Question 1

Does this drive have an ON/Off Switch?

My old FreeAgent GoFlex did not

Accepted Answer

No there is no off and on switch! But I let the computer control the power to the drive! When I shut down the computer the drive also shut down to!! when you turn on your computer the drive also turn on this is the best way !!! TY

Question 2

If cracked opened, can this fit a regular sata port?

Accepted Answer

The drive inside this enclosure is a standard Seagate Desktop 4TB 5900rpm model (ST4000DM000), so yes the bare drive will use the standard SATA connectors inside your computer. This will void the warranty on both the enclosure AND the drive inside, so do not proceed with the following instructions if you want to get it replaced under warranty.

To open the case, you need to find the seam between the large, textured panel (that does not have the word SEAGATE on it) and the sides of the case. Take a sharp knife and gently start prying at a corner seam on the side farthest away from the USB/DC power port until you get a bite, then put a thin, rigid tool (or a second knife) into the opened seam and run it across the entire edge. Then take a thin screw driver and stick it inside the bottom vent holes that are closest to the textured panel, lifting up the side panel from the inside until it starts to pop off. The textured panel should come clean off the enclosure after a few tries. You will snap at least one or two plastic tabs in the process - they're designed to break as proof that the case had been opened outside of Seagate's warranty service.
With the panel removed, you should see the bottom of the SATA drive with the SATA backplane. Carefully flip the assembly face-down and drop the drive with the SATA backplane onto your hand. Peel off the foil sticker from the bottom and edge of the drive (where the USB and DC ports are) and gently tug the drive from the SATA backplane. Remove the four blue dampers on the side of the drive by hand and use a Phillip's head screwdriver to remove the mounts underneath.
Now you have a bare drive that you can install into your PC.

Note: The drive's firmware seems to have a similarly aggressive head parking feature made notorious on WD Green drives. I'm not sure if the bare internal drives have the same characteristics, but the head will park itself after about 15 seconds of idling. This head park will shorten its lifespan unless fixed.

Question 3

does this have a ac adapter?

Accepted Answer

This device does have an ac adapter... as a matter of fact, it comes with adapters for multiple countries including the US, Europe and Australia.  The different plugs snap on and off with ease at the touch of a button!

Question 4

Can it be make it work with windows xp?

Accepted Answer

should work fine with driver for over 1 TB HD but at usb 2.0 you probably don't have 3.0 with xp

Question 5

I read that drives greater than 2TB will not work with Windows 7 Backup & Restore.  True?  What do you do if you have one and want to use it?   Thanks.

Accepted Answer

Yes, Windows 7 Backup & Restore runs for a while then displays a low level error code. Web searches turned up the same information that you read. Partitioning the drive should work. I switched to other backup software.

Question 6

Will this HOPEFULLY work for the Ps4? If not that REALLY SucksXC

Accepted Answer

I did not buy mine for PS4. I've only used mine for PC. It has a regular USB connector similar to most external storage devices. If your PS4 takes any other storage devices, this should work as well. Can't guarantee though. I don't have a PS4 to test it.

Question 7

is this good for windows 10 please let me know?

Accepted Answer

yes, it is. As soon as you plug in the usb cable to your pc windows 10 will recognize the new external drive.

Question 8

Can this unit be used to record and store OTA content? What other equipment will we need to connect to out smart TV?

Accepted Answer

Our "SmartTV" ain't so smart. There are too many file types that it won't handle.

USB 3.0 is pretty fast, but it depends on the quality level you are recording and down sampling. Transcoding on the fly is a bit taxing. Post record transcoding and then transfer would be ideal. The best I get here in my area is 1080i / 720p. Is there any better OTA?

I'm spoiled with MVK with 5.1. I have some of that on mine which plays fine with my pretty ancient Argosy box.  More than likely, any newer Android settop box around $60+ will handle even 4K.

Question 9

What is the USB 2.0 max transfer speed?

Accepted Answer

Well it depends on a lot of factors.  The official max if 480 Mbits/sec.  However, the amount of memory your computer has and how powerful the CPU is affects the actual transfer speed. And so does whether you have a 32 bit or 64 bit OS. In addition, even if you have the best CPU and unlimited memory you won't get he full 480 as some of it used for backbone.  Last year I switched from a 6 yr old Dell Studio Windows 7 32 bit using a fairly low end Intel CPU and 4GB (effectively 3.2 GB) of RAM which would typically transfer at 9 to 17 MBytes (about 72 to 136 Mbit) per sec, to a new also low end Intel CPU using a 64 bit OS (Win 8.1) and having 16 GB of RAM.  My transfer speed at least doubled and sometimes it operates at triple the speed of the old machine.  One other thing is that as any external HD gets fuller and fuller, the transfer speeds will drop, as there will be fewer large open areas to save so the write head will need to hop from one part of the HD to another more often, which will slow things down.

Question 10

Will this unit be compatible with UBUNTU?

Accepted Answer

yes, absolutely, plug and play.

i get 155.5MB/s read and 141.4MB/s write with sample size = 100MB, and a seek time of 15.55ms on debian jessie (which is the rough basis for ubuntu trusty tahr) using gnome-disks (aka palimpsest) to benchmark.

advice: if youre ONLY using it on linux, format it first to EXT4 or BTRFS for better performance and reliability, using a tool like gparted. the default, NTFS, works on all platforms but is slower and less likely to recover from failures.

Questions & Answers