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| Date Reviewed: 05/02/2006 |
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Strengths: Tons of storage space; 16MB Cache; SATAII; 300gbps; quiet; 5-year warranty; SATA cable & power cable included
Weaknesses: Expensive; not preformatted
Summary: 2006-05-02 17:16:28 I have been a Seagate fan for about six-months now, previously using Western Digital. I have had one RMA, and it was fairly painless. In less than two weeks, they sent me a 400GB drive as a replacement for my 300GB drive! I just love the fact that they have a 5-year warranty! Indicates to me that they stand behind their product.
I use this to host MP3s that I have riped, so speed is not really an issue. While this unit comes with a 16mb cache & is 300gbps SATA, I have absolutely no idea whether it is giving me any performance advantage! I'm not a performance benchmarks kind of guy, so if you want to know that, read elsewhere! ;-) Perhaps if it was your main C: drive, the 16mb cache might make sense. It sits in an external enclosure, right on my desk, and its as quiet as can be! Only downside to this setup is that the drive does not come preformatted, so I had to install it in my system first, then format it, then put it in the enclosure. Perhaps the Seatools would have found the USB drive, but I didn't check that first...doh!
As this is the full retail kit, it comes with installation screws, SATA cable & power cable (to convert an IDE power plug into a SATA power plug). Great if you need them, but a waste otherwise. If you don't need these, go w/ the OEM version (same part number, but w/out the -RK on the end).
While you can buy two 300gb drive for less than this single drive, that would not have worked for my setup, so I had to pay more per GB. Usually the way it works for a single vs multiple drive configuration. Decent value in terms of GB per dollar, particularly if you can find some rebates out there (which I did, thank you very much)! Speaking of which, Seagate is one of the best in terms of honoring their rebates in a timely manner (versus, say, the aforementioned WD). I got my rebate is LESS THAN A MONTH!! This is unheard of! :-) Bravo, Seagate!
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| Date Reviewed: 01/04/2008 |
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Strengths: Large capacity. Large 16MB cache. 5-year warranty. SATA interface. Retail box came with SATA cable, screws, power cable converter and utility disc.
Weaknesses: Can be noisy and slow.
Summary: I have four of these drives. 2 7200.9 drives and 2 7200.10 drives. The older batches are 7200.9 drives. The newer batches are 7200.10 drives with perpendicular technology. Some drives are loud. Some drives are inaudible. Do a search for "seagate 500gb green glue". These hard drives are manufactured in various countries including China, Singapore and Thailand. Avoid the hard drives made in China if possible. Do a search for "seagate 500gb china aak" to find out why.
80% of People (4/5) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 11/22/2007 |
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Strengths: Capacity (489 GB), SATA 3.0 Gbit/s, 5-year warranty
Weaknesses: A little bit expensive in comparison to other HD manufacturers; the warranty service
Summary: Seagate is the best hard disk manufacturer out there. I purchased a total of three of these units: two for a NAS and one for the desktop computer. I started using Seagate hard drive about 20 years ago with their after-market drives for the original IBM PC; I paid $1K for only 20 MB back then. Over the last 20 years, I purchased and used over 10 Seagate drives. Only one died during operation. Luckily it was still in warranty; but it took about a month to get a replacement. All others never died but just became obsolete.
Even thought this drive is labeled and marketed as 500 GB, it is actually 489 GB because the suits at Seagate and all other HD manufacturers don’t know how to count in binary. After formatting it, it is around 470 GB depending what OS you are using.
Why I brought this instead of others:
1. High capacity (489 MB); It is not the biggest on the market but it has one of the best price/GB ratio.
2. SATA 3.0 Gbit/s interface; high theoretical transfer speed. I believe the PATA interface will go the way of the original two ribbon cable HD interface back in the late 1980s.
