Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme (1.5TB)
Manufacturer: Seagate Technology Part number: ST315005FPA2E3-RK
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Product series
- Manufacturer info
- Bottom Line:
- The Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme offers three interface options, a useful software bundle, and a lengthy warranty for a fair price. We like this direct-attach external drive.
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Where to buy
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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CNET editors' review
Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme (1.5TB) price range: $199.99
- Reviewed by: Dong Ngo
- Edited by: Matthew Elliott
- Reviewed on: 09/26/2008
The good: Decent throughput performance; supports eSATA, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 interfaces; decent bundle software; quiet and cool during operation; 5-year warranty.
The bad: eSATA connection needs reset after idling; no FireWire 800; eSATA cable not included.
The bottom line: The Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme offers three interface options, a useful software bundle, and a lengthy warranty for a fair price. We like this direct-attach external drive.
Unless you consider three interface options to be intense, there's nothing particularly extreme about the Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme hard drive. Despite its mundane nature, we still found a lot to like about this external drive. We appreciate its simple and functional design, fast performance, and easy-to-use software. The drive features three connection interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and eSATA), while keeping its price-per-gigabyte cost in line with drives that offer fewer connection options. Really, only that handful of users with FireWire 800 ports will find it lacking in the connection department. And it worked quietly throughout testing--an important consideration for any drive that may become a semi-permanent resident on your desk. The fact that eSATA sometimes needs to be reset after idling is the only shortcoming we found in the drive. Other than that, it's an all around good external hard drive that offers relatively high value on our cost per gigabyte chart.
| Drive type | External hard drive |
| Connector options | USB2.0, FireWire 400, eSATA |
| Available capacities | 500GB, 640GB, 1TB, 1.5TB |
| Capacity of test unit | 1TB |
| Drive speed | 7200 |
| Cache | 16MB |
| Dimensions (HWL) | 6.89 inches x 1.33 inches x 6.77 inches |
| Notable design features | |
| OSes supported | Windows 2K, XP, Vista, Mac OS X |
| Software included | Seagate Manager |
| Service and Support | 5-year warranty |
Design and features
The new FreeAgent Xtreme is slightly smaller in size than the previous generation of Seagate's FreeAgent product line. Unlike the previous model that only stood upward, the new drive can now work in both vertical and horizontal positions and has a detachable base.
On the front, the new FreeAgent drive has one large LED that glows white-ish light to show the status of the drive. On the back, there are two FireWire 400 ports, a USB 2.0 port, and one eSATA port. The drive comes with a compact power adapter, but it doesn't come with an eSATA cable. You only get one FireWire 400 cable and one USB 2.0 data cable out of the box. There's nothing else but a well-illustrated QuickStart Guide in the box; no CD or printed manual, and the bundled software is stored on the drive itself.
Preformatted for a Windows PC, the drive worked immediately once plugged in. It comes with Seagate Manage, a light software suites that including backup, sync, and security functions, all of which worked very well.
You can command the backup software to backup a recommended area of the hard drive or a set of selected folders and files. You then can create backups immediately or schedule them to run automatically. The sync function does a little more than that, by making sure that the content of one or more local folders or drives is synchronized with the FreeAgent Xtreme. This way, you can have two exact copies of the same data.
On the other hand, the security function of the software is rather cumbersome. First you need to create a password for encryption, then you need to drag and drop existing folders or files into the encryption software's virtual folder, and then you have to delete the originals. In order to open and edit files within the encrypted folder, you first need to decrypt them. The software only supports drag-and-drop encryption for files, but not a whole folder, making the process very time consuming if you want to read multiple encrypted files.
The FreeAgent Xtreme also works with Macs, but you will need to reformat it. However, Mac users might want to check out the FreeAgent Deck, which Seagate makes especially for Mac by replacing the eSATA port with FireWire 800 ports.
