Price : Too low to display
250 GB - External - Hi-Speed USB - 5400 - 8 MBPrimary InformationHard Drive Type : External Hard Drive Capacity : 250 GB Hard Drive Interface Type : USB 2.0 Hard Drive Spindle Speed : 5400 Rpm Hard DriveBuffer Size : 8 MB Storage Controller Type : USB 2.0 UNSPSC CodeUNSPSC Code : 43201803
This review is from : Seagate FreeAgent Go 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive ST902503FGA1E1-RK
Seagate engineers have made it! . Having previously used the 120GB version of this portable HD, I had an hesitation or two before buying this Seagate "Go" 250GB:
The 120GB Seagate "Go" harddisk had a very obvious noise problem: It had simply louder turning sound and more vibration than its brand equivalents like Western Digital or Toshiba 2,5" harddisks. Considering that I used it with my laptop on the bed, it was usual for me to put it on the bed and feel its vibration noise even if I closed my ears!
That noise and vibration issue was often at the forefront so I could hardly think of the other good virtues like the durable and rugged design, handy configuration abilites like the adjustable HD shut-down settings, trouble-free USB connection and disk operation at everyday use and the big and bright activity LED.
But still, I needed a 250GB portable HD and I had to decide eventually on a model. Among alternatives, there were Western Digital, LaCie with their more shiny and attractive designs at one side and capable but bulky desktop external hard drives at other side. The attractive designs are good at the start but what I need is absolute reliability and usefullnes. Also the huge capacity of a desktop external hard drive is also tempting but I just didn't want to carry a power-adaptor not because its difficult to carry it around, rather because the number of electric plugs available is limited both at home and office!
So I bought the 250GB version without testing its noise conditions and hoping that they (the Seagate engineers) must have done something about it.
And when I got it anyway, wow! Most of the noise and all the vibration were gone! The seagate engineers had surely retouched the harddisk and fixed it up. Even the Y-type USB cable was retouched!(It's somewhat more elastic than the previous one)
Now it's a perfect harddisk with its 250GB capacity and its decent price tag. I recommend it to everyone.
Seagate engineers have made it! . Having previously used the 120GB version of this portable HD, I had an hesitation or two before buying this Seagate "Go" 250GB:
The 120GB Seagate "Go" harddisk had a very obvious noise problem: It had simply louder turning sound and more vibration than its brand equivalents like Western Digital or Toshiba 2,5" harddisks. Considering that I used it with my laptop on the bed, it was usual for me to put it on the bed and feel its vibration noise even if I closed my ears!
That noise and vibration issue was often at the forefront so I could hardly think of the other good virtues like the durable and rugged design, handy configuration abilites like the adjustable HD shut-down settings, trouble-free USB connection and disk operation at everyday use and the big and bright activity LED.
But still, I needed a 250GB portable HD and I had to decide eventually on a model. Among alternatives, there were Western Digital, LaCie with their more shiny and attractive designs at one side and capable but bulky desktop external hard drives at other side. The attractive designs are good at the start but what I need is absolute reliability and usefullnes. Also the huge capacity of a desktop external hard drive is also tempting but I just didn't want to carry a power-adaptor not because its difficult to carry it around, rather because the number of electric plugs available is limited both at home and office!
So I bought the 250GB version without testing its noise conditions and hoping that they (the Seagate engineers) must have done something about it.
And when I got it anyway, wow! Most of the noise and all the vibration were gone! The seagate engineers had surely retouched the harddisk and fixed it up. Even the Y-type USB cable was retouched!(It's somewhat more elastic than the previous one)
Now it's a perfect harddisk with its 250GB capacity and its decent price tag. I recommend it to everyone.
