pvreditor's Full Review: Seagate FreeAgent Desk ST315005FDA2E1-RK 1.5 TB US...
My wife is a major Photoshop junkie and I've recently gotten interested in making HD videos, and both of these demand lots of storage space. To give us some digital elbow room, we recently got a Seagate FreeAgent Desk ST31500FDA 1.5 TB external USB hard drive. After using it for about three months, I'm impressed.
We bought the Seagate ST31500FDA for $110 at Costco, using a $30 coupon. The list price for this unit is currently $150, so other stores now have great prices. Personally, I thought that a 1.5 TB external hard drive for $110 was a steal.
What's a TB?
"TB" stands for "terabyte," and it is a unit of digital storage. One terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes. I have another external hard drive that is a 500 GB model -- the Seagate ST31500FDA has three times more storage space then this 500 GB unit.
What it is
The Seagate ST31500FDA external USB hard drive is generally a standard external hard drive. It contains a single hard drive in an attractive silver case that is roughly seven inches square and a bit less than 1.5 inches thick. The sloping front face of the Seagate ST31500FDA has an animated light display that looks a little Star Trek-y, and the back panel contains just two features of interest: a jack for an external power supply and a mini-USB connector.
The Seagate ST31500FDA came with a large mounting foot to enable it to stand upright, four small feet for resting flat on a counter, a USB cable, a wall-wart style power supply and a simple fold-out manual. The USB port on the Seagate ST31500FDA is rated for USB2, which theoretically means speeds up to 480 Mbps. In reality, the data transfer speed might peak at about one-fourth of that, which is still pretty honkin' fast.
Using it
With only two connectors on the Seagate ST31500FDA, it's a no-brainer to hook it up. In a minute, I had the unit powered up and connected to a computer. The computer (a Windows XP laptop) located the Seagate ST31500FDA and did all the necessary handshaking in 20 seconds or so. When that was done, I navigated to the new hard drive on "My Computer" and checked its properties. I had to smile when it said the capacity of the new drive was 1,500,299,243,763 bytes. My first PC (in 1992) had a hard drive that was 245,000,000 bytes, which is less than the dross to the right of the zeros on the Seagate ST31500FDA.
As far as usage, I haven't attempted to clock the speed of the Seagate ST31500FDA 1.5 TB external hard drive. I can say that it seems about as fast as my other external drive, both of which seem roughly as fast as the laptop computer's internal 5400 rpm drive. Saving large Photoshop files to this drive does not slow my wife's work down at all.
There is no power switch on the Seagate ST31500FDA -- the unit turns itself on and off depending on the status of the computer to which it is connected. I like that a lot. Also, the Seagate ST31500FDA is almost totally silent in operation. Just the faintest hum comes from the unit when it is turned on, and it is the quietest external hard drive of the several I possess. The animated dots on the Seagate's front panel are only slightly distracting.
One problem with the Seagate ST31500FDA is that I can't boot this particular computer with the Seagate drive attached. This computer is a little touchy and it simply will not boot if the Seagate ST31500FDA is attached. The computer will boot fine with the Seagate drive unplugged, and it runs properly when plugged in after the computer has booted. This is not a problem for me, as this is a convenient process with my system layout. However, I can see where it could be a problem for others, depending on the physical configuration of their systems.
Update: I tried this Seagate drive on a second Windows XP computer and it also would not boot with the drive attached. This is apparently a bigger problem than a single fussy computer.
One other good thing is that the Seagate ST31500FDA gets only luke-warm in operation. A couple other external drives I have get hot in operation, but the Seagate is much cooler.
Summary
My experience with the Seagate ST31500FDA external USB hard drive has been good. The drive is quiet and cool, and it stores a tremendous amount of data. It handles data quickly and it is dead simple to plug it in and get it operating. Its only problem for me is that my computer will not boot if the Seagate ST31500FDA is plugged in when the computer is turned on. As it turns out, this is a minor annoyance for me, not a show-stopper.
If you're looking for an external hard drive with a HUGE capacity, I recommend the Seagate ST31500FDA 1.5 TB external USB drive. I like its silence, low-heat and massive storage -- and the price was terrific.
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