Amazon.co.uk:Customer reviews: Seagate Expansion 4 TB USB 3.0 Desktop 3.5 inch External Hard Drive for PC and Xbox One - Black

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Seagate Expansion 4 TB USB 3.0 Desktop 3.5 inch External Hard Drive...

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Customer reviews

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5

754 global ratings

5 star		72%
4 star		20%
3 star		3%
2 star		2%
1 star		3%

Seagate Expansion 4 TB USB 3.0 Desktop 3.5 inch External Hard Drive for PC and Xbox One - Black

bySeagate

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Top positive review

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Best aftersales service in the industry.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 April 2017

I left a 1 star review for this drive after it apparently failed for no reason after just 2 years of light use. However, Seagate responded to my review and their customer service has been outstanding. They got the drive working again and I am delighted. I would purchase another Seagate product based solely on their attitude to customer care.

331 people found this helpful

Top critical review

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Not what I thought it would be like.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 January 2015

Disappointed! I ordered the 4 TB Version, image shows a small drive with just a USB cable attached and none of the descriptions tell you the disk will only work with a mains power unit attached. Sure, if you mess about with the images and combinations of drive sizes, you eventually see the full size of the unit next to the laptop, but there is still just one cable and no mention of the included psu.
Still, I decided to persevere, 4tb of storage for under £100 isn't bad and although having to plug the unit in to work, I decided to try it but use it as a main storage device instead of backup for my MacBook Pro. It all seems to work fine so I set it up to work with a wireless Verbatim Mediashare unit, which it does fine, apart from the noise! It doesn't seem to turn off, so the noise is constant and annoying.
So, I have decided to return it and look for a large portable drive, with no power unit.

One person found this helpful

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From United Kingdom

Best aftersales service in the industry.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 April 2017

Verified Purchase

I left a 1 star review for this drive after it apparently failed for no reason after just 2 years of light use. However, Seagate responded to my review and their customer service has been outstanding. They got the drive working again and I am delighted. I would purchase another Seagate product based solely on their attitude to customer care.

331 people found this helpful

Fantastic Product, Great Price.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 July 2013

Verified Purchase

What a brilliant piece of kit. If you compare allot of other external hard drives out there, most are heavily overpriced and some, not all, but some do have a short life span which put me off, (not naming any names, just incase, lol). This Seagate 4TB model, was priced near enough to a WD 2TB model, so this was a no brainer.

You can back up any Mac computers with this, even though the unit is formatted out the box for Windows systems. It's really easy to format for any Mac. Just use your "Disk Utility" select the hard drive, go to Partition and decide how many Partitions you want under the Partition Layout, in my case I only needed the 1. Then from the selection menu, change it from "EXFAT" to "Mac OS Extended Journaled". Select "Options" at the bottom and then select "GUI Partition Table" option, and thats it, your all good to go.

I am using this product for one thing and one thing only, and that is to back up my entire collection of Bluray's and normal DVD's. I have a huge amount of movies to rip and copy to this drive, and it will most likely take me 8 to 12 months to get through my collection, lol. Yes you herd me correctly, 8 to 12 months, lol, but I cannot purchase anymore because it's just getting silly. Anyway, this product which I have been using for 2 days now has been working perfectly, and I will most likely be purchasing a second one, as I have a strong feeling my collection will swallow 4TB no problem, so another I think will be needed.

Great product folks, and a great price also.

One person found this helpful

Quick, large and reasonably priced - Ideal for large transfers or temporary storage.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 August 2015

Verified Purchase

I needed a cheap and quick way of getting a lot of external storage, and this was what I bought - I bought it purely on price and availability. It was only going to be to transfer large amounts of data, not to be depended upon for crucial archives or back ups.

For this task, it has performed admirably; I've had it for around 20 months with intermittent usage and it's still working well and it's pretty much silent.
I'm far more picky about buying hard disk drives for crucial data or where performance is very important, but in this regard, most external hard disks are similar; They tend to use cheaper hard disks (some claim they are often refurbs or returned units), and the USB controller is always a weak point (and the most common thing to go wrong with external drives).

If you need quick access to large, external temporary storage, I can recommend it based upon my experience. If you're using it to store anything important or irreplaceable, make sure you have it backed up elsewhere. However, this is good advice for any drive.

