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Seagate ST307504FDA1E1-RK FreeAgent Desktop 750 GB 3.5" USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

Seagate ST307504FDA1E1-RK FreeAgent Desktop 750 GB 3.5 USB 2.0 External Hard Drive
Brand: Seagate
Category: CE

List Price: $199.99
Buy New: $139.99
You Save: $60.00 (30%)



Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars 4 reviews
Sales Rank: 1755

Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
System Memory: 8
Hard Drive Size: 750
Shipping Weight (lbs): 5
Dimensions (in): 5.2 x 10 x 9.9
nv:Capacity (GB): 750
Interface: USB 2.0
Spindle Speed (RPM): 7200
Data Transfer Rate on USB 2.0: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Warranty: 5 years warranty

MPN: ST307504FDA1E1-RK
Model: ST307504FDA1E1-RK
UPC: 763649003015
EAN: 0763649003015
ASIN: B00109Z6AE

Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Promotion: Save $5.00 when you spend $25.00 or more on Qualifying Items offered by Amazon.com. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout. Terms and Conditions
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Features:
  • 750 GB external hard drive connects to your computer via USB cable
  • 7200 RPM spindle speed for high-speed performance and fast read times
  • Footprint is no bigger than a stapler; Just plug it in and you're ready to go
  • Backup CDs, DVDs or store files and programs for on-the-go
  • Includes external drive, USB 2.0 cable, AC power adapter, and quick start guide; 5-year limited warranty

Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com Product Description
When its time to back up and protect your digital content--photos, music, documents, and more--it doesn't get much easier than the Seagate Free Agent Desktop USB Portable Hard Drive. Simply plug it in to any power source, connect the USB cable to any computer, and you're ready to go. This hip-looking hard drive takes up less room on your desk than an ordinary stapler, giving you more space for your other desktop items.



Powerful storage device with a sleek new design.


Takes up less room on your desk than a stapler.


Keep all your digital content in a safe and secure location.
Portable Performance and Security
If you're still relying on your personal computer or back-up CDs or DVDs to store your digital content or vital personal or family documents, you're running an unnecessary risk. Your computer can only hold so many files and can crash at any time, leaving you helpless to access your content. DVDs and CDs have a place in archiving, but they get easily scratched and lost. It's too risky to store everything in your computer, and too time-consuming and cumbersome to have a drawer full of CDs or DVDs.

Computers come and go, but your content should always be nearby. With up to 1000 glorious gigabytes, the Free Agent external hard drive is the best place to gather and access all of your important photos, movies, music, games and documents. Simply plug in the power and the USB cable and you're ready to go.

The Seagate Free Agent is big enough to store a huge portion of your digital content in a safe and secure environment, but small enough to let you take that content with you wherever you go. In other words, having the Seagate Free Agent is like having your entire computer with you at all times, but in a package that's a small fraction of the space and weight of your computer.

Designed to live peacefully in your home or office, the Free Agent external hard drive is extra quiet and takes up less room on your desk than a stapler. Even the cable ports are base-mounted to help keep your desk free of clutter. We even add a little bit of sophistication to your desktop with the unique espresso brown finish and molten amber illumination.

The sleek and slim design of this hard drive--only measures 7.5 x 1.6 x 6.4-inches (H x D x W)--and a weight of less than four pounds. The Seagate Free Agent lets you transfer files seamlessly from your computer via its USB 2.0 connection at a brisk transfer rate of up to 480Mb/sec. The drive delivers a spindle speed of 7,200 RPM, giving you the high-speed performance you need to back your data up quickly and safely.

The Seagate Free Agent is ready to use out of the box with a PC, but it can be made Mac-ready in a matter of minutes with Mac OS X's Disk Utility. This portable hard drive is already compatible with Windows Vista (as well as Windows XP and Windows 2000), allowing you to backup your content regardless of operating system upgrades.

At this compact size, and with this high performance, you now have the ability to take your data with you anywhere you go, so your digital content finally has room to breathe. A five-year warranty is also included, giving you complete peace of mind.


What's in the Box
FreeAgent Desktop drive, USB 2.0 cable, AC power adapter, and quick start guide.



Product Description
With a footprint no bigger than a stapler, the Seagate FreeAgent is an external desktop hard drive that can fit anywhere. The FreeAgent is designed to conveniently hold all of your digital content in one place. This drive can hold 750GB worth of data and is ready to go as soon as you plug it in. Mac Compatibility - Power PC G3, G4, or G5 running OS X 10.3.9 (or higher), or Intel Core Duo or Core Solo running OS X 10.4.6 (or higher) (drive is formatted NTFS, you will need to reformat for Mac using Disk Utility) 5-Year Limited Manufacturer Warranty Unit Dimensions - 7.5 (h) x 1.6 (w) (w/o 3.2 base) x 6.4 (d) Unit Weight - 2lbs


Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars Warning: software is not compatible wth Vista 64   September 3, 2008
djb (North Carolina)
(Below is a copy of a review I also submitted on Buy.com)

Be warned: the software for this drive is not supported with Vista 64.