Cost per GB
The FreeAgent Xtreme can be found on the Internet for around $220, which translates into about 22 cents per gigabyte--about the same as the SimpleTech (re)drive . However, though not as eco-friendly as the re-drive, the FreeAgent Xtremes comes with more connection and capacity options.
| Model | Capacity | Est. street price | Cost per GB |
| Vox V1 | 750GB | $200 | $0.26 |
| SimpleTech (re)drive | 500GB | $110 | $0.22 |
| Maxtor OneTouch 4 Plus | 250GB | $90 | $0.36 |
| FreeAgent Xtreme | 1GB | $220 | $0.22 |
Performance
The Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme's USB 2.0 performance met our expectation, though it was still a little slower than that of the SimpleTech (re)drive or the WD My Book Mirror. The drive performed significantly faster with FireWire 400, and especially with eSATa--where the writing speed got up to 440Mbps.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
(Throughput in Megabits per second)
 |
Write | |
Read |
The drive also performed very smoothly and quietly; it stayed relatively cool during the testing process, too.
We did notice, however, that the FreeAgent Xtreme's eSATA connections would appear disconnected after an hour or so of idling, and we had to repower the drive for eSATA to be recognized by the system again. While this doesn't affect the data stored on the drive, it's a nuisance--especially since eSATA says this is the connection that shows the best throughput performance on the drive.
Service and support
We believe you won't need much support for the FreeAgent Xtreme beyond the duration of the warranty. And Seagate delivers! It backs the FreeAgent Xtreme with a very generous 5-year warranty. Toll-free phone service is available weekdays, 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. (PT), or you can e-mail technical support via a Web form. Seagate's support site offers installation and troubleshooting assistance, a download library, a knowledgebase, and a drive troubleshooter.
User reviews
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Very nice fast external hardrive
by Bagheera36 on January 7, 2009
Pros: Nice low profile and quick external hardrive, does what I expect of it without fail. Firewire and eSata big plus, not to many with those options for this price.
Cons: Not sure how well it can be moved from machine to machine but that's not what I need it for.
Summary: I have this hooked up principally for video, music storage and for back up. Has a quick response and I have not had any crash problems as mentioned by a ...
Summary: I have this hooked up principally for video, music storage and for back up. Has a quick response and I have not had any crash problems as mentioned by a previous reviewer. I went for this particular drive for the 7200 rpm speed and the fact that it takes firewire which puts up better numbers or sustained throughput than USB 2.0. Having eSata on this drive makes me wish I had a eSata port on my PC..
5 out of 5 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Get's the Job done
by Hinez57 on December 4, 2008
Pros: Large storage capacity. Cool design
Cons: No power button to physically reset it. You have to use the free agent manager software to operate the drive. eSATA connection causes the drive to go into standby after 5 minutes of idle, but that can be turned off
Summary: Overall the drive has been okay to me. It is very unintensive use which is why I don't hate it. After much searching, I finally got it to work. ...
Summary: Overall the drive has been okay to me. It is very unintensive use which is why I don't hate it. After much searching, I finally got it to work. Seagate doesn't include a disk with the free agent manager on there, so when I formated the drive out of the box, it deleted that and I had to go to their website and deal with that. You have to plug in the drive via USB to disable the standby feature of the drive. I personally think it's dumb to have a drive that goes into standby but doesn't have a power button to pull it out of that mode. the eSATA transfer speed is very fast. I personally recommend this drive in the circumstance that it being used only for random storage that you don't use on a day to day basis. If you need any sort of reliability out of this drive, I don't think you are going to get it. All of the things I've seen say that the 1.5 Tb drives are riddled with failures and problems. I'll keep knocking on wood every day.
5 out of 5 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Incompatible With Dell eSata
by cheateduser on February 8, 2009
Pros: None - cannot use device as designed, marketed or sold.
Cons: Seagate Manager software cannot be used on a Dell system using eSata.
Summary: Spent several hours troubleshooting earlier today on the 1.5 TB version and seagate came to the conclusion that their Seagate Manager software is not compatible with the Dell eSata ...
Summary: Spent several hours troubleshooting earlier today on the 1.5 TB version and seagate came to the conclusion that their Seagate Manager software is not compatible with the Dell eSata which means that power management, configuration, RAID, etc., cannot be used unless connected to slower ports such as firewire or USB. There are several other eSata drivers, etc., that the Seagate Manager cannot play nice with but that information tends to be hidden until after purchase.
