Seagate Expansion 5TB USB 3.0 Desktop Desktop External Hard Drive STBV5000100

Pros: It's nice and compact, very simple nothing fancy about it. The casing doesn't seem cheap or flimsy. It's made to be laid flat; however, because if its shape, you can easily stand it up on its side without it toppling over. The only indicator that the drive is "on" is a tiny blue led on the top of the unit, which blinks when the drive is in use. You probably wouldn't be able to see it until it's plugged in and on. Use is simple plug and play. No additional drivers needed (for Windows 7). At USB 3.0, I got transfer speeds averaging 188MB/s write and 167MB/s read.

Cons: This drive is only 5900RPM. Venting is only on the bottom of the unit, so it gets a bit warm when it's been working for a while.

Overall Review: I also tested it as an internal drive for Windows 7. The drive is a Barracuda. It doesn't say on the drive but it has the same model number. Reading the reviews made me wonder if this drive was going to behave differently. This drive is absolutely no different than any other terabyte drive. The most important thing to remember is that any drive larger than 2TB MUST be converted to a GPT disk; otherwise, you will not be able to use the full capacity of the drive. I went into Computer Management. The operating system saw 1 raw partition and 2 unallocated partitions. I deleted the raw partition. There was now 3 unallocated partitions. Size of the partitions didn't matter at this point. I then right-clicked on the drive itself and selected "Convert to GPT Disk". In a couple of seconds, a 5TB unallocated partition was created. I quick-formatted the partition and the drive was ready to go, with full drive capacity. I got transfer speeds averaging 185MB/s write and 165MB/s read. No read/write errors whatsoever. I'm glad I trusted my own instincts and made the purchase. I now have an extra 5TB to use for my HTPC.

Pros: Simple design, satin/flat surface will not show smudges, reasonably fast, subdued blue LED on top, drive is super-quiet

Cons: Minor con: Requires stand-alone power adapter, which is typical with the power requirements this size of drive. Also, the price indicated that it would be no-frills as far as software goes and I was correct. It comes with an app to help you register it and that is about it. That wasn’t a con for me, more of something I wanted to mention here.

Overall Review: I have used a wide variety of external hard drives in both the 2.5” & 3.5” offerings, including a 4-drive RAID tower connected through a port replicator for backup of my Media Server. Each has its pluses and minuses and this Seagate 5TB HDD is no different. Speed wise, it competes pretty well with some of my fastest external drives. As is typical when I test HDDs, I filled up the drive with video files in one big transfer to see how it does under load. This one did great and, actually, stood strong while my Western Digital 3x2TB Black Drive RAID array had a temporary failure, which is fixed only by powering down the system completely and re-booting. Once full, I ran CrystalDiskMark with the USB 3.0 interface and it scored 134-96-41-88 (SeqRead=134MB/s, SeqWrite=96MB/s, RandomRead 512KB=41MB/s, RandomWrite 512KB=88MB/s). In read speed, it is the fastest external drive I have. It loses a bit on write speed, but that is to be somewhat expected, considering its most likely use: backup. I wouldn’t expect to see day-in, day-out performance on level with the aforementioned 3x2TB RAID array used in my media server. Overall, it is really convenient to be able to transfer all of the contents of the media server onto a single drive and have it all to go in a reasonably convenient size. I have been using two 2TB 2.5” USB 3.0 external HDDs for this purpose, but it is kind of a pain to split the data. Also, they have more spotty performance with speeds in the area of 88-86-36-51. I mention this because, for external drives, I care more about speed & performance than software frills and that is what my egg rating is based on here. Regarding Seagate, I have 10+ aging Seagate drives running in various machines around the house, including the four 1.5TB in a RAID 0 Backup setting mentioned in the beginning of the review. For a while there, I had stopped purchasing Seagate drives due to mediocre reviews and better offerings in other brands. With successful usage of a Seagate 3TB USB 3.0 backup drive and some solid internal 1TB drives, I have begun to purchase them more for certain types of builds/settings. 5 eggs for being a good value and being everything I needed it to be and nothing I didn’t.