The drive itself works fine and I would give just the drive all ratings of 4 or 5. Setup was easy and the USB 2 connection works fine; my system detected the drive and ran the autoinstall for the FreeAgent Tools and the Seagate branded version of Memeo AutoBackup.

Once installed, however, the FreeAgent Tools sofware does not run. Seagate technical support told me to try to run the program with XP SP2 compatibility; this failed. On the Seagate forums, users had success with Windows 2000 compatibility instead, and that worked for me.

The Memeo AutoBackup is an entirely different matter. It is not supported under Vista 64 either. The version that comes with the drive is 2.00.1291. When it runs, it tells you there is an update (2.50.2785) available. I downloaded and installed this and AutoBackup failed to run and the service does not get installed. I uninstalled it and reinstalled the Seagate tools from the hard drive to recover from this. Segate responded to my tech support requests by stating that the software is not compatible with Vista 64.

After reinstalling (at least uninstall lets it keep your settings and bacup directory selections), AutoBackup runs again, but the first backup ran overnight and only backed up 10% of the selected files. Half the time, it reports that the AutoBackup service is not running. The documentation says it can backup without the user logging in, but this does not seem to be so. I have to log in, then I have to grant permission for AutoBackup launcher to run.

After restarting (again), the backups ran much better (it has backed up over 70GB), but the software is still buggy. I had configured it to backup a c:\Public folder which contains subdirectories called "Documents" and "Media". This worked OK. Later, I added a new "Pictures" folder, but AutoBackup did not back this up, even though it should backup all new files/directories added to a selected directory. So, I don't trust it.

The UI for selecting backup exclusions is very poor. For each exlcusion, you must open a dialog, navigate to the folder (the software does not remember your last selection, you you must start at My Computer, C:, etc. and drill down). You cannot type in a path, either. This UI should be the exact same as the UI for selecting which directories to backup: present a full tree and check which ones to backup or exclude.

Also, when selecting what to backup or exclude, you can only select directories; you cannot select files. So, I can't exclude the 'Trash' or 'Junk' files that Mozilla Thunderbird creates.

So, if you buy this, use it as a great external drive; don't expect the software to provide good backups. (YMMV; it may work better on Vista 32; I just don't know.)



4 out of 5 stars Meh, it's an external, nothing special..   June 27, 2008
Loraksus (Portland, Oregon)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

For the price it wasn't bad.
The light bar is only visible from the right side, which is worthless if you have it to the right of you.
The drive takes about 5 sec to spin up, which is annoying on bootup (especially when you have a few of them) and annoying when you are accessing it. Not a huge deal, but dumb design.
Speaking of dumb design, they use a small usb connector - no clue why they didn't put in a full size B connector. Again, not a big deal, but you have to pack the cable if you take it somewhere because chances are, people won't have a mini usb cable.
Hope it lasts.
The esata versions of this drive are terrible, the reviews speak for themselves.



3 out of 5 stars Good overall, significant annoyance when Hibernating a Windows machine   June 14, 2008
K. Littlefield (Mountain View, CA)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

Works fast and seems to be reliable. Setup was very easy and it runs a lot cooler than my previous external drive. Personally, I like the power-saving spin-down feature, as it prevents the drive from spinning idly for days on end (as sometimes happened with my previous drive when I forgot to switch it off). The downside of this is that it doesn't have a power button that you can press to manually turn it off.

Obviously, it has the advertised size and connection options (750G/USB only). The included USB cable is a bit on the short side, and since it's a mini-USB connector on the drive side, it's not a simple matter of just swapping in any old USB cable you have lying around.

For another 50 bucks you can upgrade to Seagate's next tier of drives with additional eSATA Seagate ST307504FPA1E2-RK FreeAgent Pro 750 GB USB/eSATA External Hard Drive and Firewire Seagate ST307504FPA1E3-RK FreeAgent Pro 750 GB USB/eSATA/FireWire400 External Hard Drive connection options. Not worth the extra cost to me. I primarily use my external drive for full-disk backups of my two internal hard drives. Whether I'm getting 30MB/s over USB or 300MB/s over eSATA, it's still going to take a non-significant amount of time to backup an entire hard drive and then verify the backup image. Plus, right now my backup speed is gated by CPU for compression, so I doubt I'd see any difference at all.

Finally, for the aspect of this drive that I find really annoying and why I gave it a 3. When you Hibernate a Windows machine with the drive attached, it takes an extra 5-10 seconds to restart. At some point early in the boot process it blocks waiting for the drive to spin up. This can not be avoided without physically disconnecting either the USB or power cable. Using "Safely Remove Hardware" in Windows before hibernating doesn't make a difference - it still blocks the boot process (although the drive isn't available in Windows after resuming). A very annoying and unavoidable waste of time.


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