Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1.5TB USB 2.0 3.5" External Hard Drive ST315005FDA2E1-RK Silver

Pros: Nice size. Good name. Great warranty.

Cons: Simple: not reliable. Here is my story: I own several (smaller) Seagate FreeAgent drives and have been 100% satisfied. The Seagate FreeAgent 1.5tb has the same 5 year warranty which is far more than most other brand external drives. What could go wrong? After placing my order, I read the other reviews and noticed a high failure rate. Uh-oh. Upon receiving the drive, I immediately put it to the test filling it to about 98% capacity. It ran just fine. So, I deleted everything and began consolidating my other drives. After letting it run for nearly a week, I came in to discover a Windows ‘delayed write error’. I rebooted my computer and drive and continued backing my data up. Things seemed OK for a couple of hours but, sure enough, another write error. I immediately downloaded the SeaTools from Seagate and ran the diagnostics. No problem found. A quick search of the internet revealed MANY people with similar issues and Seagate seems to be in denial about a real problem.

Overall Review: Further testing has revealed the following: The drive seems to run great for several days of reading and writing. Eventually, it just stops writing develops write errors. If left to cool down, it will run for several more days until it develops the problem again. Each time, it seems to happen sooner and sooner. It doesn’t seem to be when the drive is full. The first time happened at about 900gb (about 60% capacity). I have been able to fill the drive completely (within about 10 gb of free space) and it still will read and write just fine. But if left on and running for several days, it simply stops working.

Pros: Cheap, Large, Drive

Cons: You apparently get what you pay for... died after a 2 weeks of use. It gets WAY too hot, which I think is most of the problem. No clicks, but just shows up now as 0 bytes... of course just after I moved my 400+ GB iTunes library to it.

Overall Review: Seagate already blew their "24 response time" for my support request; looking at 3rd parties now... then I'm going to send this back to Newegg!

Pros: Gigantic drive at hard to believe price!!! (on 02/09/2009 shipped for 119.99 from Newegg!) HERE IS HOW TO MAKE THIS FREEAGENT WORK LIKE A CHAMP: 1). Install the software (that is on this drive) on your computer & then turn off auto off feature of FreeAgent. (Yes, the software will not work for x64, but most of us still have at least one x86 PC). 2). (This is optional step) Now format the hard drive. Yes, you will loose the software, but you are able to download it from Seagate website if you need it in future. Now you have a USB hard drive without any glitch & it will work just like USB flash drive. The drive stays ON as long as it is plugged in, turns OFF when you disconnect (just the) USB cable & restarts as soon as you reconnect that USB cable. You can move it from one PC to other & the next PC will recognize it just like a USB flash drive within few seconds. It also turns off & on automatically with PC -even after removing factory software by formatting drive.

Cons: Auto off feature creates problems with novice users. Once in auto off, you will have to unplug the power, wait for 30 seconds, plug the power back, and wait another 30 seconds for it to restart.

Overall Review: I wish they had an on-off switch!

Pros: Low cost

Cons: Like everyone else who has reviewed this product. The Click of death will happen. Get out while you can. Newegg... pull this model. RMA is not acceptable since you will most likely get another worthless drive. This drive is not worth the price of shipping.

Pros: Got here quickly and was small and compact.

Cons: Lasted about 40 minutes before the clicks of death ended its ability to be read on any of my 4 computer systems. Most running some form of xp and the one I am currently on a vista machine.

Overall Review: I hope the replacement works as well as the positive reviews for this thing. Seems the negative ones are more of a recent happening. So maybe its just a bad batch, or poor shipping of that crate or two. *fingers crossed"

Pros: Lot's of space for not much money

Cons: As unreliable as the reviews suggest. Lasted about a month, now it is unredable/corrupt. The worthless Sea Tools (sea stools?) suite did nothing but waste my time.

Overall Review: Back it goes. Then what? I don't trust it at all. HOw many times wil they replace it during the 5 year warranty....?

Pros: Huge space, small size

Cons: Died Within ONE week.

Overall Review: Looks like im not the only one with the problem, either....Stay Clear of this one.

Pros: Low price, works nicely when the drive didn't fail.

Cons: The drive gives me a dead clicking sound, which means drive failure.

Overall Review: I used only a few times a month, and It stopped working within 5 months. All my videos are lost, and the Seagate representative told me that I have to pay a third party to recover the data, which can cost up to $800. Also, I have to pay to ship it back to Seagate. I agree with a previous review; don't play lottery with this product.