Pros: Minimal retail packaging. I like that, it's important to be as environmentally effective when shipping a product and when packing it. Small box, good protection. I like that. Plug and Play affair (Windows 7 Professional). No bloat ware, just a manufacture registration application that worked well. Everything you need is in the box, power adapter and USB 3.0 cable. Drive is FAST, I was able to copy 43GB of LARGE picture files over my 1000 base-T network in 13 minutes. 57GB of MP3 files in 15 minutes. We're talking almost 80MB a second here folks, even over a network, that is FAST! When plugged into computer to do file copies, the drive was also routinely fast as well, around 60MB both ways. Terracopy was used for the network transfers. System was a run of the mill Intel Core i3 with 4GB RAM. Remember, 5TB of space, that's 5,000GB... ..and the price!? Hard to beat!

Cons: 1 year warranty. Seagate still makes a good hard drive I feel. Too bad they don't believe in their products, a 2 year warranty would be better and a 3 year would be best! REMEMBER do not trust ANY external hard drive for long term backup. This is a good start, but you would want to have some other options available and ALWAYS use more than one drive or medium to store precious data...

Overall Review: Drive was slightly warm to the touch, made really no audible noise. I put this thing through the wringer (tested for almost one month), copying hundreds of GB of data and it never whimpered. For the price, this is a hard deal to beat. I've been a pretty big fan of Seagate in the past, they have had their share of rough spots, like all the other players, but have faired well for the most part. I think that if you need a drive to store LOTS of data on, this one is worth a hard look. Personally I have a hard time thinking about filling something like this to capacity and then having it die, so make sure that you are not using this thing as your only backup. Get a second drive and rotate them. I'm sure all the videos and pictures of your kid, little Bobby are worth a few hundred bucks to you, right? Even with me being a EggExpert reviewer, I want people to know what is going to work, how intuitive a product is and that it is a value, because at the end of the day that is all one can ask for! I look forward to continued good service out of this product and feel that it is a great deal!

Pros: It’s huge. I mean, REALLY huge! 5TB…that’s 5,000GB or 5,000,000MB.

Cons: None, but I do make this observation: If you fill this thing and don’t have a backup and the drive dies, you’ve lost an enormous amount of data. Good luck to you!

Overall Review: I received this drive from Newegg for my review. Setup was straightforward – attach the external power supply, plug it into a USB port, and Windows takes care of the rest. Instant recognition. The drive measures about 7" x 4.5" x 1.5". It comes with a power supply, a 4 foot USB 3 cable, and a Quick Start Guide. The enclosure is plastic yet feels solid enough, and it has one blue LED which is lit solid when powered on and flashes rhythmically during data transfer. There are ventilation holes in the rear, but no fan. During file transfers the enclosure became warm but not hot. There is no power switch. This drive is USB 3; I tested it using USB 2. It’s rated at 5TB, and there are 4.54TB of free space. There are files preinstalled on the drive for the purpose of product registration. Using HD Tune Pro 5.50, here are the results: Average transfer rate was 29.5Mb/s with an access time of 19.9 ms. Rotational speed is reported to be 5,980 rpm. As a test, I copied 14.9GB of data comprised of 15,522 various size files in 792 folders to the Seagate Expansion drive took 11:31. It’s probably much faster with USB 3. But, so what? Do the numbers really matter? I ignore them. This drive isn’t built for speed so I don’t give much credence to the objective tests; it’s built to accommodate a tremendous amount of data. Truthfully, it’s no different than any other external USB drive, only the capacity is MASSIVE. Would I recommend it? Well, if you need tons of space, this is your boy – but make sure you have a backup. As for reliability, I can’t say yet. Keep in mind, though, that it only has a one year warranty. As an aside, some reviewers removed the drive from the enclosure and tried to use it internally, then complained that it didn’t work and gave it a bad review. What were they thinking? It wasn’t made for that purpose – buy an internal drive! As for the other negative reviews, I didn’t experience any of the same problems.

Pros: 5TB of storage may seem like a lot of storage for some, but if you have that availability, you will use it at some point. This drive operates seamlessly under normal usage. The drive arrived pre-formatted for Windows File Systems (NTFS Partition), however that can be adjusted easily through any partition manager. The external has moderate airflow and dissipates heat accordingly. The USB 3.0 connectivity provides consistent read and write speeds, averaging between 85-95 Mb/s when transferring large files. There is USB 2.0 backwards compatibility, which is good for users without USB 3.0 connectivity.