There is reduced operability of this device via eSata on a Dell using the Vista interfaces such as Windows Explorer but drive will stay on 100% of time with fans constantly running, etc.4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Lasted 1 week before total power failure
Pros: I like the fact that the storage capacity is starting to approach the needs of today's power-users, though a faster interface than the USB 2 is really needed for a drive of this size. It was not available in Firewire for some reason.
Cons: Didn't have long enough to test. When I asked to return, I discovered a mass recall of Barracuda Seagate drives but not mine. They did offer to replace it though, but I am still waiting on the 6th day for news of shipment, for which I paid again.
Summary: Was probably introduced prematurely onto the market, along with their other models that have had so many problems lately. Seagate...please test a little longer, and use extreme and varied ...
Summary: Was probably introduced prematurely onto the market, along with their other models that have had so many problems lately. Seagate...please test a little longer, and use extreme and varied test cases also.
3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Very unreliable. Limited commercial applications.
by NS905 on May 9, 2009
Pros: Cost/gigabyte is very consumer-friendly.
Cons: Unreliable. Serveral drives failed and were returned. Unreliable in production environments. Not a unattended good backup product.
Summary: Bought 8 Xtremes at 1.5TB each. Terrible. Drives frequently dropped off system and were no longer visible. Tried USB and eSATA interfaces with same result. Set power save to "...
Summary: Bought 8 Xtremes at 1.5TB each. Terrible. Drives frequently dropped off system and were no longer visible. Tried USB and eSATA interfaces with same result. Set power save to "Never", still lost connection. Tested on several different computers (2 Dell Optiplexes, 3 Poweredge servers, one HP) running Win XP, 2003 Server, Sever 2008, Ubuntu. All the same. We bought 8 of these, and I'm not sure we'll be able to use any of them. We're commencing the testing of the smaller FreeAgent Go drives as a comparison. So far, they seem better. The older FreeAgent Classic drives have been rock solid. I don't know why, but Seagate took a step backwards with the Xtreme drives. A huge step backwards.
2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Mine lasted 3 weeks...ugh.
by ryanxj9000 on May 3, 2009
Pros: None. It didnt last long enough for me to enjoy its presence.
Cons: Crashed after 3 weeks. Luckily I still had my files stored elsewhere.
Summary: DO NOT BUY!! Plenty of reviews for this product all over the internet attest to how quickly this drive will turn into an expensive shiny black brick.
Summary: DO NOT BUY!! Plenty of reviews for this product all over the internet attest to how quickly this drive will turn into an expensive shiny black brick.
2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Seagate 1.5TB
by twiz1 on May 4, 2009
Pros: Sleet black unit, very quiet, given the size of the drive it was by far very cost effective.
Cons: The various claims of this thing becoming a brick are to say the leats worrisome, but have heard Seagate backs the warranty including retreival of data on frozen drives. Hopefully I don't have to find out if thats true.
Summary: I recently purchased this unit based on its size and cost...I am using it primarily as a backup unit in case my PC drive dies, so it is by ...
Summary: I recently purchased this unit based on its size and cost...I am using it primarily as a backup unit in case my PC drive dies, so it is by no means my primary storage and for what I bought it for it was by far the cheapest 1.5TB external. I did not know about the possibility of it becoming a brick prior to purchase, but having done some research I have seen many posts that say Seagate will replace the unit and recover the data as part of the warranty. So given my usage as a backup drive I feel good about this purchase. Its extremely quiet and fast even given the fact that I am only utilizing the USB 2.0 connection. I will update this post should it die, but I have had it over a month and no problems as of yet and I am considering doing the firmware upgrade that I supposed to correct the issue completely.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Dead after 2 months; eSATA flaky before death
by jodawi on March 24, 2009
Pros: Quiet, cool looking, great capacity if it worked.
Cons: Flaky eSATA support. Died within a couple months.
Summary: Worked OK for about a month on one machine. On another, it didn't like the eSATA card, so the drive would disappear after a while, coming back after a ...
