Home > Consumer Reviews > Seagate FreeAgent Desktop 750GB External Hard Drive

Design wise, this is a sleek looking piece of hardware that fits in nicely on a desktop. As to the company claim that it is no bigger than a stapler with its vertical footprint, I can only presume that they have rather large staplers.

That aside though, the single orange light that flashes as though the device was breathing is attractive but not distracting when watching movies ect.

I am running OS X 10.4.11 and it works perfectly, their installer is useless however. After waiting for it to run and configure my device properly (yawn) and after rebooting my drive was recognised but not writable.

After trawling their tech support website they said to use Disk Utility to reformat the disk (my next port of call anyway) so its easy enough providing you have the confidence in OS X Disk Utility.

And as for value for money you really can't get better than this for 750GB at this price. I plan on partitioning it into two pieces, one for time machine ect and I am sure it will do perfectly.

So, overall it is stylish, good value and small (compared to others) and, if it wasn't for having to use Disk Utility to format the drive, I think I would be giving 5 stars.

All in all I would recommend it

Firstly I have to say that this is amazing value, £60 for a 750GB external hard drive is outstanding and you don't even have to pay for P&P! OK it is really around 700GB but I doubt I'll fill that in a hurry.

The design is extremely sleek and with the orange light glowing it really does look the part. It is also much smaller than I expected taking up hardly any room at all.

I had no problems whatsoever installing and transferring large files to the external hard drive it has very fast transfer speeds. I would really recommend getting this external hard drive if you are looking for one, this is a bargain!

750GB for £60 - such good value, and a 5 year warranty.

I do like the design, although my staplers are smaller than this! The disk is very quiet in use, and spins down when idle - so less wear and certainly less heat produced. The yellow/orange light is quite low intensity so not distracting in a low light room, but you can tell it is on and available. As I'm using Windows XP, there was no need to format (it comes with NTFS), and I haven't bothered using the software yet as I'm just using it as a dumping ground for the moment.

I'm impressed and may even think about another if I start to fill this one up.

I can confirm that Rory's comments are valid but Seagate Tech Support has disappointed me. The drive comes with pre installed back up software that won't work with Win 2K even though it says on the box that Win 2K is one of the requirements. The software only works with XP and Vista.

Seagates response to my query for compatible software was:
'When you purchased this drive it did not come with software I suspect it would have been downloaded as an add on.' and rubbing salt in the wound they say: 'the add on software will not work and we never said it would because it wasn't included in that box.'

I've always bought Seagates because of their long warranty but with this level of denial on their preinstalled software, I wonder what their warranty is worth. I don't like their attitude - next time I'll try another manufacturer.

Bought one of these drives about 4 months ago as the Maxtor drive i was using for backups and file storage was full. The drive is fast, quiet and very cool to the touch. Drive worked straight out of the box and was ready to use in under a minute.

The backup software is very user friendly although at present i am only using it to regularly backup my iTunes folder from my computer. I also use it to store my video collection and these transfer across quickly and can be played from the drive without any stuttering or pauses.

This drive is such a great buy that i have now just ordered a second drive as for under £60 for a 750Gb drive these cannot be beaten for price and quality!