Cons: Depending on how your computer or recording medium is set up, this drive will not go into stand-by mode. The platters will continue to spin, even when not in use. I suggest you power down and unplug this external when not in use.

Overall Review: I still question the lifespan of Seagate products. Under moderate to heavy usage, many drives have failed, and I'm hoping this drive does not meet the same fate during the same duration.

Pros: I setup the drive and installed it, did a backup to it, and all seemed good. A drive like this is targeted as big dumb storage. My experience is that it does that fairly well. I did hook it up to a USB 3 port and try copy 145GB of media files (video, music, total ~6K files), it did work and all appeared intact after the copy but I missed catching the finishing time. As far as a big dumb drive it was about as painless to install as you could hope for. For me, and I believe most real world users, reasonable speed is sufficient for archival purposes, and this meets that benchmark.

Cons: The advert on Newegg says 2 year warranty, the box says 1 year. One year is not sufficient on something that people will tend to use for an archives drive. If it’s just to do a onetime transfer of data and you have the data on another machine, maybe no problems? Not to be comical but with the size of a 5TB and a very short warranty, if you started writing today you might fill it up around the time the warranty expires. I had a problem with the shape of the brick power supply which was fat enough to make the plugs on both sides of it on the power strip unusable. As I currently work as a engineer for mass produced consumer products, I know every penny is sensitive in how it’s spent, but design choices like this always are an indicator as the general lack of thought given to the consumer experience – there are solutions that cost more, but are not prohibitive in products which retail in this price range.

Overall Review: I used to work for a few different storage companies and an SSD manufacturer as a FW engineer so I have some background in drive testing. I could go exhaustively through tests running benchmarks, but what I know was always the most important parameter was how long would a drive survive. There isn’t an application or a customer I can think of where it was okay if the drive died frequently. Unless your application isn’t sensitive to having the drive die quickly I would advise against this purchase. Stating the obvious, warranties are timed to not cost the manufacturer much money, which means that they are timed to expire before statistically significant numbers of the product start failing in large enough numbers to cost the manufacturer their profits. So a five year warranty means the manufacturer is pretty confident in their product, a manufacturer who gives a one year warranty probably hopes it will sit on your shelf for a few months before you go to use it. For me personally, the cost of the drive while not incidental is far less important than the value I place on my data and my time to gather, sort, categorize, etc. I can’t recommend this product only for that reason and give two eggs.

Pros: n/a

Cons: n/a

Overall Review: The next step after completing my review of the STBV5000100 would have me figuring out how to regain all of drive capacity. I had formatted, and then deleted the volume, taking it to a pair of 2.4GB partitions. Windows allows you to build a new simple volume with the first partition, but there are no options for the other partition. I downloaded Seagate Disc Wizard, did a little searching on the internet, but was coming up with no solutions. Seemed like I was in the same boat as another Eggxpert reviewer, and a few users I read about in a couple of PC forums. Then I remembered that Windows doesn't support MBR partitions larger than 4TB. It appears that the original disc setup was a pair of 2.4TB partitions that were somehow spanned with an external driver. I couldn't find this driver anywhere, so here are the steps that I used to fix it. • Open Computer Management • Select Disc Management • Scroll to your pair of partitions (2048.00GB / 2609.53GB) • Right-click the disc information box to the exact left of the first partition • Select “convert to GPT Partition” • Drive will now show as one large 4657.40GB partition • Right-click unformatted disc area • Choose what you want to do (I went with New Simple Volume) • Format volume as desired • Victory has been achieved Hope this helps somebody out there.

Pros: This is a massive amount of external storage that moves data at USB 3.0 speed.

Cons: Over several weeks this drive irregularly disappeared from my system. On bad days this drive locked up my systems. Sometimes unplugging this drive would fix the problem, sometimes it took a cold boot. Occasionally I would get a message that the drive needed to be formatted.

Overall Review: I tested this drive on both Win8 and Win8 systems-same bad result. I reformatted several times, using Windows and Seatools, with no lasting good results. When I think about making backups of my data, which is how this drive would be used by most, I want dependability. So it would be illogical to use or recommend this drive, based on my experience.