Seagate Expansion 500 GB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive STAX500102 - PC Components | Computer Hardware

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Big Al (Southwest, USA) –

  

USB 3.0 is a major improvement over the older 2.0 version, with speed up to 5 Gigabits/sec (versus 480 Megabits/sec of USB 2.0). Computers with USB 3.0 are still relatively rare but this SEAGATE Expansion 500 GB USB 3.0 External Hard Drive STAX500102 is backward-compatible to USB 2.0, which is what I got in my HP desktop. There was no connectivity problem. The hard drive is plug-N-play; within seconds after I plugged it in, it was up and running. A USB 3.0 cable is included. It is different in construction from USB 2.0 cables. A tiny green LED lights up when the connection is made. Like most of the portable hard drives, power is drawn from the computer via the USB cable. No AC transformer or cord is necessary. This hard drive is cool to the touch, even after prolonged usage. This drive is highly portable, measuring 3-1/4″ X 5-3/8″ X 5/8″ thick. A backup software called Memeo is included. I did not install it. Frankly, I was leery of cluttering up my hard drive with unfamiliar programs. I don’t have USB 3.0, but I can see the logic of buying a USB 3.0 drive for a computer with USB 2.0 because USB 3.0 will be the standard in a few years. I can’t speak to the drive’s reliability, but I own two Seagate external hard drives and they have been very reliable.

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Gene P. Louie (Seattle) –

  

Here is Seagate’s little dirty secret. The company sells its identical capacity external and internal hard drives under different names: Free Agent, Expansion, Barracuda, and others. Consumers are led to believe that there are various grades and qualities because the outer shells look cosmetically diverse, prices are on a hierarchy, accompanying software are different, and warranties vary.
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This truth is hidden from consumer – the internal mechanisms for all of these models are identical. This was verified by one of its engineers. The only difference is the accompanying software and warranty. Seagate is the only manufacturer that has a 5-year warranty on their high-end and larger capacity hard drives. Lower-end products have a 1-year warranty.
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From my experience dating back to the 1980s, I had less problems with the Seagate brand. When this company built its units in America, the products were durable and reliable – they were “tanks.” When manufacturing was outsourced to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, the life span became much shorter, and defects were very common. To avoid losses because of too many returns, the firm altered its return policy.
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In the 1-year or 5-year warranty, the manufacturer replaces the original drive that becomes defective. The replacement is a refurbished that usually breaks down within 3-12 months. Because this second drive has a different serial number and is not new, it does not have a warranty.
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The fallacy of this policy is this. Assuming your new drive goes bad within a month, Seagate replaces it with a refurb. If the second goes bad within another month, there are no more replacements because the original warranty does not transfer over to the second drive. As a result, you really have a two-month warranty. This scenario happened to me.
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With “rip-offs” like this, buy the cheapest. The hard drive is mechanically identical to the higher-end product. Despite the longer warranty, it is only good for one return.
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So, what is the alternative? . . . There is none! . . . There are only two other major hard drive manufacturers, and they are bad. The quality control on Western Digitals is terrible – I usually get less than a one year usage. Unknown to most consumers, the warranty starts when the unit was made – not the sale date. So, if the hard drive sits on the shelf for six months before it is sold, the consumer really has a six-month warranty on the purchase. . . . The hard drive always go defective after a week or month when the warranty date expires. The third firm is Hitachi. The company purchased IBM’s hard drive division years ago. The inherited Deskstar technology was horrible. The drive was defective and short-lived. Recently, Hitachi wanted to exit the hard drive business – there were no buyers.

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Naomi (Storm) (Texas) –

  

  

I have quite a few external drives so I’m pretty familiar with their general specs, so honestly I wasn’t expecting too much out of the Seagate Expansion drive. Other than the USB 3.0 connector, there’s really nothing really “new” about this drive.

The basics – it’s a 2.5″ 5400 RPM “green” drive – which means the disk has a habit of going to sleep when not in use, but it also means that it’s pretty light on the power consumption. It’s also quiet and has a very low heat signature. Average read/write speeds (over USB 3.0): 30/25 MBps (see “customer images” for my benchmark results).

What it’s good for:
At 500GB, this drive is pretty small when compared to its 2-4TB neighbors. However this drive is nice because it’s completely powered via USB and has a small footprint. The portability comes in handy when a USB memory stick just doesn’t have enough room. And this is where the Expansion might be the best fit – as an IT Consultant it’s nice to be able to have an extra hdd portable enough to take along on business trips. It’s large enough that you can hold presentations, installation binaries and even a few movies or TV shows for the long flight (or boring hotel room).

While the speed isn’t phenomenal (you probably don’t want to run graphically intense games directly from the drive) it is quick enough to handle playing 720p video without flicker or stuttering (I didn’t try 1080p, sorry).

The Bad:
At 500GB, this thing is tiny by today’s standards – and the 750GB version isn’t much better. Unfortunately once you start looking at the 1TB and 1.5TB drives, they get physically larger and lose their compactness. If you’re planning on using this drive as an external storage for movies, music and images, you’ll probably find yourself filling it up rather quickly and wishing you bought a drive with more room for growth. I know that some people probably are looking at this drive as a possible backup drive to use in case of a hdd failure on their main drive, but keep in mind that this is also a standalone drive with no physical redundancy – and drives that you physically move around generally tend to go bad before stationary drives like those in workstations do.

Conclusion:
The Expansion drive fills a niche but it’s a very specific niche. If you plan on traveling and need a drive that’s “ok” on speed and uses very little power, this thing might be the perfect fit. As an generic storage dump the size hampers its usefulness and a multi-terabyte option is probably a better choice.

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