Summary: Worked OK for about a month on one machine. On another, it didn't like the eSATA card, so the drive would disappear after a while, coming back after a reboot. In theory that could be fixed by shorter, higher-quality eSATA cables, but that didn't help. Their website suggested turning off the drive sleep setting (which can only be done over a USB connection, as their tools don't work over the eSATA connection), which helped for a little while. Then the clicks of death started, perhaps due to overheating caused by turning off the sleep.
On hold for 30minutes to an hour before I could get returns. The tech told me to use the guest return link on the site (since I found all other web options to be broken), which let me quickly fill out a form for the return. Tech also suggested (as an unofficial thing to try, if I wasn't going to pay for professional data recovery) putting it in the fridge for an hour, then trying again to see if data could be copied off, repeating cooling periodically until everything was copied. Claimed it worked 25% of the time. Hoping that works...
Presumably these drives are failing so often because they ignored heating problems in search of quiet and a cool look.
I'll be using my replacement strictly as a backup (maybe secondary backup), since I don't trust any current high-capacity Seagate drives.1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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Never will buy Seagate again
by ultomatt on February 1, 2009
Pros: 1.5 T of storage space. Connectivity options. Size.
Cons: After three visits to service, and over 500 dollars spent, the only conclusion is that the Seagate drive nuked my system. It blew my Firewire outlets, and when a new Firewire board was installed, it blew that. Too much to write...this is a BAD drive.
Summary: I thought Seagate was a reputable and dependable hard drive manufacturer. Now that it appears the only way I'll have a working computer again is to buy a new ...
Summary: I thought Seagate was a reputable and dependable hard drive manufacturer. Now that it appears the only way I'll have a working computer again is to buy a new computer, I can say I will NEVER buy Seagate again...EVER.
1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
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massive storage, fast transfer over esata
by jahpeople on October 18, 2009
Pros: 1.5 terabytes
multiple connection options
small footprintCons: none so far (more on that in a minute)
Summary: When I unpacked and connected my freeagent xtreme I ran into a common problem, that is spotty esata connections. The drive would appear then disappear, rinse and repeat. The same ...
Summary: When I unpacked and connected my freeagent xtreme I ran into a common problem, that is spotty esata connections. The drive would appear then disappear, rinse and repeat. The same thing had happened with an older drive I had purchased, so I figured it was my pc, not the brand new drive, and I was right. Found the newest jmicron sata divers, not all that new as it turns out, installed and rebooted. Upon reboot the drive was properly detected by windows, and that was that.
Quick Update - I've had this drive for about 3 days, not long I know, but in that time I've been putting it through its paces. One major problem spotted, after an early morning restart on the third day esata connection became spotty once again. Eventually the drive would not appear in windows or bios at all, still worked fine over usb though. Checked out the asus support site again, but only one sata driver was posted for my mobo, and it was about 5 years old. Visited jmicrons site which had a much better selection of drivers, installed the latest, rebooted, and esata works once again.
The bundled software doesn't support 64 bit systems, I'm running win7x64 right now, but the software directs you to the Seagate website where you can download the 64bit version. Installed that software, failed to be impressed, then immediately uninstalled it. At this point I had done enough tinkering about so I decided to start backing up some files (approx 200 GB worth).
Transfer speeds were great over esata, had an initial burst speed (about 30 seconds) of 73MB/sec, after which the speed stayed just above 50MB/sec for the rest of the transfer. These were all HD media files, and opening them directly from the freeagent was actually faster than opening them from their former host drive. Streaming them via ps3 media server was also very snappy, as file and folder lists were generated almost instantaneously. After testing streaming I let the drive idle for about 20 minutes, and did not experience the drive shutdown mentioned in the cnet and user reviews.
So far so good. While that first transfer was taking place I hopped on cnet to check out reviews, and boy was I shocked. Still concerned that I may have bought a lemon of a drive considering all the negative reviews here, but time will tell on that one. I may have a different revision of this drive, although I'm basing that entirely on the fact that its behavior is different than what others have described here (namely the drive reset issue ... I don't have that). I also picked this drive up for about 130 dollars at a major retailer, which makes the 1.5 terabyte headroom tough to pass up. I was pleased to see that the drive light reacts to being active and idle without having to install the freeagent software, which is a nice bonus, I hate external HDD software.
