Seagate FreeAgent 500Gb External Hard Drive Review.

I looked around quite a bit at different externals and I finally decided to stay with a name that I trusted. Seagate. These guys have always done me good and I have owned many of their drives. I was ready to purchase. So I did.

Here are the specs of the drive.

• It is a small external. Bigger than a portable, but still small enough to have on a desk.
• 7200 rpm / 480Mb per second
• Simple software, energy efficient, and encryption
• quiet
• USB 2.0
• Uses a wall outlet

Now this drive is great and I'm am quite satisfied with my purchase. Seagate delivered. I have had the external for pushing 6 months now and not one issue. There are however, some things that bug me.... Let me explain before you run off screaming.

First off, it uses a wall outlet. But what can you honestly expect. I mean, it is 7200 rpm and has great data transfer rate. Like I said, my internal laptop drive is SATA and 5400 rpm and this external outperforms my internal. That's pretty cool. So it uses a wall outlet, get over it.

The next thing is that it doesn't offer the emerging e-sata option. USB 2.0 is great and all, but e-sata data transfer rate is really great to have, especially if you are looking at squeezing every ounce of speed out of it. But let me give you some idea at the speed of the USB 2.0 transfer rate first before you rule this out. You have heard of the new release of prototype I'm sure right? Ok, I told you I was out of space to install anything else on my internal. I installed Prototype onto the external and it runs perfect. No lag, no downtime, nothing. Perfect! The only thing that limits me is my hardware. (No comments please =P). So before you go and spend an extra $50 for e-sata, yeah it's great but not always necessary. Does your computer even support it?

There is one other thing that bugs me.... Every time I go to open the drive, instead of opening it and letting me see my contents, it asks me to install seagate system backup.... That gets annoying. There is however a way to get around it. It comes with the installer and a file to make it run every time you click on the drive in my computer. Easy fix... Delete it. That way when you double click the drive icon, it won't ask you to install the system backup manager unless you want it there. But as far as the con's, that is pretty much it.

There have been people saying this drive overheats. Well, I guess if they live in an oven, or Mexico with no air conditioner, then yeah, it may overheat. But for the average person, like myself, it will not overheat to extremes of it breaking. I have never had a problem with that and I leave it hooked up all the time.

So if you are looking for an external that delivers great performance, from a great company who has quality products, and that can house a lot of data, I suggest you pick one of these up. They are really great. Oh and the color is cool too. It's almost like a powder silver paint. And when the drive is working, the white seagate logo lights up and pulses. Pretty cool feature.

I hope you enjoyed the review on the Seagate Freeagent 500Gb external and it helped you learn what you wanted to know. Thanks for reading.

Great brand
Spacious and comes with a 1TB model
Cool color
Pulsating Seagate logo when the drive is busy
Quiet
Good size for a desk

Have to fumble with it sometimes to get it to disconnect safely with safely remove hardware tool (says it's still in use sometimes when it isn't)

Uses a wall socket for power instead of USB (understandable considering this is a spacious drive at 7200rpm)

Uses USB 2.0 to connect instead of E-SATA (Not really a problem, just a tad bit slower since USB 2.0 is kinda old now)

If you are looking for a HDD to put on a desk to store any kind of media or run other programs off of, this is the HDD for you. Seagate is a great brand and they make an even more outstanding product. I stand beside my drive 110%. If you buy this drive, you shouldn't be disappointed unless you are just absolutely impossible to please.