3. Seagate reputation for (historic) reliability backed by a 5-year warranty.
4. Interesting specs: 16 MB cache and 7200 RPM; Frankly, I don’t think these specs matter much for what I am doing.
The Really Bad:
1. If this disk ever need warranty service, it might take a month for me to ship the disk to Seagate and for Seagate to send me a replacement. However, Seagate has this option where for $20 Seagate will send me a replacement drive first via 2-day delivery. This is around 20% of the drive price today and the percentage will only increase because of tech improvement. In five years, this drive will probably cost less $20 in eBay. The 5-year warranty could be just a marketing ploy.
Overall, this hard disk is a good, fast and reliable drive.
50% of People (1/2) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 10/03/2007 |
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Strengths: Lots of space. Quiet. 5 year warranty
Weaknesses: None
Summary: Lots of storage capacity at 500 GB. I am using it to store HDTV on my HTPC. It is very quiet. Performance is good. It has long five year warranty for the retail drive. The retail package comes with a molex to SATA power cable convertor and SATA data cable.
33% of People (1/3) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 08/27/2008 |
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Strengths: Sata2, quite, lots of storage, 5 year warranty.
Weaknesses: Sometimes slow.
Summary: Seagate is a very reliable hard drive manufacturer and will always be on the top of my list. Packing was good and came with all the accessories needed to install. It worked perfectly without giving me any problems. Just took it out of the box and plugged it in and it worked with my XP machine. Transfer times are usually pretty quick and very quite. I would recommend this to my friends and family.
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| Date Reviewed: 05/13/2008 |
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Strengths: cheap price, 16MB internal cache, 7200.9RPM, huge capacity
Weaknesses: none
Summary: 2008-05-14 00:11:39 Out of all places, I ended up buying this at Best Buy (usually are ripoffs). I doubt they're having the sale anymore, but the price was $99.99. This was a retail purchase too! Wouldn't hurt to check.
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This HDD was meant to troubleshoot my main drive in my computer. I ended up using this as my main drive because it's so fast & massive. It was a cinch to install, & I didn't even have to use the included CD for the utilities or what not. I'm sure you know all the specs if you're thinking about buying this, so I won't bother, except for what's in "strengths." However, the performance has been awesome ever since the install. WinXP recognized the drive right away, & I was installing things in no time. I haven't noticed any slow downs with games or apps.
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SAS & SSDs are way too expensive right now. Mechanical HDDs are the way to go until prices come down. I was really surprised to see this drive at Best Buy for the price. If you're thinking of buying a mechanical HDD, don't hesitate. The box comes with the needed cables too!
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| Date Reviewed: 02/21/2008 |
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Strengths: 5 Year warranty. Everything you need in the box. Good barebones backup imaging software
Weaknesses: None.
Summary: I'll trust Seagate more than any other vendor; they're almost bulletproof. The backup software from Acronis is OK, but doesn't allow for incremental backups like the full product. Installs easily for those not afraid to crack their computer's case. Good documentation.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/03/2008 |
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Strengths: 7200rpm, silent, good price/gigabyte ratio, Seagate's high reliability.
Weaknesses: Wish it has 32MB buffer, but of course, it will be more expensive.
Summary: So fast. Approximately 250 MBPS burst. I backed up all my files in a very short period of time. Not only does it transfer my files in a flash, but the noise is whisper quiet. No clicking sound. Seagate has the best reliability to my experience. Very trustful name, and I have very good luck with them so far. So far, I have no had any issues with its purpose, storing data. I will probably purchase another one for raid 0+1 in the next few weeks.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/23/2007 |
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 Seagate's Quality Does Not Match Its Papers Strengths: 5-Year Warranty
Weaknesses: Noisy, slow.
Summary: Seagate has provided what looks to be great on paper, but varies in quality when you actually receive the product. Their quality control seems to have gone down. The hard drive I have is noisy and slow. As my friend would say, it sounds like it's an old computer from the 90's. Its clicking is unbearable. I will have to get it exchanged by warranty when I can spare the time. Otherwise, it has been running almost 24/7 without any major issues.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/03/2007 |
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Strengths: 500Gb, Seagate's 5 year warranty, cable & screws included.
