Seagate FreeAgent Desktop / 500GB 7200RPM 8MB / USB 2.0 / 3.5 inch External Hard Drive / ST305004FDD1E1-RK

This is an excellent drive and brilliant service from Play.com, but you'll have to fight with Seagate to get the 5 year warranty!!

I gave Seagate two weeks to respond to this, but they haven't given me a satisfactory reply. If you check the online warranty, you'll see that the warranty status is only until May 2008! Definitely not five years, despite their claims both on the box and in the warranty statement.

I encourage any of you who get this to email them and make sure they update this database. When I emailed customer support, they said that I was wrong and that the warranty for ALL external drives was only 2 years!

Got the drive next day! awesome delivery by Play.com, i've ordered hundreds of things in the past never once had any kind of issue, on time, and in one piece every time so if you've got any concerns about that, don't!

Plugged drive in, drive loaded thats it! as simple as, very good modern and fast USB connection, silent you litterally cannot here this drive even when playing games, and copying music! very fast data transfer to! I copied 60gb worth of games off my internal drive to this one in around 30 mins, 60gb in 30mins! It plays games really well, with fast loading times and no lagging! music and video playback also really fast.

As the last reviewer said you DO! GET 5 YEARS WARRANTY, i don't know what happened in the first review? but you get a card and all the required paperwork in the box and you certainly get 5 years warrenty!

very highly recommend this piece of equipment!

I bought this to back up all my important data including university work and the usual years worth of photos, videos etc. The specs do look great and its really well priced but I used it twice before it developed a fault for no reason (I ahven't knocked over, dropped it in the bath or set it on fire... not yet). I've lost ALL the data I uploaded unless I pay to get it recovered (the warranty doesn't cover this) which is really really rubbish. So to be honest, if you want to back anything worth keeping don't use this, it let me down after 5 days. I also asked Seagate for help and they didn't give me a reply, so I can't say much for their customer service.

This drive not only looks fantastic but it's near-silent! Speed seems fine but I haven't benchmarked it. Best bit has to be the strip orange status light that gradually fades in & out as data is copied!

The last reviewer worried me about the warranty so I went online to Seagate's home page and entered the serial/part no and it shows

In Warranty
Expiration 30-Mar-2012

So it seems he was just unlucky and should get his problem sorted as this external drive definitely has 5 years warranty! can't beat that! well you could with 6 years I suppose, but you get the point!

Well Happy! Cheers!

The item is exactly as everyone has described a real genuine bargain price for its quality. You would of course expect that from Seagate.
I am running this on an IMac with exactly the same results as other reviewers. It probably took me seconds to change the format in fact it happened so quickly I did not realise it had happened. It is so quiet and there does not seem to be a problem with over heating even though it has no fan.
My main concern was reading one of the initial reviews about problems with the warranty.
I think the instructions and descriptions leave something to be desired but I would advise purchasers to visit Seagate Web Site and register your item on line. This then assures you that the warranty does exist if necessary. This instruction does not seem to appear anywhere.