 Mac OS X 10.5 and your external drive... |
| Review Date: December 26, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Charles E. Paulsen, Clio, MI USA |
I ordered this drive because of the capacity and the price figuring that when it arrived I would simply reformat it as HFS+ and plug it into my Macintosh Network. The problem was that every time I tried to use Disk Utility to reformat it I kept getting an error (I forget the exact verbiage). Not only that but when I attached it to my PC running XP Home it wouldn't even recognize it as a hard drive - it thought it was a DVD drive.
I poked around on the Seagate website and found this troubleshooting procedure which solved my issue:
1. Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
2. Click on the Partition tab
3. Click on the Current Volume Scheme drop-down menu and select One (1) partition.
4. Click Options. From the Partition Schemes provided:
5. Click on the GUID Partition Table radio button
-OR-
Click on the Apple Partition Map radio button
6. Click OK. Select other options as desired (e.g., Volume Name, Format, etc.).
7. Click Apply. The Partition Disk screen opens.
8. Click Partition. At this point, the volume dismounts from the desktop and the drive is partitioned and formatted.
Note: When Volumes are created, Time Machine may open asking if you would like to use the volume for backups. Click Cancel to proceed.
When finished, select the Disk Utility from the Apple Menu and choose Quit Disk Utility
I can't blame Seagate, the box clearly said the drive was for an XP or Vista PC, so that's why I am giving it 5 stars. I am anticipating that this drive will perform as well as the 300 gb external Seagate I have been using for the last three years |
Works perfectly; a pleasure to use and own
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| Review Date: November 21, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Roger J. Buffington, Huntington Beach, CA United States |
I have been a PC nut since the Apple II and original IBM PC, and backup technology is just now getting good for us small office and home users. I have tried tape backup units, DVDs, and other classic solutions, never with real confidence that my data was stored safely. This 1TB HDD from Seagate really is a superb backup unit. On the competent advice of my IT professional, I bought this unit to back up my home office and digital photograph library.
I bought two of the earlier (black finish) versions of this unit, and they too are very nice, and the installation is identical and as far as I can tell, so is the backup software.
The unit is very nicely built. It has a nice silver finish, and is designed to either mount horizontally or vertically, so most users will have no difficulty finding a place on even the busiest desktop for this compact unit. The nice finish combined with the attractive LED lighting make this an appropriate addition to any desktop. Minor quibble: could they not have mounted the little rubber feet rather than forcing the user to do it?
The unit installed effortlessly. You simply plug it into the power supply, and attach the USB (or firewire) connector to the computer. On my Windows XP machine a menu came right up asking me if I wanted to install the backup software with which the unit comes equipped. I let it do so, and in a minute or so the software was installed and the 1TB HDD was shown in my Computer directory as ready to go. No need for reading anything; true plug and play. The unit is quiet and unobtrusive; it just does its job without annoying the user in any way. Nice!
I did install the backup software, and it seems to be very nice. The software enabled me to schedule a nightly backup for every night, and that is an absolute first for me for my home office. A very nice feeling to know that one has one's files safely backed up. And one can easily view the contents of the unit to actually see the backed-up files.
This is a USB2 unit, so transfer speeds are not as fast as a SCSI drive would be, but usually this is not an issue with the type of use I plan, as routine backups and storage in increments does not take long. For my needs, and I imagine for most users, this unit is speedy enough.
Incidentally, the unit is formated NTFS, so no need to reformat it to get rid of FAT32 format as is the case with some drives. It truly was ready to go for my Vista system.
So far I am extremely pleased with this unit. It is a fast, well-built, well-designed and cost-effective solution to mass storage of data. |
Could not be easier
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| Review Date: October 1, 2008 |
| Reviewer: E. Mack, Seattle, WA USA |
What can I say? I am very impressed. It took me more time to figure out what USB slot to plug the thing into than it did to set up the hard drive and start my first back up. The quick start up guide is the only paper documentation that is included in the box and that is more than what is necessary.
All I had to do was plug in the power and then connect with the supplied USB cable and the control system self installed and directed me to set up using the drive for general storage as well as creating a custom back-up plan.
If I had to be picky, I would say that the "feet" that they include (you can choose between a tower or desktop set up that requires that you attach a tower base or 4 plastic "feet") are pretty cheap. Besides that, this was a perfect experience right from opening the box to just now when it finished my first (20GB) back up.
But simply put, using this device could not be any easier.
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Fancy, but simple
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| Review Date: October 29, 2008 |
| Reviewer: H. Liang, Philadelphia, Pa |
This Seagate 1Tb HD is replacing my 250gb WD HD that I bought a few years ago because it was getting full.
I agree completely with the other reviewers in that this hard drive is extremely simple to operate. Plug in the power, plug in the USB and it goes by itself. I found that the automatic back-up is easy to use and is a very convenient feature that my old HD didn't have. This unit is also very nicely designed and looks great. It's quite unobtrusive and a lot quieter than my old HD. In fact, I haven't even noticed any noises coming from it, but I hear my old WD going on and off whenever it is in use.
My only complaint is that it runs a little warmer than my old HD, but it's not incredibly hot...it's just a little warmer. |
nice to look at, easy to use.
