Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
(92 customer reviews) 71 of 75 people found the following review helpful
Nice Drive,
August 5, 2011 Big Al "Alan Rivière" (Southwest, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Seagate Expansion 500 GB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive STAX500102 (Personal Computers)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
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...Read more
60 of 66 people found the following review helpful
Not a bad cheap external, but not amazing,
September 12, 2011 Naomi (Storm) (Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Seagate Expansion 500 GB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive STAX500102 (Personal Computers)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
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...Read more
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Works Fine Backing Up My MacBook,
August 4, 2011 Shane Shogren (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Seagate Expansion 500 GB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive STAX500102 (Personal Computers)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The first thing I did after getting this drive was to format it to work on a Mac. Why they don't say this is Mac compatible, I don't know, but it is. Once you format it, it's a Mac drive. I use this as a backup to my white MacBook which also has a 500 GB drive. I don't use Time Machine as I like Super Duper better. This drive is quiet and does it job. You can't ask more of a hard drive than that. At least I don't think so.