Seagate FreeAgent Go 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive ST902503FGA1E1-RK Reviews
Great but one potential flaw... . If you're like me, you might be considering this product for use with your laptop. And its great. Its small, lightweight, quiet, has a cool illuminated orange panel, and you can most likely fit it into your existing laptop case without much trouble. But the best part also leads to the worst. This unit requires no external power or power supply of its own. So that means when you're on the road, at, say, a certain ubiquitous coffee shop, you still only need one power outlet for your laptop (or you can just run your laptop off battery). And that means no lugging a heavy AC adapter and its associated cabling around. But in order to pull this off, the drive needs to draw power from *two* USB ports. Yes, the cable included for hooking the drive to your computer is "Y" shaped - on one end, a USB miniplug, and on the other end, two full sized USB connectors, both of which need to be plugged in - one for power, the other for power and data. So, this is something to consider depending on what else you might use the USB ports on your laptop for (i.e. for an external mouse or trackball), and how many USB ports your laptop has, as you'll be using two whenever you connect this drive. Other than that, its a great product and could not recommend it enough.
Great but one potential flaw... . If you're like me, you might be considering this product for use with your laptop. And its great. Its small, lightweight, quiet, has a cool illuminated orange panel, and you can most likely fit it into your existing laptop case without much trouble. But the best part also leads to the worst. This unit requires no external power or power supply of its own. So that means when you're on the road, at, say, a certain ubiquitous coffee shop, you still only need one power outlet for your laptop (or you can just run your laptop off battery). And that means no lugging a heavy AC adapter and its associated cabling around. But in order to pull this off, the drive needs to draw power from *two* USB ports. Yes, the cable included for hooking the drive to your computer is "Y" shaped - on one end, a USB miniplug, and on the other end, two full sized USB connectors, both of which need to be plugged in - one for power, the other for power and data. So, this is something to consider depending on what else you might use the USB ports on your laptop for (i.e. for an external mouse or trackball), and how many USB ports your laptop has, as you'll be using two whenever you connect this drive. Other than that, its a great product and could not recommend it enough.
Seagate FreeAgent Go 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive ST902503FGA1E1-RK Opinions
The best portable drive out in the market . Note: If you want to skip the long review, you can go to the last paragraph of this review where I have some useful tips on how best to use your portable drive and how to keep ideal data backup.
It is a given fact that any portable drive you buy in the market today is going to perform good in the short term - maybe 3 months, 6 months or even a year.
But when you are buying a portable drive - you have to look beyond 3-5 years because thats how long you are probably going to keep your drive. You have to look at the reliability of the drive - to not lose any data because of hard disk failures.
I have used various drives - Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Samsung .., but I can vouch for the fact that Seagate is the numero uno when it comes to drive reliability. I have had many laptop & portable drives give up on me, but Seagate has never let me down.
Seagate is usually bit more expensive than others - but very reliable.
About this particular drive:
+ It is light weight, has a dim light indicator on one of the sides which tells that the drive is plugged in
+ Neat sleek casing which makes it look good
+ Thick and flexible USB cable which makes it easy to plug the drive without any fear of breaking/twiching the cable
+ Very light weight drive
+ Comes with the Ceedo software which will make your desktop applications portable (I have never used it myself, but there are good reviews about this software on the internet)
What I do not like about the drive:
- I wish if it was packed with some better backup software like SecondCopy
Tip #1: Backup software
=======================
Ok, now that you have a backup drive, how do you plan to use it to backup your data on your laptop/desktop ? I use a software called SecondCopy - which I found to be very addictive to use:
- Once you have this software installed, you can select all the folders on your desktop/laptop that you want to backup and also select the destination where you want to backup
- You can configure the backup profile in such a way that either automatically or manually, the software will find the differences between the 2 drives and display the differences to you and let you backup data from your laptop/desktop on to your drive.
Tip #2: Secondary Backup
=========================
+ Now, that you have all your backup setup and you throw in your drive in your laptop bag and unfortunately you leave your laptop bag in your car and your laptop along with your backup drive is stolen, what do you do in this case where you have lost your primary data as well as your backup data - there are 2 options
- Do not keep your portable drive in the same bag in which you carry your laptop, which is a bit of an inconvinience
- Or, you buy another drive - you can either buy a similar drive or buy a 3.5" big hard drive(which needs external power supply) and keep it at home and keep your backups on both the portable drive as well as the big drive which you have at your home - this way even if you lose your laptop bag or even if you lose your big hard drive at home, there is another backup from which you can retrieve your dear data - your photos, your projects, your movies, music ...
