Take Drive Out of Case I've been looking for a 500 GB Seagate drive at a good price, and this one fits the bill, but I really want an internal drive. Any idea if it is easy to crack open the case and remove the drive? Also, what kind of drive is actually inside? I am guessing it is the standard Seagate 500 GB drive with EIDE interface. If so, then I would just take out the drive and put it in my computer. I'd probably be able to use the empty case with another drive. Probably would void the warranty, though, so maybe this isn't a great idea, unless I can easily slip the original drive back in. Take Drive Out of Case I've been looking for a 500 GB Seagate drive at a good price, and this one fits the bill, but I really want an internal drive. Any idea if it is easy to crack open the... » Read More Take Drive Out of Case I've been looking for a 500 GB Seagate drive at a good price, and this one fits the bill, but I really want an internal drive. Any idea if it is easy to crack open the case and remove the drive? Also, what kind of drive is actually inside? I am guessing it is the standard Seagate 500 GB drive with EIDE interface. If so, then I would just take out the drive and put it in my computer. I'd probably be able to use the empty case with another drive. Probably would void the warranty, though, so maybe this isn't a great idea, unless I can easily slip the original drive back in. « Show Less
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A.J., Thanks for your post, I have just done the same thing and it works a treat. My Mac picked up the Seagate drive on the desktop with no bother. Seems like the case and heat issues are letting Seagate down here.F
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I purchased a 1 TB Seagate expansion drive to back up files on my MacBook. I formatted it using disk utilities, and then the computer would not recognize the drive at all. So now I cannot recover my files. Seagate said that they will replace the drive under warranty, but in order to recover the files on it, they wanted at least $300!! My advice - stay away from these Seagate drives.
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In case you filed the D drive (if you are putting all files on the C, move them to the D) Asus also offers free storage on the cloud. Look into this. else, buy one additional hard drive. You can get Seagate 4 Tb HD for $190 buckaroos = cheap!
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This is not a trivial drive swap. There are two different versions of this pc. One ships with a seagate hd and the other with a WD. No telling which one you will get. The seagate has a standard sata interface the wd uses a different connector and getting the sata one is only available in Europe and will cost north of $50. If you buy one with the intention of upgrading the drive make sure it has the seagate. If not return it immediately. Not worth the aggravation and cost. You can clone the drive with Easeus todo backup software. USB boot is disabled I can't find anyone that has identified work around. This is not a trivial drive swap. There are two different versions of this pc. One ships with a seagate hd and the other with a WD. No telling which one you will get. The seagate has a standard sata interface the wd uses a different connector and getting the sata one is only available in Europe and will cost north of $50. If you buy one with the intention of upgrading the drive make sure it has the seagate. If not return it immediately. Not worth the aggravation and cost. You can clone the drive with Easeus todo backup software. USB boot is disabled I can't find anyone that has identified... » Read More This is not a trivial drive swap. There are two different versions of this pc. One ships with a seagate hd and the other with a WD. No telling which one you will get. The seagate has a standard sata interface the wd uses a different connector and getting the sata one is only available in Europe and will cost north of $50. If you buy one with the intention of upgrading the drive make sure it has the seagate. If not return it immediately. Not worth the aggravation and cost. You can clone the drive with Easeus todo backup software. USB boot is disabled I can't find anyone that has identified work around. « Show Less
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There are no cases. This is the base unit only. You have to buy one or two Seagate goflex drives separately.I wonder what you need this for, but my experience with this was pretty bad. The way the base unit indexes your stuff, the hard drives are almost in constant use. Mine burned through several hard drives very quickly, and I lost data. The first was covered under warranty, the second was a month out of warranty. In the end I bought a whole new dedicated backup/media server unit from synology. Sinology is a best seller, with extremely high ratings. You could also look at the mybook series from western digital, which has a two disc unit. There are no cases. This is the base unit only. You have to buy one or two Seagate goflex drives separately.I wonder what you need this for, but my experience with this was pretty bad. The way the base unit indexes your stuff, the hard drives are almost in constant use. Mine burned through several hard drives very quickly, and I lost data. The first was covered under warranty, the second was a month out of warranty. In the end I bought a whole new dedicated backup/media server unit from synology. Sinology is a best seller, with extremely high ratings. You could also look at the... » Read More There are no cases. This is the base unit only. You have to buy one or two Seagate goflex drives separately.I wonder what you need this for, but my experience with this was pretty bad. The way the base unit indexes your stuff, the hard drives are almost in constant use. Mine burned through several hard drives very quickly, and I lost data. The first was covered under warranty, the second was a month out of warranty. In the end I bought a whole new dedicated backup/media server unit from synology. Sinology is a best seller, with extremely high ratings. You could also look at the mybook series from western digital, which has a two disc unit. « Show Less
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I have been loking around for an external drive, and I've noticed they all fail! IMO the best way to gois to have 2 of the drives and do a periodic copy of each to each. I have a free agent on my mac and it has been working perfectly, but I am looking for a drive to back up between a PC and a mac. Two cheap drives may be more reliable than a single more expensive, since they all fail and you cant "pay out" of the uncertainty. Change that: Buy two expensive hard drives and dont even fool with the Seagates..
