Pros: I ordered to expand storage capacity. Was hesitant to have mechanical hard drives shipped, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I chose "In-Post" as the delivery option. By 4am the night of my order, the drives were already delivered. I picked them up the following day and noted - the seller did a fantastic job packing the drives in special bubble wrap containers, then in an individual box each, then more bubble wrap, and a larger exterior box. Absolutely no damage to the box (not even a mark) by the shipper. Very impressed with the shipping job.

Anyway, about the drives. I ran several iterations of Badblocks stress testing, followed by extended (long) SMARTCTL tests. No bad sectors noted on either drive (all tests done on a headless linux box running Ubuntu Server).

The read/write speed at the beginning of the test is around 150-160 mb/sec. I suppose as the drive head moves toward the centre of the platter and relative rotational velocity is reduced, the speed slows to around 90 mb/sec. Not bad for 5900 RPM drives.

I should note - you will want to keep light air circulation on these on such long duration read-write cycles. Without a fan, you WILL hit 40C+ in a 24C room, but temps will stay under 30C with some light cooling.

Also - drives are quiet.

No issues so far (fingers crossed, plus backups of everything)

Cons: None so far

Pros: Price, dependable, quiet.

Cons: N/A

Other Thoughts: Have two of them since January 2014, setup with mdadm (Linux software raid*) in Raid 1 right now. Plan on getting four more of them very soon for a raid 10** setup.

Retention is more important to me than space*** and I trust these drives***.
UPDATE: Have 4 of them in Raid10 with no issues... They even survived a move from Hawaii to Oklahoma!

* Even though my MSI A88XM MB supports HW raid.
** https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/RAID_calculator
*** Yes I have offline backups. Just ALOT easier this way.
**** So far :) Gotta give em credit though. Best large drives I have used yet and I have used a lot.

Pros: Lots of space. Very quiet. Keep all of my digital games installed on this drive with lots of room to spare.

Cons: This was my first drive over 2TB, I learned quick that partitioning and formatting is a bit different for a single 4TB partition. Not a real con but I had a real quick educational moment.

Other Thoughts: My hard drive AND wallet are ready for a certain game store's summer sale. ;)

Pros: Cheap price, a lot of storage.

Cons: Fails within a few hours just as I expected.

Other Thoughts: Immediately after installing the drive I began copying pictures and home videos to the new drive. About 7 hours into the copy the drive failed with over 10,000 bad sectors (according to S.M.A.R.T diagnostics) and a non-responsive computer. This is my first Seagate drive. I've never purchased a Seagate because I've heard it year after year that Seagate makes garbage and yet I went against my better judgement merely because the price was so good that I couldn't resist. Never again. This was first and the last Seagate drive I will ever buy. The RMA number has already been issued and a refund-- not a replacement-- is on its way.

Pros: - Large capacity

Cons: - None

Other Thoughts: It's a desktop HDD, it does what's expected of it

Pros: Works well and then fails without notice or SMART errors.

Cons: The drive failed shortly after warranty ended. System and network on conditioned line, UPS and network protection. I have other model Seagate drives that last much longer. It is disappointing. This drive failed without notice or SMART errors. Be careful.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Andrew,

We apologize for the problems experienced with your 4TB Desktop and would like the opportunity to talk with you to determine an available resolution.

A support case (#05475160) has been created that will reference your review and our response. Please contact us directly using the following link:

http://support2.seagate.com/

Best Regards,
Seagate Support

Pros: It's what I ordered.
it's 4tb.
It arrived on time.

Cons: The item was not shipped in a factory sealed box, and even though the anti-static packaging didn't appear to be tampered with, I was a bit frustrated that the drive had been removed from the original packaging. Not sure if this is the standard way that HD's are shipped these days...but it kind of makes me wonder if the drive was new or an open item that was refurbished.

Other Thoughts: If given the option to purchase this item again...probably not since I'm not sure if the item is new or refurbished.

Pros: Good to use for 2 year's of manufacturer's warranty.

Cons: Extremely cautious to use more than warranty periods

Other Thoughts: I bought it on 2003. Aug. 22nd at Vancouver and have installed for my kid(girl)'s computer. It has 2 years of manufacturer's warranty but it failed on 2015.Oct.23 (2 year and 2 months later) which is voided the warranty. All data gone with the drive.
It looks controller failed. No way to change or fix it.

Pros: Cheap storage

Cons: First HDD to fail on me this fast (280 days). Least amount of longevity before this was 4 year old... you guessed it, Seagate. Then again, my 6.7 year old Seagate from another era is still going strong... Maybe their QC is falling apart as of late.

Other Thoughts: A certain retailer (BB) seems to have Seagate in stock all the time while other brands are often empty. I know why now. Going with different brands from here on.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Vincent,

We apologize for the problems experienced with your 4TB Desktop drive and would like the opportunity to talk with you to determine the root cause and available resolution.

A support case (#05458401) has been created that will reference your review and our response. Please contact us directly using the following link:

http://support2.seagate.com/

Best Regards,
Seagate Support

Pros: Large storage space
Fast access speed

Cons: I have / had FIVE of these drives and ALL of them started to fail after three years of service. Luckily, I monitor my drives so I know when they begin to fail and I have a parity RAID array setup to restore those that fail quickly. Of the five, two of them failed without notice and three of them started having bad sectors and slowly worked their way to death. I used them as storage drives with occasional read access.

Other Thoughts: I would give them less than three stars, but they only guarantee these things for two years and I got three years of use out of them. To me, that is unacceptable since my 1.5TB drives from 7 years ago are still running strong in the same case, same heat, etc.

Stay away if you value your data.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Michael B.,

We apologize for the problems you experienced with your 4TB drives.

We would like to note that for a RAID set up, our NAS HDD would be better suited for your systems. Please reference the following link for additional details on this drive:

http://goo.gl/eyNA11

It is important to note to check the Hardware Compatibility List from the NAS manufacturer to make sure this drive is listed.

Best Regards,
Seagate Support