 pretty quiet. fast FW800. mostly problem free |
| Review Date: December 12, 2008 |
| Reviewer: m.prudhomme, cali |
Previously I had an OWC 1TB drive as back up for my iMac. It was in RAID-0 and also FW800 so it was fast. But loud! And I would only turn it on for backing up data.
It stopped working after a year so I purchased a couple LaCie 750GB drives. They are the piano black ones and look great, but they are too loud to leave on and also there is just no way to go back to the slower FW400.
So looking at other external hard drive options I looked at the ones from Seagate. I had previous luck with them when I used them for my Window's machines (Still have one for emergency iTunes back-up but it's only 150GB).
It was a relief to find that this drive runs as quiet as my previous Seagate drives. I used the long FW800 cord I had from my OWC connection so it sits on the floor aside my computer desk and most of the time I can not hear it. That's awesome because I leave it powered up (there is no on/off switch) and it's ready for use whenever.
It's great to have the speed of FW800 again.
Now to the one problem. As some reviewers have stated with the 1TB Seagate, this drive can disconnect itself. After it happened the first time, I looked in my iMac energy saving settings and deselected "turn off hard drives when able".
I thought I was so smart but just yesterday I awoke my iMac from sleep and got the warning that I had disconnected my drive improperly. I was worried about losing data but it's happened twice and after repowering the Seagate drive it reconnects and all is as before.
Because it is quiet and fast I am still glad that I got the drive and just hope that the disconnecting itself won't happen again. |
What Annoying Light? This Product Works Great
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| Review Date: September 18, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. George, Lusby, MD USA |
Before making any purchase of over $100, I always start out by researching the various products available which meet my needs and are in my price range. I thoroughly researched external drives by reading consumer reports reviews, other reviews, and customer ratings from people who purchased the device.
I am an average computer user, with files I do not want to be without in case of drive failure. I use Mac OS Leopard, and wanted to install Snow Leopard. I have heard some horror stories about that upgrade, so I wanted to have an easy way to revert back to Leopard if things were not to my liking. I have an Intel iMac with a 320GB internal drive, and I wanted a drive that would let me use Time Machine for backups, offline storage of media files, and to hold a bootable clone of my system (the clone is what I wanted in case Snow Leopard caused me grief). I have been able to do all three tasks with this drive effortlessly. Important note: most experts recommend having your bootable clone image on a separate hard drive, and not on the drive you use for backups so as to not have a single point of failure. I decided this was an acceptable risk, since I can always boot from the Leopard install DVD if things really go awry. I might eventually buy another, smaller drive (around 350-400GB) just for the bootable clone, but for now this works just fine for me.
After reading the reviews here on Amazon and on other sites, I was impressed by the storage per dollar value this product has. Also, I have read scores of reports which rank Seagate drives much higher than LaCie drives as far as reliability and long life. The only hesitation I had before buying this product were all of the reviews clamoring about how bright and annoying the light is on this product. From all of the laments on this subject, it gave me serious pause as my computer desk is in my bedroom and I didn't want to have to deal with a floodlight while trying to get to sleep. The overall stability, reliability, and high reviews made me bite the bullet and order it. If it were really as bright as claimed, I could always buy some nighttime sunglasses.
Well, guess what? I'm delighted to report that the light is not a problem at all for me. Honestly, I have to wonder if the people who made such a fuss about this might have abnormally dilated pupils! :-) I have my drive on a windowsill behind my iMac and I cannot tell whether the drive is on or off from my bed, I really can't. Here I was thinking I was going to have the blinding flash from Indiana Jones' Ark of the Covenant, when the reality is that I have a nightlight at best.
The drive is as effortless to install as others have claimed: you plug it in, you connect the firewire cable and that is the extent of it. Period. Your Mac finds the drive immediately, and Time Machine is ready to write to it immediately. As stated above, I wanted the drive to do three different things (clone image, Time Machine backups, and some external storage for movies), so I used Disk Utility to create three partitions. This took all of five minutes and then I was off and running. I used the program "Super Duper" to create my clone (that's a third party program) and it worked just fine. The first backups and clone took several hours (as you would expect), but the rest of my Time Machine backups are taking an average of 10-15 minutes each.
The drive is quiet (I think there is a click when it starts, and then a click when it stops, but that's it, and that is certainly reasonable). The lack of a fan is what makes it so quiet, and even without that noisemaker, it doesn't get overly hot. The data transfer speed is incredible, as my Mac negotiated the FireWire 800 connection--the unit's fastest speed. I tested booting from my clone image I made on this drive, and was able to do so without any noticeable slowness (I didn't try opening large files in PhotoShop or the like, so you might have slowness if you do that. That isn't a concern of mine as I just needed a reliable way of ensuring I could still use my iMac if the internal drive ever fails). The documentation is very scant as others have noted, but I honestly have not needed any (besides, their web site has a decent FAQ and user support section). Having the cables included in the box was an extra bonus.