Weaknesses: None
Summary: An excellent 500Gb hard drive. I've got no complaints about this Seagate drive. I have 2 installed in my pc and one installed in my NAS unit (along with 2 other Seagate 500Gb drives). You can't beat Seagate's 5 year warranty on their drives either. The retail kit comes with all the parts / cables needed to install the drive in your pc.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/03/2007 |
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Strengths: SATA 300 / 7200 RPM / 16MB Cache
Weaknesses: Its not a 7200.10 gen drive
Summary: 2008-03-03 19:55:37 At half a terabye, this is an excellent drive for the price. I picked up two of these and deployed them in a striped raid, w/ backup of course. 500gigs of storage is plenty for you pics, movies, web files, you name it. Quiet compared to other HDD's but they do tend to get a bit hot. Make sure you have some active cooling in your rig to be safe.
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| Date Reviewed: 11/13/2007 |
- sierra_nevadas
- Member Since:
Nov 2006
View Member's:
Reviews
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Strengths: 7200.10 perpendicular technology; 5-year warranty; full-retail kit
Weaknesses: Loud!
Summary: Note that while the listing states that this is the model 7200.9 hard-drive, it is actually 7200.10, which features perpendicular recording technology. The retail part-number is the same, but the drive inside the box is the latest generation drive. The downside to this is that I find these drives to be louder than their 7200.9 counterparts. Performance is great, and I love the 5-year warranty that Seagate provides. As it's the retail kit, you get a Sata cable, mounting screws, manual and software (which you can download anyways). If not for the noise, I'd rate it 5-stars.
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| Date Reviewed: 10/24/2007 |
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Strengths: sata II, read and write speeds, 5 YEAR warranty, and quite to boot
Weaknesses: nothing at all
Summary: If you have a sata 1 controller on your motherboard your good to go but to use sata II mode there is a tiny jumper you must remove to enable that mode. I love knowning I have a 5 year warranty incase somthing should ever happen...
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| Date Reviewed: 10/24/2007 |
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Strengths: 16MB Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0 gbps,5-year warranty; SATA cable & power cable included, low Noise
Weaknesses: Runs a little hot.....
Summary:
This is a great drive.
Need to take jumper out for full full 3 gbps speed.Worked right out of the box.
installed win xp. no problems.
i bought this because of 5 year warrenty.
well overall good experience with segate ...
will buy again
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| Date Reviewed: 10/23/2007 |
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Strengths: 5 year warranty, low $/GB ratio, big cache
Weaknesses: Somewhat a little slow and noisy
Summary: I have bought drives from Maxtor, WD & Seagate over the years, I remember I had a Seagate 500MB HDD back in 1996 for my first computer. They have come a long way since then in terms of quality and customer service.
This one is a retail kit, with all the things you need to set the drive up and running. The kit includes a molex 4 pin to SATA connector, screws, SATA cable and installation CD.
I'm using this drive for storing my collection of photos, I'm an amateur photographer. So, this drive is quite a value for money $/GB - wise. When I transfer my photos from my CF card to this drive, it's quite slow; It's probably my CF card that's slow and my motherboard only supports SATA150. A fully loaded 45x 4GB CF card would take almost 15 mins to transfer. I'll try later with a faster CF card to see if it's any better.
Contrary to the other user who commented he/she doesn't like that the drive is not factory pre-formatted, I like it the drive comes unformatted. The software that comes with the kit do just the partitioning job right. The software overcomes the limitation of setting FAT32 partition to only 32GB in W2K and XP, i.e. you can theoretically set the whole 500GB to a FAT32 partition. Why still use FAT32? If you're like me, I may bring the HDD installed in an external enclosure to another computer and the other computer will just read the files off the HDD flawlessly without any security clearance hassle.
All in all, this HDD is value for money. I got it for $100 which amounts to $0.20/GB. Not the best value, but it's pretty decent. Highly recommend this drive for people who want extra storage.
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