Tip #3: Network drive
======================
This is the ultimate nirvana of any drive. Basically you will have to buy a network drive device and connect this to your hard disk, once you do that and do some additional configuration, you can let your drive be available on your home network - this way, you can listen to your music/watch movies that are there on your hard disk from any computer in your home/from an Apple TV .... Or you can even leave your hard disk at home and access the data from outside of your home(from office/anywhere else there is internet). The network drive comes with its own security settings etc, so you do not have to worry about a hacker accessing your drive.
The best portable drive out in the market . Note: If you want to skip the long review, you can go to the last paragraph of this review where I have some useful tips on how best to use your portable drive and how to keep ideal data backup.
It is a given fact that any portable drive you buy in the market today is going to perform good in the short term - maybe 3 months, 6 months or even a year.
But when you are buying a portable drive - you have to look beyond 3-5 years because thats how long you are probably going to keep your drive. You have to look at the reliability of the drive - to not lose any data because of hard disk failures.
I have used various drives - Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Samsung .., but I can vouch for the fact that Seagate is the numero uno when it comes to drive reliability. I have had many laptop & portable drives give up on me, but Seagate has never let me down.
Seagate is usually bit more expensive than others - but very reliable.
About this particular drive:
+ It is light weight, has a dim light indicator on one of the sides which tells that the drive is plugged in
+ Neat sleek casing which makes it look good
+ Thick and flexible USB cable which makes it easy to plug the drive without any fear of breaking/twiching the cable
+ Very light weight drive
+ Comes with the Ceedo software which will make your desktop applications portable (I have never used it myself, but there are good reviews about this software on the internet)
What I do not like about the drive:
- I wish if it was packed with some better backup software like SecondCopy
Tip #1: Backup software
=======================
Ok, now that you have a backup drive, how do you plan to use it to backup your data on your laptop/desktop ? I use a software called SecondCopy - which I found to be very addictive to use:
- Once you have this software installed, you can select all the folders on your desktop/laptop that you want to backup and also select the destination where you want to backup
- You can configure the backup profile in such a way that either automatically or manually, the software will find the differences between the 2 drives and display the differences to you and let you backup data from your laptop/desktop on to your drive.
Tip #2: Secondary Backup
=========================
+ Now, that you have all your backup setup and you throw in your drive in your laptop bag and unfortunately you leave your laptop bag in your car and your laptop along with your backup drive is stolen, what do you do in this case where you have lost your primary data as well as your backup data - there are 2 options
- Do not keep your portable drive in the same bag in which you carry your laptop, which is a bit of an inconvinience
- Or, you buy another drive - you can either buy a similar drive or buy a 3.5" big hard drive(which needs external power supply) and keep it at home and keep your backups on both the portable drive as well as the big drive which you have at your home - this way even if you lose your laptop bag or even if you lose your big hard drive at home, there is another backup from which you can retrieve your dear data - your photos, your projects, your movies, music ...
Tip #3: Network drive
======================
This is the ultimate nirvana of any drive. Basically you will have to buy a network drive device and connect this to your hard disk, once you do that and do some additional configuration, you can let your drive be available on your home network - this way, you can listen to your music/watch movies that are there on your hard disk from any computer in your home/from an Apple TV .... Or you can even leave your hard disk at home and access the data from outside of your home(from office/anywhere else there is internet). The network drive comes with its own security settings etc, so you do not have to worry about a hacker accessing your drive.
Fast Ultra Portable and Reliable . I've had this hard drive for about 6 months now. It doesn't require a separate power source, but uses two usb ports. It is ultra slim, easy to take with you, and operates very quietly.
I use it two or three times a week and haven't had any issues so far. Still, I would be weary of purchasing from SeaGate. Many of my friends have had issues with their hard drives (although not this model specifically).
I use it two or three times a week and haven't had any issues so far. Still, I would be weary of purchasing from SeaGate. Many of my friends have had issues with their hard drives (although not this model specifically).
Perfect! . Plug and Play, Really!
This HD took a couple of minutes to gain recognition during the first connection, but works quickly every time after that. Great product!
