====================== Original Review ========================================
This drive is large and cheap. That's good. It has a feature that it goes to sleep when not in use, which is pretty nice.
However, Seagate designed this drive so it does not work at all with Linux, which is unbelievable. I've never never even heard of an external hard disk that does not work with linux straight out of the box. I believe it also causes the same kind of problems with Mac. The problem is apparently related to the go-to-sleep mode, which can't be turned off, by the way. And any time you want to write, it must wake up, which sometimes does work well even under windows.
Avoid this hard drive if you will ever possibly use it with a non-windows computer. Or if you want your drive to be immediately available (you always have to wait for it to wake up).
Shame on you, Seagate, for being very narrow minded about your audience.
EDIT: OK, I figured out that if you do not use the included USB 3.0 cable and instead grab a USB 2.0 micro-USB cable and plug it in, it disables the sleep function and works with Linux. Bit of a strange design, but it now works for me. Overall I expect more simplicity and foolproof behavior than this drive provides. The only remaining problem is that if the drive sleeps and you wake it up (under windows) and try and safely remove, sometimes it won't let you. Changing review from 1 star to 3.
================================== Update: July 2012 ==========================================
Ok I bought this before the floods. What I didn't realize was that it was an incredible deal. The best hard drive money can buy in some ways. Unfortunately it can't be had for love of money these days, but if you can find one at a reasonable price, snap it up.
Why is this drive special:
-- It's 4 TB. You can't find a 4 TB drive anywhere these days to speak of. Darn those floods. Apparently the merger wave in hard drive manufacturers is also allowing them to use oligopoly power to keep prices up and capacity down. So it may be a long time before another drive like this is available. It's already been many months.
-- The internal drive is 7200 rpm, not a cheap, slow drive like many external drives are. It's a Barracuda XT. In fact, this 4 TB barracuda was never actually made available as a bare drive. It's just too good, I guess. 5 platters, apparently. Seagate can now make 1 TB platters, so there's no reason they can't make a 5TB drive just like this, but I doubt they will until they are forced to by western digital. And western digital has been significantly slower in recovering from the floods, so don't hold your breath.
-- You can pull of the bottom of the drive and expose a sata power and data connector and use this as an internal drive, then put the bottom back on and you have a USB drive again if you want. Super easy. The only problem is that a standard sata data cable is not quite long enough to reach. You have to thin it (the plastic around the cable) down with a razor blade or something.
-- The bottom part that you pull off is a decent, reusable SATA to USB3 adapter. You can use it for other drives. Amazing.
I was building myself a home NAS and balking at the fact that I couldn't get any reasonably priced 4 TB internal drives, when I thought of this. I went a step further than removing the bottom an actually removed the entire case. Now I have a fast 4 TB internal drive in my NAS that I originally bought here at what turned out to be an amazing price.
I feel bad for anyone who can't buy this drive because it's not available. If you are reading this and can't get it, you are just unlucky. And I am sorry for you.
Unwell Hydration from Alex Cooper
Hydrate & focus with every sip Shop now
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Product information
| Product Dimensions | 4.88 x 1.73 x 6.22 inches |
|---|---|
| Item Weight | 2.38 pounds |
| Manufacturer | Seagate |
| ASIN | B005IA843W |
| Item model number | STAC4000100 |
| Customer Reviews |
4.0 out of 5 stars |
| Date First Available | August 24, 2011 |
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Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 4 TB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive STAC4000100
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Fast and reasonably priced
This is my third external hard disk over the past 7 years. I found CD/DVD and Zip Drives to unreliable for effective back ups on a regular basis. The Zip Drive was the worst offender of all. The disks failed without notice and drives didn't work as well as they should have. The last was a Seagate Free Agent Desktop 500 GB model that I have used for over 3 years now. Having good luck with this drive, I upgraded to this model. Even though my computer doesn't have USB 3, it works properly and quickly on my older Dell Inspiron desktop with USB 2. Having this unit for 6 months now, let me share what I have learned. Good * Fast transfer rate on USB 2.0 - 33 MB/second, per HD Tune 2.55 (see picture) * USB 3.0 cable included - cable is about 44" long * Solid base holding the unit upright * After hours of use, the housing remains slightly warm to the tough, unlike my old 500 GB Free Agent that got hot * Separate small power adapter for powering this drive * One white LED light at the base showing it is on * LED light flickers when in operation * Pre-formated NTFS - 1.81 TB on my Win XP Home SP3 system (see picture) Minor Dislikes * Slow to wake when you suspend the computer * Seagate manager back-up software is not the greatest * If you have an invalid backup path, this unit will give a back-up error message through Seagate manager * Recommend downloading SeaTools for this drive to optimize operation of this drive * Have to use SeaTools for this drive to access S.M.A.R.T. - it works about 1/2 of the time * The base LED's do not show the amount of drive used In all, this drive works properly. I have to change back-up software, but I will do this when I upgrade to a Win 7 machine later this year. For speed and future compatibility, I recommend this drive to you.
