Seagate ST307504FPA1E2 RK FreeAgent Pro 750 GB USBeSATA External Hard Drive

:: Seagate ST307504FPA1E2-RK FreeAgent Pro 750 GB USB/eSATA External Hard Drive

I have three of these units (750gb eSATA/USB version).

The nice about the drives: They are slick looking, with a cool orange LCD strip the whole length and top of the unit that indicates power on for the device. The setup is easy, and they are fast drives.

The bad about the drives: They run HOT! Almost too hot to touch on the base. Also, there is no eSATA cable included in the box - you must purchase one extra ($20). Of the three I have, one has gone "bad" and is being sent in for warranty replacement. While Id be tempted to say I have a 33% failure rate, having just three units is too small a sample to be meaningful, and based on the other two drives so far, I wouldnt say, dont buy one of these, but I would say be sure to keep back ups of your data if you use one (which is sage advice no matter what brand you buy).

Heres my experience in real world operations with them:

One unit is hung off the back of a TiVo Series 3 DVR, the other two are connected to my Mac Pro desktop computer. All three units are connected to their respective machines via eSATA.

The TiVo connected unit has performed flawlessly since 12/14/07. If you know how TiVos operate, then youll understand that this means the drive is being written to almost constantly as TiVo just keeps recording "suggestions" to save for you to watch later, as well as the programs you schedule to record. As a dual-tuner unit, this TiVo is recording something almost 24/7, and frequently on both tuners. Thats an awful lot of activity on the drive, with no problems so far.

On the Mac Pro, its a different story. Of the two units connected to it, one has hardly ever been used. I already have several terabytes of drive space (internal) and another 5 terabytes of network drives, so this units not been used it, and I cant really say how it performs.

The second unit attached to the Mac Pro performed quite well the first month I owned it, but then the system started acting up. Certain programs would freeze, sometimes the OS X desktop would freeze. It drove me nuts trying to figure what was happening until I realized it was a form of drive failure where the drive wasnt responding, but it was still telling the computer that it was A-OK.

What was happening was that very heavy I/O to the drive often resulted in the drive failing. Maybe its overheating and shutting off, or maybe the bottom attached controller (which also serves as the stand) was getting too hot and messing up the circuits. At any rate, the drive stops responding to the system and becomes useless.

Id read on the net that some people only experienced this problem with eSATA usage, but I tried a heavy read/write session to tax the drive while connected via USB and the same failures occurred, so its not just eSATA issues.

Ive normally preferred seagate drives to other brands in all my 25+ years of building computers, but this is my first experience with their external drives. I wont give up on the brand yet, but I will consider other brands for my next purchase.

Tags: seagate st307504fpa1e2-rk freeagent usbesata
Bragged by: nunguru
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