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| Review Date: November 4, 2008 |
| Reviewer: H. Hahn, |
to put it simply this is a very nice external hard drive. it's got a sleek design with neat light effects and it's extremely easy to use. just plug the thing in and you're off and running. i usually never use the provided back up software with this external drives, but i decided to try it this once. i must say the software is very easy to use. you install it and you choose which drives or folders that you want to back up and it does it for you. you can also schedule when you want the backup to occur. very handy and a set it and forget it deal.
i would like to mention that this drive does not have a fan, which is what i hated about another external drive that i had. the lack of fan makes it very quiet. the drive also turns on/off automatically which is a mixed bag, but not enough of an annoyance to really give it a lower score. overall this is a great buy and would recommend it to anybody. |
Excellent start...
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| Review Date: October 25, 2008 |
| Reviewer: physics lover, California |
I bought this disk recently and I use it connected to different computers at different times. It is not as mobile as the Freeagent-Go series, but it is faster and more versatile than Freeagent-Go.
My usage of this disk is probably not the most typical, but I emphasize that I stressed it far more than the average user might. To start with, I did not install the auto-backup software that comes with it. I don't intend to use this disk for back-ups. Despite that, I had no problems using it with the Windows-XP Service Pack-2. It was immediately recognized and mounted by the OS. Then I partitioned it into four, using Partition-Magic 8.0. Out of one single 500GB NTFS partition, I created a smaller NTFS partition, two VFAT partitions, and one Linux Ext3 partition. Again, moving and resizing and partitioning went on as smoothly as it would for an internal hard disk. Upon the completion of partitioning, the OS recognized the new partitions and immediately mounted them (except the Linux partition, but that's a deficiency with the Windows-XP, not with the disk.) Moving, and copying directories afterwards was very smooth and fast.
Then came the Linux test. I connected the disk to one of my Linux machines. Again it was immediately recognized and mounted (through the USB port) by the RedHat OS. This time the roles were reversed. RedHat mounted three partitions automatically except the NTFS partition, again an issue not related to the disk. I checked (using fdisk) that the computer also sees the NTFS partition, but the OS will not mount it, even after I put it in the fstab file manually. I guess every OS maker has to snub somebody to feel good about themselves.
So far, I am extremely pleased with my new disk. There is only one question remains: will it last and serve me well for years? Obviously I don't know that yet, but I don't want to wait three years to write a review. |
Works Fine
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| Review Date: February 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: W. Morrison, |
I've had this product for awhile, no issues. The click of death started up at the beginning, but then I disabled the sleep mode. See the following:
"Other users on the Seagate forums have reported that disabling the Sleep functionality within the Seagate Manager has allegedly resolved their issues with the interface. I do wonder though just how many users will mistake the sound of the drive heads parking during these unexpected resets with the dreaded "click of death" sound indicative of drive failure."
http://www.everythingusb.com/seagate-freeagent-xtreme-1.5tb-external-hard-drive-15790.html
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Beauty and the beast!!
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| Review Date: October 31, 2008 |
| Reviewer: J. Chang, |
The design of this beast is beautiful! Kind of looks like an UFO hovering over my desk in the dark. Very cool to look at! The design does remind me of the Apple designers where things are sleek and very pleasing to the eye.
Setting up was super simple. You could just simply plug it in and use it, or you can use the included software to do scheduled back-ups for important information that you want to offload your primary drive.
I am not sure if people are as picky as I am about the noise levels of the drives, but I just tend to look for any electronics that have moving parts and make sure they are quiet. I used to have a power supply that sounded like an airplane taking off, so now I like things nice and quiet. And this external is VERY quiet and does not give off as much heat as my other external.
All in all, I am extremely satisfied and would highly recommend this product. I look forward in seeing the future products from Seagate. |
1.5 TB Huge Drive, Fast, Video User, Great Price Seagate!
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| Review Date: December 12, 2008 |
| Reviewer: John D. Min, Allentown, PA |
I use a lot of hard drive space for video editing (switched to high definition video) and downloading movies online, for me anything under 1,000 GIGs is a joke, so I decided to take my old clunky 500 GIG hard drives and transfer all the date to one giant drive. The 2 TB drives are still gig for gig dollar overpriced, but when I did the math this 1.5 TB Seagate drive was the best price for a good reliable external hard drive. I own two 750 GB Seagates and they still work fine. The only drive that ever crashed was my 1 TB Western Digital. Opening the box, the machine is silver, sleek, small footprint, and very modern, much nicer than the blocky black hard drives we see on shelves. Mount tabs come along to place your unit horizontal or vertical, but the drive stands fine without them, so I didn't bother to snap the base pieces onto the unit. Cables are very long but thin and pure white with a clean appearance. The drive was detected instantly on XP and Vista, and the downloads were perfect with no errors detected over 900 GBs transferred and still going strong. I plan to purchase another one soon, and then just give away my 500 GB hard drives to friends who only save MP3 and photos!
PROS: Price, Reliable fast, and Great Looking!
CONS: None so far!
Thank you and enjoy downloading. BBC |
2TB Freeagent
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| Review Date: November 8, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Kerry Dressler, Costa Rica |
| I was disappointed to see the drive was only rated for PCs but I reformated it for my mac. Works great.. I'll use it for media storage for awhile to make certain there are no problems.. but don't anticipate any. Fast, easy to use, great value. |
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