| | |  | Computer Accessories | Home » » Seagate FreeAgent 750 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive ST307504FDA1E1-RK | | | | | | | Description: | | FreeAgent Desktop Drive-750GB 7200 RPM USB 2.0 | | | 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
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 5.2 inches | | Product Width:
| 10.0 inches | | Product Height:
| 9.9 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.98 pounds | | Package Length:
| 10.0 inches | | Package Width:
| 9.9 inches | | Package Height:
| 5.0 inches | | Package Weight:
| 3.6 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 17 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
 ( 17 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Good overall, significant annoyance when Hibernating a Windows machineJun 14, 2008
By Aubergine
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 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.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Meh, it's an external, nothing special..Jun 27, 2008
By Loraksus
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.
7 of 9 found the following review helpful:
 Disk OK - Mac compatibility NOT existentJun 17, 2008
By Onaps
Seagate are by now well aware based on my (and others') many complaints that despite the advertisement suggesting this drive set (Free Agent USB) is Mac compatible, it fails the test regularly. The drive management software for Mac lacks the ability to control the interval before spin down - normally set at 15 minutes, this would not be a problem. However, it often: resets to 60 seconds (!) and resets to USB 1! There is no way to change the value unless you configure it using the PC version of Drive Manager (where the sleep timer setting exists). Otherwise, be prepared for awful sleep/wake activity and super slow transfer speeds. If you have Parallels or other virtual machine with Windows installed, using the PC drive manager seems to set the drive up OK - I have only had it switch back to flaky behavior a few times. The drive itself is very quiet (fanless) and under its regular operation seems to perform well. Buyer beware...
4 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Warning: software is not compatible wth Vista 64Sep 03, 2008
By djb
(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.)
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Unreliable and crashes frequentlyFeb 20, 2011
By Dan J. Holloway
"DJ Dan"
I used this hard drive as my backup hard drive for about 6 months until it stopped working. I was able to obtain another one from Seagate under warranty and about 7 months later it stopped working. It seems it is safe to say this line is defective and I would recommend another brand such as Western Digital that is more reliable.
See all 17 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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