Home > Consumer Reviews > Seagate Expansions 250GB External Portable USB 2.0 Hard Drive - Black

I alreasy have a 320GB desktop HD which I use for backups at home but I travel quite a bit, am away from home for extened periods and the desktop unit with mains power adaptor is too bulky to drag around with me. The solution was obviously a small portable unit that was powered via the USB connection. I was looking around for a suitable unit at a reasonable cost when I received a promotional e-mail from e-buyer featuring the Seagate Expansions 250GB HD at a reduced price. Before ordering I checked on Amazon and sure enough they were offering it even cheaper especially considering the free postage so I ordered it and received it quite quickly 2 days ago.

I totally agree with the other 2 reviewers - this truly is a superb bit of kit. Smart, small,light but seemingly robust. I did a complete system backup to it this morning using Acronis True Image and it took less than an hour to transfer and validate the 36GB image which is just as quick as my desktop HD. Whatsmore it was barely warm. Am very pleased with it indeed and would recommend it to anyone looking for portable HD at reasonable cost.

If you're going to travel with it I would also recommend the Case Logic case. It fits perfectly.

When you buy a portable hard drive you need something fairly rugged which works when it's plugged in to a PC or laptop. The Seagate 250Gb drive seems to tick both boxes.

Once you have got through the layers of packaging you are greeted by the glossy black drive. It is minimalist in looks, more parallelogram than square from the side. The gloss is attractive but suffers from greasy fingers smearing over it. A single green light shows it is on and operating.

Connecting is simple. Plugging its single USB (simpler than my Buffalo 300Gb which uses 2 leads)in to both my laptop and PC got it up and ready to go without any problem. The instructions are non-existent which is right for a device like this - it really is plug and go. The first time it was plugged in I was asked to register it which took a few seconds and then I was ready to go. Files copied from my hard drive fairly quickly, not as quick as a larger powered drive I have but quick enough. If you are using the drive to back up or transfer between machines it is quick enough for the job. I liked it's twinkling green light, little things like that are pleasing to me! There is also a little slot you can put a lanyard in, handy for labelling the drive or attaching it for a small bit of security I guess. Also, worth pointing out you get the full amount of capacity (assuming you use the 1000Mb = 1Gb scale!).

The one omission, and this is not confined to Seagate, is a case to pop it in to keep it safe and clean. These are fairly cheap and available on Amazon and recommended, especially as the lead doesn't have anywhere to wrap around. A minor gripe and not that much of an issue if it is stuck on your desktop most of the time.

So a nice product, good looking and totally functional, with no design issues or connectivity problems. Highly recommended for shifting data simply and easily.

Measuring 5" x 3" x ½" tall, this little gloss black USB drive looks pretty much like any other. There are four little rubberised feet to stop it sliding about or vibrating in operation, and a single small green LED at the centre near the back. This light is either on constantly to indicate the device is powered up, or flashes as the drive is accessed. It's a steady on/off flash rather than the flickering you sometimes see on hard drive units, but it does the job.

Being USB powered, the external USB port is the only connection and accepts the 15" USB cable supplied. Out of the box the drive is formatted as FAT for use with Windows, Mac or Linux machines but it's a simple task to reformat it as EXT or HFS if the mood takes you. As for performance, it's average for a USB 2.0 device and so will be fine for all but the most demanding user. I've been using this as a Time Machine drive for a Mac Mini for a few weeks now without any problems.

At the back of the case there's a very small aperture that you could possibly attach a wrist strap to, the sort you use for compact digital cameras, although why anyone would want to do this is anyone's guess. At the end of the day, if you're in the market for a small USB drive this will fit the bill if the price is right for you.

Really impressed so far, no problems at all. The fact it runs of the USB makes it very easy to carry around and transfer files around the house, and the 500GB storage is ample for most users. I am currently using this with TimeMachine on the Mac and have no problems what so ever. Very pleased.

Being of an age that I can remember hard drives with a capacity of 1/500th of this unit being the size of washing machines (and when an entire multinational company probably had less data storage than 320GB) I was stunned by the size of the box that this arrived in. So you can imagine how I felt when I opened the box and found the drive surrounded by lots of packaging.

The unit itself is not a lot bigger than, say, an iPhone. The design is understated - just shiny black with a Seagate logo and one green light towards the back.

The device is powered by USB, so no need to have an external power supply, like I do with my current external hard drive. I intend to use this to back up my current disk - which is a 1TB drive, but only has 80GB used so far - so it will be convenient to just plug it in the front of the PC when I need it and not have to worry about finding a spare mains socket anywhere.

Is 320GB enough? There are bigger drives around, but as a heavy user of music and digital photos, I am not in danger of getting near 320GB for a long time yet. I think I only got the 1TB drive for the geeky thrill of actually having a Terabyte..

In operation, this drive seems to be fast enough for normal use and as fast as you will get without going for ethernet or external SATA drives, and the ubiquity of USB means this is ideal for moving data between computers.

There is no software to set up. On a Windows Vista machine it worked straight away, getting correctly identified by the PC. The first time of use you get asked if you want to register the product and from then it works just like any other hard drive.

My only quibble is that the USB cable supplied with it is not long enough for how my PC is set up (it is about a foot long) but then that might be too long for other uses and in any case, who doesn't have a drawer full of various sized USB cables these days?