Seagate FREEAGENT DESKTOP 500GB Hard Drive UK-VER 3,5" 7200RPM 8MB USB2.0 - ST305004FDC1E1-RK

It just does exactly what you expect from the work go. Just unpacked, plugged in to my XP laptop and started copying 20 GB of music to it. It is extremely quiet, sleek looking & already NTFS formatted. It is nice that it shuts down/starts up with with the PC: if you want it off, simply "Eject" it via windows, if you want it back on just plug in the USB connection again. The long warranty is comforting. Only thing I'm not sure about is the statement "takes up less room on your desk than a stapler" - what kind of staplers do Seagate use? But it IS compact.

My sister purchased this drive to use as backup recently and I was around to help her setup the backup software. (Note: the standard 'Desktop' version does not come with backup software, only the 'Pro' version does. You can always purchase good quality backup software for cheap though.)

===The Good===
-The product is pretty attractive. A very positive point is that there is no extra power adaptor to sit around, it's integrated into the base of the product. This considerably reduces the clutter on people's desks. The drive is always extremely quiet, suggesting that there is good dampening features in the enclosure (since the noise from hard drives is due to the vibrations it causes when spinning).

-The drive is a Seagate. Generally speaking, Seagate makes the most reliable desktop drives. I use to work in the IT Department of a Fortune 500 company and we managed over 1,000 desktop PCs across several offices. Seagate drives had by far the lowest failure rates. If you purchase a product from say, Lacie, they will simply choose the cheapest drive they can source.

-The power cable plugs firmly into the drives base. Not much risk of the power cable just falling out with a light tug (which could then cause data loss and drive damage). You'd be surprised how many companies fail to design the power plug correctly.

-(edit 1): The drive powers itself down and goes into 'sleep' after a period of inactivity from the user. It's not fully off though, and should you access the drive for any reason, it'll quickly power itself up again and be ready to use in a second or two. It's a good feature since it does mean that you could keep it plugged in to the USB port all the time without worrying that its spinning away pointlessly like most other external drives on the market. I do wish there was an option to turn off the feature though. (edit 6): Actually, you can turn the feature off. In fact you can set how long you want the drive to be inactive before it enters sleep mode. You simply need to download and install the 'Drive Manager' utility from Seagate.

-(edit 2): The drive inside is an SATA drive. So if 5 years down the road, you wish to pull the drive out and install it into your computer, chances are that your desktop computer (by then) will not have an IDE connectors but instead only offer SATA connectors. Obviously this is irrelevant to the vast majority of people, but it is an advantage for the minority of people who actually know how to install/repair/upgrade their desktop computers.

===The Bad===
-I must say I do not like having drives in a vertical position. However, at a training programme with IBM, I was taught that it did not matter which orientation the drives were in nor would I believe Seagate would design a defective product. However, the disadvantage of it being vertical is that (a) it very easily knocks over (so keep it away from the edge of the table) and that (b) it isn't stackable which is a big disadvantage if you have several external drives.

-Transfer speeds are slightly slower than competing USB external hard drive products. It's a minor difference though and only noticeable if you actually use benchmarking software. I figure it might just be down to the choice of chipset they used. If your computer has eSata or Firewire connectivity options, you may want to purchase a drive with those types of connections since USB 2.0 is slow regardless of what the specs say.

-The light indicator is only one colour (yellow) and this is a problem because it indicates read/write activity on the drive with this weak 'fade-in/fade-out' effect. It makes it difficult to tell what activity state the drive is in. The yellow light isn't that bright or distubing in a bright room. In a dark room, it sticks out, but its not exactly a disadvantage since it reminds you that it is on.

===The Flaw===
The instruction manual is terrible it does not tell you how to correctly power down the device. Remember, you should always remove external hard drives by first using the 'Safely Remove Hardware' feature. The drive will then gently power itself down a few seconds after you stopped the hardware. Simply unplugging the USB cable will also cause the drive to shut down but you should NOT be doing this since you risk data loss and permanent drive damage if the drive is being accessed or written to. This is a particularly big problem with this product because the light indicating read/write activity is far too subtle in a bright room and you may accidently believe that the drive is not doing anything when actually the computer could be accessing it. If you cannot safely remove the hardware because it says its in use, then check to make sure nothing is reading/writing to the drive and then, if there is indeed nothing, just log off windows and log on again and then you will be able to remove the drive safely. Seagate clearly designed the drive intending it to be always on when the computer is on (hence no on/off switch) but I do not believe it is practical if you are simply using it for the occasional backup.

Not having an on/off switch is actually an EXCELLENT feature since it stops people from incorrectly turning off their drives simply by flicking a switch, AND it saves people who correctly remove the drive from having to press the off switch. However it is an extreme mishap on Seagate's part to write such an incredibly poor manual. If they have more product failure than they expect, this would be the reason.

===Overall===
A great product if you use it correctly. Probably one of the best you can purchase actually. However, use it incorrectly and you will be a very, very disappointed customer when the drive fails in a year. (-1 star for the manual. For the complete manual, visit Seagate's website)

(edit 3): I noticed that other sellers are selling the product for cheaper than Amazon. However, may I recommend that you still purchase this from Amazon. Hard drives are very fragile pieces of electronics, you want somebody you can trust to carefully deliver the product properly packaged to you in safety and Amazon does a good job of this. Also when you consider that other resellers charge shipping, whereas with Amazon you qualify for free delivery - then you realise that Amazon isn't that much more expensive (if at all).

(edit 4): I recommend people DO NOT BUY FROM PIXMANIA. They are horrific. Of the 7 drives I know people brought from them (a mixture of Western Digital, Seagate and Maxtor) all died within one month. They also have a terrible practice of shipping non-UK versions of drives to customers that require adaptors. The UK versions of these external drives almost never ever require adaptors. They're supposed to be designed for the market they are sold in.

(edit 5): My company purchased 25 such drives recently (direct from our partner PC supplier) so I'll keep people updated if a drive dies.

(edit 7): Seagate has a 'Drive Manager' software utility for their external drives which you can download from their website under the support/downloads section. The software is very simple and allows you to: set how long you want to drive to be inactive before it sleeps (incredibly useful), it lets you test the drive to see if it functions properly (not too useful I think) and it also has a very simple backup function. It doesn't ship with the product in a CD though (as you might expect) so you need to go to the website to download it yourself. If you don't really need the features I just mentioned though, then there's no need to bother installing it since otherwise it adds nothing of use.

Contrary to the other review i think this hard drive is quite portable - it's slim and lighter than most other drives so is easily transported round your mate's house. Straight out of the box you can tell it is quality and it doesn't disappoint. It is super quiet, my computer makes more noise than the drive does. There's no buttons, it powers itself on and off with your computer, which is handy if you're too lazy to press an on/off switch. It comes ready formatted to NTFS so literally all you have to do is plug it in. Easy! Even my gran could manage that! Another nice touch is the orange strip which glows when the drive is active, it really is quite relaxing. All in all, the best looking and performing external hard drive i've bought so far and for the money you can't go wrong.