Seagate Portable Hard Drive 2TB HDD - External Expansion for PC Windows PS4 & Xbox - USB 2.0 & 3.0 Black (STEA2000400)

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.

Overall Review: - 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???

Pros: Portable and plenty of storage space for the physical size.

Cons: Hard to trust content on any hard drive these days.
I am not sure but the warranty period appears to be based on the date Seagate sent the drive to the retailer and not the date I purchased it according to the warranty look-up tool.

Overall Review: I run SMART tests regularly just as a rule. I was using this to backup my files and had it 80% full when it started failing the basic test about 4 months of occasional use to perform backup file transfers. It was still under warranty when it failed (by 3 months) but it has to go back for a replacement and I have to pay shipping to return it.