Reasonably-priced (c.a. £100), efficient and fast hard drive.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 August 2015

Verified Purchase

Bought this as a back-up for several portable hard drives. Has functioned well for almost a year now.

Pros:
- Very easy to use. Plug it in to the mains, connect it to your laptop and you're away
- USB 3.0 transfer speeds are significantly better than the transfer speeds on my (also 3.0) portable hard drives.
- Very quiet. Practically inaudible when not in use, and only very quietly hums when called on.
- Small blue light lets you know it's plugged into the mains.
- Doesn't get particularly hot, even when used for extended periods of time.

Cons:
- Casing plastic not the firmest; has slightly more give than I'm completely comfortable with. Feels solid, but not unbreakable. Hardly advisable under any circumstances, but definitely would not feel comfortable dropping it onto a bed or a chair, unlike several of my portable hard drives (not just the ruggedised ones)
- When I pick it up I can hear something rattling inside. No idea what it is yet, and it has yet to have any impact on the hard drive (no corruption, no slowing-down, no recent changes in heat output), but a cause for concern regardless. Will follow up if it does break.

I've got quite a few external backup disks now, ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 January 2015

Verified Purchase

I've got quite a few external backup disks now, so this is one amongst many. I've purchased different types and manufacturers, and this one works as well as all the others. Its a standard size, same as all the others, and it comes with a light mains wall wart and a USB3 lead. For me, a big plus point is that it is 4TB because I create a lot of data and I back it up daily, so this drive is just what I need. I have it on a mains timer switch so it turns on at night and a PC task backs up the data and the drive powers down later. My only criticism of this product is the USB3 lead which is different to all my other USB2 leads, being USB3 obviously. But personally I'd rather have a USB2 in case the lead fails.... Still, I won't stand in the way of progress!

Not what I thought it would be like.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 January 2015

Verified Purchase

Disappointed! I ordered the 4 TB Version, image shows a small drive with just a USB cable attached and none of the descriptions tell you the disk will only work with a mains power unit attached. Sure, if you mess about with the images and combinations of drive sizes, you eventually see the full size of the unit next to the laptop, but there is still just one cable and no mention of the included psu.
Still, I decided to persevere, 4tb of storage for under £100 isn't bad and although having to plug the unit in to work, I decided to try it but use it as a main storage device instead of backup for my MacBook Pro. It all seems to work fine so I set it up to work with a wireless Verbatim Mediashare unit, which it does fine, apart from the noise! It doesn't seem to turn off, so the noise is constant and annoying.
So, I have decided to return it and look for a large portable drive, with no power unit.

One person found this helpful

Terrific Terrapin

Bought two for a reason

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 November 2015

Verified Purchase

I have two of these. Let me explain:

The first one I had for around six months and then it started playing up (hence the dropped star). Sometimes it wouldn't detect (I'm using an iMac) and I would have to go into disk utility and repair the disk. This, despite the fact that I ejected it properly every time I moved it.

This, of course, panicked me slightly. I've have over 2tb of data sat on there already that I really don't want to lose. I use it as an external drive on my media server and it's fine as long as I don't unplug it. But, every time I unplug and reconnect, it won't detect and I have to repair it.

I MUST ADD THAT I HAVE NEVER LOST DATA FROM IT

So, still liking the drive and the price, I bought a second one and backed up all my data. My next task is to format the first one and see if that cures the problem.

Works as it was intended....however... be aware of its Achilles heel.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 September 2013

Verified Purchase

Needing more expansion, this was a no-brainer. The unit is simple and worked straight out of the box just as you might expect. In fact, my partner and I have a number of these and, not surprisingly, the more you have the more likely you are to notice faults.

In this case, the aforementioned Achilles heel is the power supply. It is a so-called smart supply that constantly checks whether it is needed or not. This translates to a high-pitched whine that is audible if you put your ear up to the device while it is plugged in and the USB drive itself is off. It is basically asking the drive if it needs power many times a second. The drive is inactive whilst the USB is not active (computer off) so it gets no reply and keeps asking. When the drive needs power (you switch your PC on) the drive asks for power and the supply provides it.

That is all well and good if the supply is 100%. These don't all seem to be. Sometimes when you switch your PC on, the drive asks for power and the supply says "Huh?" and ignores it. The result is that your drive doesn't power up and is missing from the windows drive list. You need to unplug the supply and replug it in to get it going again. Windows should remember your drive letters but... better to check your drives are all there when you boot, before you go starting programs that rely on that drive.

