Product Description

Computers come and go, but your content should always be nearby. . The FreeAgent desktop 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. Takes up less room on your desk than a stapler and to help eliminate the slightest bit of worry, we've even included a five-year limited warranty.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11281 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Seagate
• Model: ST302504FDA1E1-RK
• Platform: Windows
• Format: CD
• Dimensions: 10.00" h x 5.00" w x 11.00" l, 1.00 pounds
• Memory: 2000MB SDRAM
• Hard Disk: 250GB
• Processors: 1

Features

• Vast capacity with a footprint no bigger than a stapler
• Transfer files quickly with USB 2.0
• Backup CDs, DVDs or store files and programs for on-the-go
• 250 glorious gigabytes of storage - compatible with Windows Vista

Amazon.com Product Description
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.

Customer Reviews

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.

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!

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