Lots of drive with very little problems.
Pros:
Speedy, quiet and lots of storage space for those holiday snaps.
Cons:
Apart from S.M.A.R.T being disabled by default, there are no cons at all.
The Bottom Line:
The bottom line is if you need 500GB of extra drive space and your motherboard accepts SATA, you can not beat this drive.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
This is the first Seagate drive that i have purchased. The SATA interface is easy to connect and within moments ready for action.
In theory the SATA II drives can reach a speedy 3Gb/s, but do not expect this data rate from any drive. Those of you who have SATA 1, the drive can be quickly configured to run at 1.5Gb/s. Unlike the product description, it has a 16MB cache that gives this drive an extra zip. In fact, when tested against a drive with an 8MB cache, this speed increase is noticeable. The drive features Native Command Queuing (NCQ) which speeds up multiple file accesses. The 500GB of disk space is an ample size for all types users. It is also a really quiet drive. When first purchased it, I had to check the disk activity LED to make sure the drive was actually doing anything because of the lack of noise emitted.
The only snags that were found was S.M.A.R.T self diagnostic setting within the drive are disabled by default. The only reason S.M.A.R.T being disabled would help the wear and tear on the drive. I am assured that S.M.A.R.T can be enabled (so the site says.) I have not seriously looked into enabling it though.
The other is not really a snag, but is good ol' Windows XP and its large drive handling. This effects all drives over 137GB by all drive manufacturers. Service pack 1 and 2 gives support for drives over 137GB, but Microsoft in there usual stupidity forget to mention that they do not enable the feature by default. SP1 and 2 are needed and should be installed by all XP users. I only mention this as a gentle reminder or for those interested in expanding their drive capacity. Seagate do have a nifty little program that enables the large drive feature on their site.
Overall, if you want lots of disk space for a good price, this is a perfect drive.
