Seagate Portable Hard Drive 4TB HDD - External Expansion for PC Windows PS4 & Xbox - USB 2.0 & 3.0 Black (STEA4000400)

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: Sleek attractive design. Small and lightweight, USB 3 is a plus. No power adapter needed since it's a 2.5" drive. Speeds are pretty decent for the 5400RPM disk (Lower rotational speed = less power but slower speeds. See Other thoughts for better specs).

Cons: Only a 5400 RPM disk is in the enclosure, greater speed would be achieved with a disk of a higher rotational RPM. Nonetheless, this isn't a slow drive by any means. The USB 3 interface does make it a bit quicker than the USB 2 interface. Wish it came with some sort of a carrying case and rubber feet on the bottom, but it's fine for what it is.

Overall Review: I've never owned a Seagate drive that hasn't failed on me, so I'm weary of the quality. I'll update this review when the drive fails because I'm curious to how long it's going to last. I'm using it as a mirror on my laptop, so it's runs a little over 40 hours a week. Current power on time is 194 hours and 65 startups. Temperature stays around 90*F with the ambient temperature being 70*F and the max temp reached under heavy stress was 109*F. Done with HD Tune Pro: USB 3: > Read Min: 50 MB/s > Read Max: 108.6 MB/s > Read Avg: 85 MB/s > Access Time: 17.4 ms > Burst Rate: 2849 IOPS / 178.8 MB/s > Random Access: 41 IOPS / 21.144 MB/s > Random Seek: 56 IOPS / .027 MB/s USB 2: > Read Min: 26.3 MB/s > Read Max: 32.5 MB/s > Read Avg: 830.6 MB/s > Access Time: 17.7 ms > Burst Rate: 508 IOPS / 31 MB/s > Random Access: 29 IOPS / 14.738 MB/s > Random Seek: 48 IOPS / .023 MB/s

Pros: Ready to go out of the box Compact Fast

Cons: Not the greatest value

Overall Review: This portable drive from Seagate is a nice entry into the market. It’s 1 TB size (931 GB formatted under Windows NTFS) is roomy for such a small package. It’s also very speedy when connected to a USB 3.0 port. The textured surface is a nice touch and it’s very lightweight, making it an easy addition to any laptop bag or “go” bag. Here’s a few numbers. All speed tests performed in Windows 8.1 and transfers were from a solid state drive. Plugged into a USB 2.0 port, a single large file (1.1 GB) took 36 seconds, averaging 30.5 MB/s. A large folder of photos (5.8 GB) took 2 minutes 40 seconds, averaging 36.4 MB/s. Not too bad on the old USB 2.0. Plugged into a USB 3.0 port, a single large file (1.1 GB) took 12 seconds, averaging 91.7 MB/s. A large folder of photos (5.8 GB) took 1 minute 1 second, averaging 95.6 MB/s. Pretty awesome when it’s time to do a backup. Overall this is a great little drive, but I must remove one star for the lack of value. The drive is $69.99 at the time of this writing. With several competing drives at double the size for only $20 more (even from Seagate!), I’d recommend the larger size.

Pros: There's absolutely nothing to complain about with this portable drive. It's thinner than my other 2TB portable USB drive by a substantial margin. This "Seagate" enclosure contains a 2.5" 9mm Samsung Spinpoint M9T ST2000LM003 drive which explains a lot. Earlier large capacity 2.5" drives were of the 12.5mm or 15mm variety. This portable drive is sleek, light weight, and quiet. Oh, and I might add it's pretty darn fast for a platter drive over USB 3.0. If you do your research, or trust mine, then you'll find that the Spinpoint M drives are favorably reviewed. My own benchmarks match the reviews. According to ATTO, I'm getting a little over 140 MB/s in sequential read and write speeds with this little guy. In a real-world scenario transferring 14GB worth of files to the drive, I am seeing speeds of 120-130 MB/s. It's not SSD fast, but it's great for a spinner. I must reiterate this is over USB 3.0. USB 2.0 and earlier will severely bottleneck this drive.

Cons: The only con I can think of is the enclosure is fully sealed with no way to swap out the drive if need be. Most portable USB drives are like that these days, so no surprises there.

Overall Review: So what's left so say about this portable hard drive? The LED is worth mentioning. Seagate has made the activity light a stealthy thin sliver that can barely be seen among the diamond facade of the enclosure. Best of all, unlike many in the industry the LED isn't annoyingly bright. It's truly wonderful to have a large amount of storage in such a small package. The really nice thing about it though, is you don't have to wait forever and a half to transfer content to it.

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.

Overall Review: 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: Pretty standard packaging that isn't 'human proof' when trying to remove the product; haha Nice matte/patterned finish. Gloss always looks nice, but does nothing but get scratched/dull more quickly/noticeably over time. Quiet...even when writing nearly 1TB of data to it consecutively 14" cable included (not including connector length) Nice snug fit into the drive and USB port. Solid speeds even at 90% capacity. Blue activity light isn't blinding. Light and Compact USB powered

Cons: Drive not recognized through my VANTEC UGT-MH430U3 USB 3.0 Hub for some reason. Corsair mouse, headset, Vantec USB 3.0 External HDD Enclosure, WD USB 3.0 and 2.0 drives, and ADATA USB 3.0 drives have no issue connecting through the HUB. Blue light blinks, but won't connect to my PC. -1 Egg Seagates questionable reliability.