This HD took a couple of minutes to gain recognition during the first connection, but works quickly every time after that. Great product!
Seagate FreeAgent Go 250GB . Everything Seagate advertises, being powered by the USB ports is great when you are restricted to a single power outlet, unit is fast and clean. Quit thinking about it and buy it, you won't be sorry.
does not work well with windows vista . works with XP OK, but behave strange with vista. Basically, I use it for automatic backup. When I use it with XP, it automatically creates backs up everything, the same size of folders. With vista, the back-uped folder size is different even though the content might be the same. It also reverse backs up things, which is very annoying. but still better than nothing.
Cons Review
Software NOT included . The Seagate drive is fine but the Amazon blurb is absolutely misleading.
The software included is a 30 day trial. If you want to keep using it there is a $39 charge.
Western Digital drives include the software for free.
The software included is a 30 day trial. If you want to keep using it there is a $39 charge.
Western Digital drives include the software for free.
Customer support is nearly non-existant . I received this drive for Christmas. I'm a mac user, and got the windows version, but all over the box it SCREAMS mac compatible, as long as you don't want to use the software. I didn't, I just wanted to back up my hard-drive. Unfortunately, the drive isn't recognized on ANY computer I've tried. Granted, they're all macs, but out of 4 computers. . . so I filed a case with Seagate. Despite an email telling me I should have a response with them within 24 hours, 2 weeks later I contacted customer service. Their hours are not convenient. . . and after 10 min on hold on the phone I decided to chat. That was another wait, but an agent still was available before anyone answered the phone. I'd seen on their website that the problem might have to do with needing a y cable (ok, I'd tried it on desktops too and it hadn't worked, but I was hoping) and the page says to contact customer support about this. Their answer was "go buy one". So I ordered one from amazon, and when it came the drive STILL doesn't work. Another wait for email, another 30 min on hold, and the chat agent tells me to contact customer support to return the device. Oh, and I get to pay shipping! I may just write off the money Ive spent and buy a competitor, instead.
Disappointed by "hidden" cost . I bought a Seagate based on past reputaion. The operating software was on the disk itself which installed via the USB connection. When the software agreement came up it informed me I had just installed "freeware" good for one use only. If I wanted to use it more than once I had to fork over another $39.95. I found their approach blatantly decptive and disrespectful of their customers. I'm sure that some customers in a hurry will cough up the hidden cost. I decided to live with the inconvenience this caused and returned the product.
The replacement I bought from a competitor worked right out of the box. Couriously it acts just like a thumb drive and doesn't need operating software. It raised a question regarding whether the $39.95 software was essential to use the Seagate product or whether it was an add on with some other functionality. If so, in my mind they are still guilty by not making that distinction clear. Needless to say Seagate has lost my trust
The replacement I bought from a competitor worked right out of the box. Couriously it acts just like a thumb drive and doesn't need operating software. It raised a question regarding whether the $39.95 software was essential to use the Seagate product or whether it was an add on with some other functionality. If so, in my mind they are still guilty by not making that distinction clear. Needless to say Seagate has lost my trust
Feature Seagate FreeAgent Go 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive ST902503FGA1E1-RK
- 250 GB portable hard drive connects to your computer via USB cable
- 5400 RPM spindle speed for speedy performance
- Protect against unauthorized use with encryption for sensitive files; Leave no trace of your last session on a borrowed computer
- Keep your most current data with you - synchronize data from your most frequented PCs
- Includes portable drive, Free Agent software (preloaded) and electronic documentation, USB 2.0 cable, and a quick start guide; 5-year limited warranty
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Product Details
EAN : 0763649005309UPC : 763649005309
MPN : ST902503FGA1E1-RK
Brand : Seagate
Weight : 1 pounds
Height : 3 inches
Length : 9 inches
Width : 8 inches
Binding : Personal Computers
Hardware Platform : PC
Manufacturer : Seagate
Model : ST902503FGA1E1-RK
Publisher : Seagate
SKU : DHS902503FGA1E1RK
Studio : Seagate
Where To Buy
You can buy Seagate FreeAgent Go 250 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive ST902503FGA1E1-RK on Amazon . Click here to Read More
