I've had my eye open for one of these since before they existed. I work in the Multimedia industry and require a large amount of space to store my data. I purchased this drive on August 8, 2010. Yesterday, Sept. 2, 2010, it failed. I contacted Seagate and they referred me to their data recovery team who offered to recover my lost data for up to $1500. Not expecting to have the hard drive fail immediately, I was still in the process of backing up my files and lost almost all of them. Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1 TB USB 2.0 Ultra-Portable External Hard Drive STAA1000100 (Black)
I was expecting this drive to be like a spare drive to back up files and store data on and allow me to edit some files as I wanted. I really was expecting it to work just like a jump drive does, but have a lot more storage space. I didn't want to have to plug it into a wall, you know, portable. I wanted to be able to take it to several computers I have at home and at work. What I found out after I placed my order was that these drives by Seagate have pre-installed software on them that once connected to your computer will ask you to load, after a two minute wait. If you install this software "Dashboard" and whatever else is there, you may have some of the issues like all of the other negative ones I read. YOU DON'T NEED THIS SOFTWARE, SO DO NOT INSTALL IT!!! Seagate must think that the only purpose to buy this drive is to do a back-up on one computer and to have it auto run every so often, hence their software. I personnaly am not interested in their software, especially everything I have read to date on it.
So I started by removing the software from the drive, then just using the drive as a back up and to copy some work files to. All seemed fine, then took to work and tried to update a file and found out the the whole drive is read only format, no update capabilities allowed from another machine. Did some more reading and discovered that if I Format the drive completly, (don't do the quick format) do a full format which will take about 1 hour per 100 Gig, so make sure you have plenty of time to do this. When your done the drive will be free of Seagate's software and read only formats for file updates. The drive will work just like a jump drive allowing you to take it from one computer to another, update files as you see fit, back up files and so on...you get the picture.
I think if Seagate wants to keep their good name, they need to offer better instructions on their products and they should not pre-load this software on their drives. All of the issue, at least most of them, appear to be with this software and not really the drive itself. At least this is my finding after I performed this format, the drive is now what I expected to use it for.
So for a rating, out of the box, I give it a 1 STAR, because I had to figure this out, and spend 5+ hours to format the drive.
Rating after the format, I give it 5 STARS!
I hope others find this review helpful, as I am a little tech savy, but no comparison to most of you smart people out there.
One advantage with the Seagate STAA500102 FreeAgent GoFlex is that it can be upgraded to USB 3, Firewire 800 or eSATA. This option to customize my hard drive is appreciable. I have a MacBook Pro so bought a Firewire 800 adapter for it. Though it is USB 3 compatible, the adapter is not included in the package and the USB 2.0 cable that is included is really too short.
I guess the software is pre-configured for Windows machines. Being a Mac user, I had some problems with the software installation, which was solved after customer support.
The design is good and being a portable device is a benefit.
Being compact it is really nice.
After about two months the drive is no longer recognized by the computer. The drive just spins and spins, making little clicking noises. I have tried downloading new software, diagnostic software, uninstalling and reinstalling, but none of this succeeds in halting the little dervish inside the silver box.
Nothing on the Seagate website of remote use. It seems that people either love or hate this product. I would not be in the first group.
And the pre-loaded software is pretty hard to figure out, the users' manual notwithstanding. I frankly don't like automatic backups, but it seems like you don't have any choice. I also could not turn off the auto feature.
Groan.
The hard drive itself seems to work fine, but the Memeo Instant Backup is has unacceptable bugs:
1- The initial backup (about 60 GB) went ok but
2- Attempting to backup again two days later resulted in an endless loop of verifying and backing up some files.
Online support from Memeo is spotty, the issue has not been solved and the bottom line is a product I can't rely on.
Seagate is out of the question for me from now on. - Hard Drive - Seagate - Portable Hard Drive - External Storage'
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