If I had any complaints to make it would be that this drive didn't come with an esata cable, but neither does any drive I've seen so I can't really hold it against this one. Fortunately I had an extra esata cable lying around unused (it was purchased for a WD mybook 750GB). Oh a note on that aforementioned mybook follows.
The last internal drive I purchased was a WD mybook 750GB model with esata connections. I had similar problems with spotty esata detection, but it was much less pronounced than it was with this drive. Restarting the pc would generally make the drive viewable in windows. Eventually though the drive became unreadable even when detected, possibly from all the hard restarts?, so I pulled the drive out of the enclosure and installed it internally in an attempt to recover the data. Long story short I lost the data, but retained the drive which now worked fine internally. Having had a similar problem with this drive, also fresh out of the box, I believe the culprit was a shoddy jmicron sata driver. I'm not sure why neither vista or win7 spotted this problem and updated the driver, but manually updating has solved the connection problems. Just a thought to anyone who picks up this, or any other esata drives and has problems with it. Go to your mobo manufacturers website and find the specific jmicron sata drivers for your chipset. If you're lucky, after installing those drivers all will be well.
Will update if this drive dies on me as it has for so many others, but for now so far so good.
Updated on Oct 19, 2009
Pros (so far)
1.5 terabytes
great speeds over esata
Cons
esata connection spotty - After the second driver update I'm sitting here wondering if the drive will just disappear on me again. Fingers crossed, but this is seriously annoying.
Heat - this harddrive gets crazy hot. Surface temp is roughly 89F idle, not idea what that is when active ... but damn.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Seagate Technology
- Part number: ST315005FPA2E3-RK
- Bottom Line: The Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme offers three interface options, a useful software bundle, and a lengthy warranty for a fair price. We like this direct-attach external drive.
General
- Device Type Hard drive - External hard drive
- Width 1.3 in
- Depth 6.8 in
- Height 6.9 in
- Weight 3.1 lbs
- Enclosure Color Black
Hard Drive
- Form Factor 3.5"
- Capacity 1.5 TB
- Interface Type IEEE 1394 (FireWire) / Hi-Speed USB / eSATA-300
- Features Triple interface, Energy efficient, Encryption
Performance
- Data Transfer Rate Details USB 2.0|FireWire 400|eSATA
- Spindle Speed 7200 rpm
Storage Controller
- Type None - External - USB 2.0|FireWire 400|eSATA
Storage Controller (2nd)
- Type None
Expansion / Connectivity
- Interfaces - USB 2.0|FireWire 400|eSATA, 1 x Hi-Speed USB, 2 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire), 1 x eSATA-300
- Compatible Bays None
- Compatible Slots x None
Power
- External Hard Drive Power Source Included AC adapter
- Power device type Power adapter
Miscellaneous
- Included Accessories Vertical stand
- Package Type Retail
Software / System Requirements
- Software type Drivers & Utilities
- Min Operating system Microsoft Windows Vista Business SP1, Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2, Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic SP1, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1, Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition SP2
Manufacturer Warranty
- Service & support type 5 years warranty
- Service & Support Details Limited warranty - 5 years
Product series
-
Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme (500GB)
Manufacturer: Seagate Technology
Specs: 500 GB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire) / Hi-Speed USB / eSATA-300, External, 3.5", 7200 rpm
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Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme (640GB)
Manufacturer: Seagate Technology
Specs: 640 GB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire) / Hi-Speed USB / eSATA-300, External, 3.5", 7200 rpm
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Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme (1TB)
Manufacturer: Seagate Technology
Specs: 1 TB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire) / Hi-Speed USB / eSATA-300, External, 3.5", 7200 rpm
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Seagate FreeAgent Xtreme (1.5TB)
Manufacturer: Seagate Technology
Specs: 1.5 TB, IEEE 1394 (FireWire) / Hi-Speed USB / eSATA-300, External, 3.5", 7200 rpm
Manufacturer info
- Seagate Technology
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Seagate Technology products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.seagate.com/
- Address:
920 Disc Dr., Scotts Valley, CA 95066 - Phone: 1-405-324-4700
- Fax: 1-405-324-4702
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