To be clear, the drive is fine. It is the supply which is a bit iffy. I'd also recommend unplugging it when not in use. The supply's constant whine isn't loud (you won't hear it when your PC is on) but it is annoying and the constant checking for power needs by the supply increases the likelihood of failure if its left permanently plugged in when not in use.

Would I recommend the unit as a whole? Yes, of course. Just be aware of the supply's idiosyncracies and you should have no problems. Worst case scenario - the supply fails - either return it or pop the drive out of the case and mount it internally in your PC to gain access to the files on it.

By the way, if anyone can tell me why a stand-alone unit including a separate power supply, case and cable is cheaper than a bare drive please let me know. It's one of the many mysteries I have yet to understand.

Delivered on time and a good product (so far...)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 September 2015

Verified Purchase

Arrived on time and works well, we're using it as secondary backup for our photographs and it has proved fast and reliable (at least for the six months we've been using it - will update again once it's older). We have an older version that is just 2TB for primary backup and it has lasted over two years with no faults and though it is slower than this one and smaller it's also older... but we'd be happy to buy another of these in a couple of years to cope with our continuing photo collection growth - after two good pieces of hardware we'd expect the trend to continue :)

Update (October 2015): Since February 2015 when we got it it has still working well despite some heavy use (it's more than half full already!), so it's good for at least six months (and the 2TB version is still going strong as well :)

Mister Macmerry

A Very Good Hard Drive.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 January 2015

Verified Purchase

VERDICT :
Buy It !

MODEL :
Seagate - STBV4000200 - 4TB
Model Number : SRD00F2.
( That's the model I received. )

SELLER :
Bought from Amazon UK.
( Direct from Amazon, rather than a Market Place Seller )

DATE PURCHASED :
05.01.15

COST :
£99.99 including carriage.

DELIVERY :
Next day delivery thanks to Amazon Prime.

PACKAGING :
Tightly packaged internally. Should survive most transport 'shocks'.

DOES IT WORK WITH XP and VISTA and WIN 7 ?
Yes it does.
The packaging states that it works with XP and Vista and Win 7 and, of course, Win 8.
This 4 TB Hard Drive works perfectly with my 64 BIT, Win 7 Home Premium OS.

FREE SPACE
How much free space the 4 TB Seagate had before I began using it.
3.63 TB.
That is how much space was on the 4 Tb drive when it arrived
i.e. before I copied any data to it.

SPEED
I can only vouch for USB 2 speeds as I don't have USB 3.
It's fast. Instant transfer for simple docs. ( Drag + Drop = Copy + Paste )
Very fast transfer for most other types of files.

R.P.M.
Supposed to be 7,200 rpm.
Sadly, that will mean it can't play old '78s'. But you can't have everything.
I have the 2 TB version of this hard drive.
The 2 TB version is 5,400 r.p.m.
I haven't noticed any difference in speed, efficiency or noise
between the supposed 7,200 rpm 4 TB drive and the 5,400 rpm 2 TB drive.

ON - OFF SWITCH:
The Seagate - STBV4000200 does not have an On-Off power button.

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF IT'S SWITCHED ON ?
A tiny but strong blue light appears on the side wall of the box.
Also, you might hear and feel a gentle whirring.

NOISE.
Nothing. No noise at all. It hasn't so much as whispered since it arrived.
If the drive is sitting on a carpeted floor ( or similar ) you shouldn't be able to hear anything.
If you park it on a desk or something solid -
it might hum a tune similar to Lee Marvin murdering 'Wanderin Star' while struggling with laryngitis.

USB CABLE :
The hard drive comes with a standard USB cable.
USB Cable Length = 115 cm. ( 45 inches ) including the plugs on each end.

ADAPTER
Input - 100 to 240 Volts ( AC )
Output - 12 Volts ( DC ) 1.5 A.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL TECHNO TRAIL :
Hard Drive Company, Seagate - Holland.
Hard Drive Manufactured in - China.
Hard Drive Assembled in - Thailand.
Hard Drive Sold in - Europe.

It's a Joined-Up World !

Hope some of the above helps.

One person found this helpful

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