Our Seaworthy Guide to Seagate 500GB Hard Drives

By: Kelly Callahan

A casual perusal of online reviews for Seagate 500GB hard drives quickly reveals a marked contrast between advantages and disadvantages, with users either loving or hating them – and sometimes both for the same model in the same review. This article will navigate the choppy waters of those reviews to bring you a user-friendly guide to the best and worst in the Seagate 500GB hard drive range.



There is no doubt that Seagate commands an excellent reputation in the 500GB external hard drive market and this reputation alone accounts for a great many first sales and even some repeat business. Though the latter seems unlikely it is nevertheless borne out by testimonials along the lines of: I bought the first one but it failed, bought a second and it failed so then I bought a third. Only an outstanding reputation, not to mention a very committed Seagate enthusiast, could pull off that third sale!



The Seagate FreeAgent 500GB 3.5 inch USB2.0 hard drive received the most negative reviews with failures based on overheating, loud whining sounds and poor chipset implementation which did not guarantee instantly recognized computer connections. By comparison, however, the 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Go fared much better. While failures for the FreeAgent were recorded within days of purchase, the FreeAgent Go sustained consistently heavy use for almost a year before failures were reported and, in these cases, Seagate earned kudos for providing a five-year warranty.



In addition to improved performance, consumers were attracted to the 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Go’s range of colors , svelte design, travel case and, most of all, the convenient desktop dock accessory. Seagate were the first company to provide the docking accessory and it’s been a big hit with both desktop and laptop users. A handy and elegant space-saver, the user has only to slide the device into the dock connector and it assumes an upright position. In fact, the docking accessory has proved so popular that Seagate has designed its subsequent 500GB external hard drives to be compatible with it.



The 500GB Seagate BlackArmor PS 110 External Hard Drive received rave reviews. Its most popular features included both drag-and-drop and copy-and-paste facilities for file transfer (thereby catering to fans of both methods), automatic and instant software implementation and an encryption facility for securing backup file storage.automatic and instant software implementation and an encryption facility for securing backup file storage



The 500GB Seagate Barracuda initially suffered problems within the first two weeks of operation but firmware updates rapidly changed reviewers’ minds from one-star complaints to five-star testimonials. My favourite of these reported that the 500GB Seagate Barracuda allowed its owner to watch movies on three computers from the same drive simultaneously while adding new files to a fourth computer. Therefore, the owner reported, he could add movies unattended to the system while he watched Iron Man on the plasma in the living room, his kids enjoyed the adventures of Shrek in the rumpus room and his wife cooed over the Babies documentary in the Den. Now that’s smooth sailing, Seagate!