Question 1

Can this drive me pulled from the enclosure like the other Seagate external drives and be used an a 3.5" internal drive?

Accepted Answer

Yes you can and its cheaper than buy an internal drive!

Question 2

Will this drive work on a Mac?

Accepted Answer

Yes they work fine but these drives come formatted in NTFS for a Windows system. Macs can read NTFS drives so Mac users should copy the Mac software that comes on the drive if they intend to reformat the drive in Mac's HFS+ format. If you format the drive before copying the files they will of course be lost.

Question 3

Can anyone confirm this has a ST8000DM004 Barracuda Pro 7200RPM drive in it as one user reported? I don't see how it could include that drive.

Accepted Answer

I just (Nov. 2017) opened two of the eight that I've recently purchased and they both contain ST8000M004 drives. The label says FW: 001, suggesting early firmware version, but I don't know that there are any later revs available.

Question 4

Are the negative reviews due to a poor USB controller or are the disks themselves truly this unreliable? I plan to just toss the enclosure anyway.

Accepted Answer

The failure rate for external drives like this cannot be determined by reviews. Unlucky buyers with failed drives are more likely to leave a bad review than satisfied customers who often don't leave reviews. There is just extra motivation when a drive fails, understandably it makes you angry. That said, USB 3.0 controllers are more likely to have more issues than USB 2.0. This goes for the USB 3.0 implementations on motherboards as well. I've had Seagate externals fail but most of the many I own have proven reliable. All you can do is make sure you back up your files regularly because drive failure is going to happen.

Question 5

What is the actual available space for this 8Tb drive?

Accepted Answer

8,001,427,599,360 bytes, or 7.27 TB
I have 2, and they both report identical capacities.

Question 6

What is the actual usable size of the drive? In the past I have bought drives and found them to be smaller than the advertised  space. For instance a Seagate 5TB drive I purchased only had 4.56TB space that was usable by my computer. Which amounted to 500GBS that I did not get to use.

Accepted Answer

Sorry, I meant 7.27 TB.

Question 7

What type of hard drive is inside this external? Is it archive or just regular 7200 rpm hard drive?

Accepted Answer

The drives inside mine are reported by smartctl as a ST8000AS0002-1NA17Z, which is an Archive drive.

Question 8

Compatible with Windows XP?

Accepted Answer

Yes

Question 9

I have 4 of these beauties and all work great. I noted in the newest pictures and this current model doesn't seem to have a LED for activity and on/off function at all? A super oversight for me. The WD seems to be equipped and ready to go. WD owns Seagate anyway, right.

Accepted Answer

I own a half dozen of these, and I keep buying more. I just bought one a week ago and received it August 5th 2019, and it does have an LED, but it is on top now.

Question 10

What are the physical dimensions (inches)?

Accepted Answer

The Dimensions are given in inches. Do you need metric?

Questions & Answers