Product Description

Now your digital content has room to breathe. Computers come and go, but your content should always be nearby. It will be, with up to 500 glorious gigabytes, 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 youre ready to go. Designed to live peacefully in your home or office, the FreeAgent Desktop 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. To eliminate the slightest bit of worry, weve even included technical support and a five-year limited warranty. FreeAgent Desktop Drive. Because your digital content should always be nearby. In the box: FreeAgent desktop drive USB 2.0 cable AC power adapter Quick start guide

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31913 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Seagate
• Model: ST305004FDC1E1-RK
• Released on: 2007-04-16
• Dimensions: 7.48" h x 3.15" w x 6.38" l, 2.18 pounds
• Hard Disk: 500GB

Manufacturer's Description
Ideal for allowing your digital content room to breathe, FreeAgent Desktop Drive features a vast capacity with the footprint no bigger than a stapler - just plug it in and you're ready to go!

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

No surprises....
It just does exactly what you expect from the work go. Just unpacked, plugged in to my XP laptop and started copying 20 GB of music to it. It is extremely quiet, sleek looking & already NTFS formatted. It is nice that it shuts down/starts up with with the PC: if you want it off, simply "Eject" it via windows, if you want it back on just plug in the USB connection again. The long warranty is comforting. Only thing I'm not sure about is the statement "takes up less room on your desk than a stapler" - what kind of staplers do Seagate use? But it IS compact.

Seagate FreeAgent
Contrary to the other review i think this hard drive is quite portable - it's slim and lighter than most other drives so is easily transported round your mate's house. Straight out of the box you can tell it is quality and it doesn't disappoint. It is super quiet, my computer makes more noise than the drive does. There's no buttons, it powers itself on and off with your computer, which is handy if you're too lazy to press an on/off switch. It comes ready formatted to NTFS so literally all you have to do is plug it in. Easy! Even my gran could manage that! Another nice touch is the orange strip which glows when the drive is active, it really is quite relaxing. All in all, the best looking and performing external hard drive i've bought so far and for the money you can't go wrong.

Small, quiet storage. No off button or guidance on powering down.
When you open the box, you realise how much Apple's influence has been felt across the computer industry. The packaging of this product is 'neat' and 'friendly'.

The instruction manual is so simple and brief you think the designers are being 'ironic' - plug in and go. However, here Seagate are making a mistake. Nowhere in the instructions are guidance on preventing data loss and powering the unit down (IT HAS NO OFF SWITCH). The drive intelligently detects a USB connection and spins up. To switch it off, you either shutdown the computer (this shuts down the drive, which you then unplug) or you eject the drive and then watch a few seconds before the activity light goes OFF (then power down).

I have no big issue with this, but the above procedure ISN'T IN THE MANUAL or product FAQ - I had to find it by registering the product and setting up a user account on the Seagate website in order to submit a tech report. While I like simplicity, it seems ridiculous that Seagate should miss giving such basic information given people's data is at stake. Looking at the comments below, a lot of people are obviously unaware about unmounting Hard Drive volumes and have ended up losing data. I am aware, but even I was unsure and the steps they recommend are VERY SPECIFIC.

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The hard drive FAILED within weeks of purchase - even with a 5 year warranty, I find this hard to recommend. I would revise this to 1-2 stars.