Seagate, Works great - at first
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Works great - at first
The FreeAgent is everything great that NEW buyers say it is. Lots of storage and a snap to set up. The problem is (and I’m about to return my second one) - the defect rate is pretty high. After about six weeks of use (just sitting on my desk, not moved from computer to computer or handled), I got messages saying the device had malfunctioned and my computer no longer recognized the drive. I went through all of the troubleshooting procedures on Seagate’s website and nothing worked; finally, when I called the vendor about it they offered me an immediate replacement. The tech support rep I spoke to had seen the same issue so often he issued me an RA and sent me a new one before I even sent the old one back. Unfortunately the same thing happened with the new replacement drive, after about two months.
I haven’t decided which product to replace this with, but my advice would be to not only find out about the bells & whistles but to ask about reliability and defect rates. Personally I was very troubled about sending back the drives just to get a refund when they have all my personal data on them.
Update (5/19/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen. I also found some auctions for this item here.
The featured review for this product, Seagate ST302504FDA1E1-RK FreeAgent Desktop 250 GB 3.5″ USB 2.0 External Hard Drive Electronics, was written by Lori.
The average rating for this item is out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.
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Tags: 250 gb, apple, backup, backup drive, data storage, drive, external, external drive, external hard drive, freeagent, hard drive, passport, portable, portable hard drive, seagate, seagate external hard drive, seagate freeagent, usb, usb hard drive, western digital
Posted on: April 13, 2010
Filed under: Reviews
Reviews (3)
Lori
February 28th, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Works great - at first
Rated 1 stars.
Chukchiboy
March 11th, 2010 at 7:31 am
Werks gud 4 me!
This is just to balance some of the negative reviews here. I got one a week ago ($50 after rebate from Office Depot) and it’s been absolutely glitch-free. Moronically easy to set up, ‘puter recognized the drive immediately, transferred 60+ GB from another external with no glitches except for a couple files that wouldn’t copy because — I suspect — they were virus-infected and AVG Free prevented the transfer. Anyway, I looked at the files, realized they were nothing I ever created, used or wanted, and so I deleted them. No probs with the transfer after that.
It’s been running fine for a week now. I do shut my computer down at night, so I never run it more than about 12-16 hours at a stretch.
As to the lack of backup software — good point if you need it. I use something I wrote myself (a QuickBasic MS-DOS program that still runs under XP, believe it or not) so I’ve never used anything else.
I use external hard drives for all my data, never any data on the C: drive. That way if the computer dies, or you want to pass it on or sell it, no hassles about getting the data off. Just unplug the external and you’re in business.
For what it’s worth.
Stan Jones
Anchorage, Alaska
Todd Justman
March 25th, 2010 at 8:15 am
A breeze to get it running!
It’s not often that a technical product is geared towards the non-techie. It’s rarer that it delivers a product that works for a non-techie. Certainly external hard drives are nothing challenging anymore, but Seagate embraces non-technical folks with quirky packaging and a ridiculously short setup manual that includes the estimated time to completion - in minutes and seconds!. Not only is the Free Agent truly plug and play but the look is clean, sharp, cool, and eye-catching. You won’t mind having this sit on your desk. This thing takes longer to get out of the box than it takes to get it functioning. Seriously!
Of course I’m something of a techie, so in order to get a truly non-technical seal of approval, you’ll have to read a review from a grannie. I wouldn’t hold your breath.
My only gripe in order to truly make this device fully functional would be to address the obvious next steps: how do I do a full system backup? How do I copy files? Seagate makes an error in not cross-promoting an equally easy-to-use backup third party software. Of course all Windows XP users have Microsoft Backup available, which includes an easy-to-use wizard to get you going.
As someone who has had a few hard drives fail on him in the past, I remark at how long it took me to get one of these things. Remember, all hard drive manufacturers measure the reliability of a hard drive in terms of “mean time to failure,” which implies that all hard drives eventually fail. With a backup hard disk, you always are operating with a safety net!
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