Pros: +
A good amount of space: 500GB (467GB~ usable)
USB 3.0
USB powered.
LED power indicator.
Decent Transfer speeds.
Sleet design aesthetics.
Textured surface provides slip resistance.
Light weight.
Pocket sized.
Runs cool and silent.
Removable, and replaceable cord.
Price point.

Cons: -
Not really a con, more of a wish that this had a little more heft or durable feel to it, granted I don't throw portable drives around.
Still it would be nice to have assurance that if the drive was dropped from height of five feet or so it would survive the shock.

Other Thoughts: ~
This has been a solid performer during my tests, I benched marked its performance throughout the month that I've used it and so far its been very reliable and consistent across all PC's and laptops I've connected it to.
Benching using Crystal Mark 3, 1GB test, 64 Bit in Windows 7 64 bit, USB 3.0 ports on a Z97 board, with an i7 cpu.
First run, empty drive results:
Sequential Read : 120.887 MB/s
Sequential Write : 119.837 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 40.272 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 43.459 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.481 MB/s [117.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.849 MB/s [207.3 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.509 MB/s [124.3 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.851 MB/s [207.8 IOPS]

Second Bench, 1 month persistent 300+GB use:
Sequential Read : 104.889 MB/s
Sequential Write : 102.832 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 34.357 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 38.465 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.408 MB/s [99.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.708 MB/s [172.9 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.478 MB/s [116.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.702 MB/s [171.3 IOPS]

And finally after fully formatting the drive (formatted to run Ubuntu) after a month of use, the bench results were nearly as good as out of the box, to my surprise.
Sequential Read : 121.321 MB/s
Sequential Write : 118.805 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 40.993 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 18.068 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.475 MB/s [116.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.254 MB/s [62.0 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.519 MB/s [126.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.256 MB/s [62.6 IOPS]

Overall I have been quite pleased with the performance of this drive, I have not had an experience where I felt a transfer was taking longer than it should.
One of the first tasks that I put this drive to was backing up personal files from a friends computer. The hard drive was failing, and I barely was able to pull 200GB in family photos and work documents before the drive died. Transferring from the SATA1 drive mounted externally to my pc I was able to transfer the 200GB of files to this drive in around 1 hour 45 minutes, which considering the health of the old drive was pretty decent speed. I was able to save their only copies of their family photos, which was the most important thing to them.

For the overall value and performance of this drive, I would absolutely recommend this drive for backups and additional space.

Pros: The packaging on this drive is of a very high quality, and the drive itself is very aesthetically pleasing. If you were looking for an external drive as a gift, this is a great option.

Drive comes formatted, labeled, and has a warranty registration app built in for ease of use.

Transfer speeds are pretty standard on USB 3.0, but are remarkably stable on large single files (averaging over 90 MB/s sustained transfer rate).

Cons: Neither of these cons are exclusive to this brand or model, so I'm not removing any stars for them:

1. A 1-year limited warranty is pathetic for any hard drive, and is even less inspiring in an external drive. You can't help but wonder if the enclosure is further limiting their life span, and if so, why no one has bothered to come up with a better way? Would air holes allow them to breathe better? Would keeping them right side up help more? Providing this information couldn't hurt.

2. The size and price of this drive and drives like this have been stagnant for far too long. This very brand sells a similar external drive that is THREE TIMES LARGER for about $5-10 more. They sell a similar model with double the capacity for the exact same price. I understand the idea of minimum price requirements (i.e. the case costs the same amount, regardless of space), but if that's the case, why are you still selling drives this size? This isn't so much a complaint of the manufacturer, but all manufacturers. It's time for rotating drives to move beyond 500GB as the minimum, and certainly beyond 250 and 320.

Other Thoughts: Seagate's gotten a bad wrap recently about the lifespan of their drives, specifically as a result of Backblaze's very interesting studies. It's worth noting that these results came from very specific drives that used different platters and drives than what are used in 2.5" drives.

It's also worth noting that the newest Seagate 4+TB drives have no such issues, so whatever problems they've previously had seem to have been worked through. Evidence would suggest that pretty much all drives produced today have a similar level of quality and lifespan. The only difference these days seem to be largely delegated to capacity, price and Aesthetics.

Pros: - Easy to use. Step one - plug the USB cable into the drive. Step two - plug the cable into your computer. Done. Upon plugging the drive into my workstation, Windows 7 x64, didn’t even need to go out and look for drives. By the time I sat down again, my device was ready to use. That’s cool!… instead of waiting around all day for Windows to go fetch drivers.

- Quick speeds.
HD Tune: Seagate Expansion Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 55.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 116.6 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 91.1 MB/sec
Access Time : 18.9 ms
Burst Rate : 202.2 MB/sec
CPU Usage : -1.0%

HD Tune: WDC WD2500AAKX-00ERMA0 Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 56.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 119.5 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 97.3 MB/sec
Access Time : 15.6 ms
Burst Rate : 204.8 MB/sec
CPU Usage : -1.0%

HD Tune: SanDisk SDSSDHP064G Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 349.7 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 439.0 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 416.5 MB/sec
Access Time : 0.1 ms
Burst Rate : 84.2 MB/sec
CPU Usage : -1.0%

I know… I know… why did I even bother posting the numbers for my Sandisk SSD on here. For science and comparison’s sake... I guess. We didn’t go into this thinking this hard drive was going to be as fast as our SSD system drive. However, I was pleased to see that it at least keeps pace with my SATA mass-storage drive.

Cons: (super nit-picks)
- At this price point, one can’t expect Seagate to provide some sort of soft case / travel case for the drive and it’s USB cable.

- The USB 3.0 cable isn’t the shortest one I’ve ever seen provided with an external drive, but definitely not the longest either.

- The outer case of the hard drive has a cool “blocky” design… but alas, it is made out of the cheapest, most hollow, most breakable plastic one could imagine. I’m not so sure this is a “toss-in-a-bag-and-go” type hard drive. All the plastic does make it super-light-weight though.

Other Thoughts: - I actually decided to give the Quick Start Guide a glance, just to see what it might explain about an external hard drive. One picture on page 1 with two steps. Step one - plug the USB cable into the drive. Step two - plug the cable into your computer. Done.

- Why did Seagate feel the need to include the warranty info in a PDF and a registration app. pre-installed on the hard drive? I guess it’s better to receive that kind of stuff rather than bloatware. Still feel free to delete that stuff though.

- The drive comes pre-formatted as an NTFS drive, just an FYI.

- I tried looking around for an LED indicator before plugging the hard drive in and for the life of me, I couldn’t find one. BUT, once plugged in, there is a bright blue “slash” of an LED indicator light that illuminates in one of the corners.

- Comes in a small cardboard box. The hard drive (wrapped in plastic-wrap) itself is protected in a plastic clam-shell with the USB 3.0 cable tucked neatly underneath it. Included in the box:
- Seagate Expansion 500GB USB 3.0 drive
- USB 3.0 cable
- Quick Start Guide

- Find a nice soft / hard travel case for this hard drive and it’s USB cable (treat it nice and take care of it as well!) and you’ve got one super-affordable external drive that’s ready for travel. In fact, for the price… why not get the 1TB or 2TB version???