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cloning process from 500 Gb to 2 Tb drive. From Western digital to Seagate drive (2tb). It does clone the hard drives well, I cloned my 500 gb to 2TB hard drive. Have to click on the RED BUTTON twice though. Turn off and retry the process, if it does not take it the first time. I had to repartition mine after due to larger clone size. Otherwise works well. I used a small external fan to keep the hard drives cool while cloning. Hope this extra info help users out there. The process takes a long time though, I allowed it a full day to do its stuff. The cloning is a stand alone process, does not need any computer. Need to remove your hard drie from the computer to begin with. cloning process from 500 Gb to 2 Tb drive. From Western digital to Seagate drive (2tb). It does clone the hard drives well, I cloned my 500 gb to 2TB hard drive. Have to click on the RED BUTTON twice though. Turn off and retry the process, if it does not take it the first time. I had to repartition mine after due to larger clone size. Otherwise works well. I used a small external fan to keep the hard drives cool while cloning. Hope this extra info help users out there. The process takes a long time though, I allowed it a full day to do its stuff. The cloning is a stand alone process, does... » Read More cloning process from 500 Gb to 2 Tb drive. From Western digital to Seagate drive (2tb). It does clone the hard drives well, I cloned my 500 gb to 2TB hard drive. Have to click on the RED BUTTON twice though. Turn off and retry the process, if it does not take it the first time. I had to repartition mine after due to larger clone size. Otherwise works well. I used a small external fan to keep the hard drives cool while cloning. Hope this extra info help users out there. The process takes a long time though, I allowed it a full day to do its stuff. The cloning is a stand alone process, does not need any computer. Need to remove your hard drie from the computer to begin with. « Show Less
482507
i agree seagate is not even worth looking at now just taking up shelf space. i have older maxtor, WD and other drives and still running good. I got a seagate from an expensive company that sells decent computers but after 1st power up of a 1tb single disk plugged it in and drive shut down and stopped working. i got a WD for almost the same price.
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I used it as an external drive. Even if you can take the HD out, you still need a sata connecting cable ($8.66 for 2). It has a USB-3 cable which is faster than the conventional USB-2. I wonder why you would pay the price of an external drive and use it as an internal drive, which usually costs less for the same capacity. I bought a WD 4 TB internal drive as D:
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It looks like there are slots for SATA 1.0 and SATA 2.0 with one being used by the currently installed hard drive. So there is an available slot to plug one in but I seriously doubt another internal hard drive would physically fit in the case. I would just add an external drive. I have two hooked up to mine :).
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I've wondered about this too. When I purchased this drive all I wanted was a drive, not a lot of software. And I have no interest in their sharing capability on social media. Maybe someone can answer this, like Seagate themselves.
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I never opened the case on this particular computer, before sending to a client. Like most computers of this type, there is usually extra sata power cables, and extra sata signal sockets on the motherboard. And the case is large enough to house an extra drive. Another option to consider is with the large capacity and very inexpensive usb drives out there, you could easily add an external drive to the computer.
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I made the misstake of ordering a regular hard drive before i knew there was a differnce but here is a link to one i just found right here on Amazon Seagate SV35 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6-Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Drive for Video Surveillance ST3000VX000
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IF you are leaving the HD attached to the system all the time, it is quite possible that you are saving all incoming data/media to the Seagate. The easiest way to check this out is by going to FileManager and then checking the contents of the Seagate. Even if it is full, it doesnt matter- Just select all (using the Shift the the Up/Down Arrows) and copy/paste it in the 'C' of Computer. That should free up almost 490 of the 500GB- as a few basic programs given by Seagate will remain. All the best.
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The Seagate Backup Plus should fit this case. I just measured mine and the inside dimensions of the case are 5 inches long and 3.25 inches wide. The online specs for the Seagate drive say that it is 4.9 inches by 3.2 inches. It ought to fit just fine but there won't be much (any) space left over. The thickness won't be a problem. Update: I need to revise what I said. I realized that the rounded corners make the useable space smaller and the actual dimensions of a drive can't exceed 3 inches by 5 inches. There's a good chance the Seagate drive will be just a tad too wide for this case.
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Although I don't own this particular drive, I am here as I am looking to buy this one also to add to my two other Seagate 500gb Freeagents that I already have that have been working flawlessly for me for over 12 months now. I honestly think that your experience was most likely caused by a faulty unit. Without knowing your computer configuration (windows, mac or linux) it's hard to say if any extra steps would need to be taken to set it up, but for a windows or linux based pc it should be simply plug and play in my experience. As you see on this site, there is only one bad review of the product. If you think about how many of these must get sold every year, one bad review is pretty good as almost everybody will take the time to complain, but very few will come back to write a positive review as a working product is what most people expect. So I guess the short answer from me is yes, I would give this drive a second chance, but then again, i may be biased by my great experience. I hope that this is of some help to you..
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Are you asking about the actual hard drive inside the storage module? According to the Seagate forums while it is designed to be a "no user serviceable parts inside" component, it is technically possible to crack open the module and put in a new hard disk, but not recommended unless you REALLY know what you are doing. As for swapping out the storage module itself with a new one from the same model GoFlex, that's easy. Just pop the old one off and put a new one in.