer.
This is just a good hard drive with a free external case. And I haven't had any problems with the case so I may end up being happy as a clam with this drive for years.
Reliable, fast, dependable hard drive. June 7, 2007
David Sternlight (Los Angeles)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
After going through a number of hard drives, all of which work without problems, my favorite design is this new Seagate "Free Agent" line, which haa a compact and attractive form factor. Prices are highly competitive; consider their even larger 750Gb unit in this line; you always need more storage than you think. It's only a matter of time before 1TB and larger show up in this same attractive form factor; the mind boggles at such capacity, but if one stores music and video it is quickly absorbed. The pricing is almost as low (and still falling) as storing on good quality DVDs, even in compressed DivX format, and the convenience makes it good value. Imagine storing many hundreds of movies or music albums in such a compact physical format.
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