I am very glad I bought this drive. It does what I need without requiring me to handhold it, or tweak it, or consult manuals. If I encounter any problems with this unit, I will update these comments. But quite honestly, after buying this drive I couldn't be happier. |
Fast and Easy
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| Review Date: January 1, 2009 |
| Reviewer: K. Bonner, |
| No problems setting up... No problems returning from sleep.... no problems with time machine. I can play my iTunes library over my network through my iMac from the drive. Everything I wanted in the drive. The FW 800 is amazingly fast. |
Great hard drive...sleek and beautiful
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| Review Date: January 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: S. Bleasdell, Cedar Park, TX USA |
I am a recent convert from PC to Mac. I bought the PC version of this same Seagate drive and was also pleased, but when I bought the Mac version I was blown away. It is slightly smaller in size than the PC version, supports firewire 400 and 800 (and USB 2.0), feels super-solid, and doesn't have a throbbing light behind the Seagate logo like the PC version does (the Mac version's light is constant on except when the drive is sleeping).
The drive is fast, dead silent, feels good, and looks good. I am becoming more and more of a Mac convert all the time. I really wish that everyone would make such quality products for PC too. |
Seagate Freeagent / Time Machine
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| Review Date: April 5, 2009 |
| Reviewer: T. Reader, Marin County, California |
Bought to be back-up drive for Mac's Time Machine. Set up was absolutely easy, plug in firewire cable and power and click!
The drive runs for a bit then goes to sleep - like one's refrigerator - nothing to think about. The drive's sound level is like that of a desk top, not objectionable but louder than my new iMac.
A good purchase. |
Better than expected
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| Review Date: April 12, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Gyong, United States |
| This review might be too early since I've had it for 3 days now, but I couldn't wait... so far it's been just too good to be true. Firewire 800 works flawlessly and it's fast, compare to Lacie Qudra ([..]), it's MUCH MUCH faster, just comparing the "get info" Freeagent gives instant "size" information, where as Quadra may minutes (sometimes longer), depending on the size. design is pretty sleek too (not as sleek as Qudra), Quiet (Unlike Quadra), if it's not being used it shuts down until you access the HD. over all I'm pretty happy. hope things don't change ;-] |
Working perfectly
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| Review Date: July 11, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Thucydides, Northeast PA USA |
| Purchased one month ago. Given previous reviews, I called Seagate to ask about problems such as hanging or going into sleep mode - they told me these have been addressed. Connection with the iMac through firewire was effortless, Time Machine launched automatically. Barely audible noise of disc spinning in completely quiet room. Highly recommended. |
Great Drive for Time Machine Backups
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| Review Date: September 12, 2009 |
| Reviewer: E. D'Avignon, LAKEVILLE, MN United States |
I purchased this drive to use for Time Machine backups. I installed a 1TB drive in my iMac and having 1.5 times the space for Time Machine is a good rule of thumb.
The drive is quiet and with the FW 800 interface, it is fast. It has 2 FW 800 ports so this drive can be daisy chained with other FW devices, an important consideration if you system only has a single FW 800 port and you want to add more FW 800 devices in the future.
The lack of an activity light is not important to me, especially since there is no activity light on my iMac. The single drive light is on whenever there is power. It is not a flashing activity light.
If you purchase this drive, be sure to go to the Seagate web site and download the Seagate diagnostics. It contains a custom icon for the drive and useful tools in case you ever have problems.
Seagate drives are outstanding and with a 5 year warranty (for the drive, not your data) your investment is protected.
I highly recommend this drive if you need a good external drive for your Mac for either Time Machine or general storage. |
Seagate FreeAgent Desk 2 TB
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| Review Date: December 2, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Roy Chacon, Simi Valley, CA USA |
I have owned this for 2 months with no problems, all systems that we run are on macs simply plug and go on the 800 firewire.
Pros: quieter than my 2 TB Lacie, light underneath tells you if it is on or not (see con for possible negative on this)
Cons: has a "light" that comes on underneath which could bother someone when this is on your desk and you need it dark. Don't know it that can be shut off but I have mine under the desk so no big deal. Compact in size about 1/2 the size of my 2 TB LaCie.
Overall I would buy Sea Gate hard drives over LaCie |
Great FreeAgent Drive - great for Mac
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| Review Date: May 8, 2009 |
| Reviewer: David Wiesman, Omaha, NE USA |
So far very pleased with this 1.5 TB Seagate Drive - installed easily and instantly compatible. Starts up quick and seems to be fast. So far no problems-only had it for one month, and I have an older seagate feeeagent drive that's worked for years now without problems. The only thing I wish it had was some type of on/off switch, since I leave it connected (it shuts off when ejected from the desktop, but then the only way to turn it back on is to unconnect the firewire and re-connect it, assuming you don't shut down the iMac each time). So I plugged it into an on/off switch, or a seperate plug strip, and I use that to turn it on without having to disconnect it from the Imac.
Also, it was great that it came with all types of usb and firewire connection cables, so it will work with our old iMacs as well as our new one. |
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