Overall Review: My System Specs: ASUS Z87 Gryphon w/ Armor i7 4770k @ 4.5GHz (delidded/naked) XSPC Raystorm CPU Block 2x8GB Dominator Platinum 2400MHz XFX R9 290 BE XSPC Razor GPU Block Rosewill Capstone 650-M OCZ Vertex4 120GB - OS Crucial M500 240GB - Games Intel 530 Series 240GB - User Files Western Digital RE 2TB - Mass Storage ____________________________________________________________________ Did some real world data transfer tests and some synthetic benchmarking of this drive. ____________________________________________________________________ For real world tests I used 4 different file types for transfers. Music files, Pictures, Acronis Disc Images, and Movies. All of the data was transferred from my WD RE 2TB(WD2000FYYZ) to this drive over the front USB 3.0 panel of my Corsair 350D. I have tested other USB 3.0 devices and there is no significant difference in transfer speeds from front panel to the rear. I timed the file transfers with a stop watch and then used CalcTool.org to find the overall average transfer speeds in each scenario. Music - 49.1GB - 9,061 Files - 520 Folders | 156 MB/S peak, flatlined at 64.5MB/s | 11:11 to complete transfer. Averages to 69.7 MB/s Pics - 13.6GB - 6,800 files - 29 folders | 80 MB/s peak and steadily fell .2-.3 MB/s until it finished at 52 MB/s. 3:39 to complete. Averages to 59.1 MB/s (3) Acronis Disc Images totaling 100GB | 117 MB/s peak, flatlined at 80 MB/s. 19:04 to complete. Averages to 83.3 MB/s Movies - 46.3 GB - 97 files - 12 Folders | 166 MB/s peak, flatlined at 77 MB/s. 9:09 to complete transfer. Averages to 80.5 MB/s _____________________________________________________________________ I used CrystalDiskMark (V3.0.3 x64) for synthetic benchmarking. I tested at 9%, 63% and 90% capacity of the drive. Even at 90% full it still exhibits good speeds for an external 2.5 Please take note that Random 4K and Random QD32 results are always low, and even more so with mechanical drives. The results, in MB/s, were as follows: CrystaldiskMark Test @ 9% Capacity - 3 Runs / 1000MB Sequential - Read: 127.9 Write: 129.7 Random 512K - Read: 39.69 Write: 56.43 Random 4K - Read: .453 Write: 1.220 Random 4K QD32 - Read: 0.541 Write: 1.198 CrystaldiskMark Test @ 63% Capacity - 3 Runs / 1000MB Sequential - Read: 98.15 Write: 99.8 Random 512K - Read: 35.39 Write: 47.89 Random 4K - Read: 0.453 Write: 0.986 Random 4K QD32 - Read: 0.533 Write: 0.958 CrystaldiskMark Test @ 90% Capacity - 3 Runs / 1000MB Sequential - Read: 73.17 Write: 73.69 Random 512K - Read: 28.62 Write: 35.31 Random 4K - Read: 0.411 Write: 0.882 Random 4K QD32 - Read: 0.497 Write: 0.903 All things considered, these are impressive speeds for this type of drive. Only thing that worries me is the reliability of

Pros: I absolutely love how much storage this drive offers. 2TB(1.81TB) is an amazing amount of storage for videos and Steam/Origin games I copy over to my other computers (I copy my libraries over when I build new PC's for myself or need to install a game on another machine....it's much faster than re-downloading it.). What made that storage even more useful was how wicked the transfer speed is. I had to install GTAV to my mediaPC took about 12 minutes to copy the 60+GB file over. It was much faster than downloading it again via Steam. It's a nice looking device, the little matte diamond pattern is really slick, and the matte finish ensures that it's not a fingerprint magnet. The light on it is bright enough to be seen, but not so bright that it annoys. Overall I appreciate the aesthetics of this drive.

Cons: When I initially hooked it up and tried transferring a file larger than 100mb, it would give an error. Reformatting took care of it, and testing the drive bears out that all is fine, but it was kind of a hassle. I'm also not a fan of pre-installed software on storage devices, and this had some on there. The previously mentioned reformat took care of this too. It would be best to have the drive be completely empty and offer the software as a download. The drive also doesn't have little rubber feet, so it does slide around a bit on a hard surface.

Overall Review: This is a fantastic USB3.0 external. It's amazingly quick, combined with the amount of storage, small size and nice design help make this an amazing drive. My cons aren't major enough to knock a star, this is an amazing drive and I recommend it. I may end up using this as an external drive for the nVida Sheild-TV, when I get one, considering that this and the 16GB console will cost about the same or less than the 500GB Sheild, the 16GB model and this drive would be a good combination.

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.

Overall Review: ~ 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.