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Seagate Goflex 3TB External Hard drive


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Seagate Goflex,

 

It does exactly what it says on the tin - a 3 tb (2.72 after formatting) usb3.0 harddrive. (and has survived a 1 metre drop by my idiot friend)

 

I am not sure if it supports USB 2.0, I think it does because it also requires to be plugged into a power outlet - but i'm not sure whether it's just as fast as usb 2.0 should be.

 

I bought the 3TB model ( STCA3000101 ) earlier in this year when I was helping my friend store some camera raws when his harddrive broke.

If I put my ear to it, I can hear it make a little noise, but it doesn't make enough noise to be noticable if you're more than probably 50cm away from it.

 

I haven't tried to use any of it's 'instant' backup features - but they apparently come with the software.

I don't believe you can password it - which is a big con.

 

It was literally plug it in and use.

Oh, I bought mine from the US, and use a travel adaptor which I already owned.

 

My friend's friend :P, was able to copy files from it to his macbook, but wasn't able to copy files to it without some trial software, or formatting it. Because of ithe amount of other stuff on it, formatting was not an option, so we ended up using a smaller hard drive and transferring them 500 gb at a time.

 

The amazon base price was $149.99

It cost me $38.36 in shipping to the UK as I used amazon's expedited shipping. (It would have been $12.56 without it)

It cost me $37.67 with expedited shipping for import fees / duty. (It would have been $32.51 without expedited shipping)

So the total was $226.07 with expedited shipping, ($195.06 without)

With expedited shipping - the estimated delivery time was exactly 5 days from when I ordered (I ordered on a thursday and it came on a tuesday). Without, it was 13 to 23 days (this accounts for non-working days), so unless you are ordering a few weeks in advance, the $30.96 is worth it.

 

So after spending a grand total of $226.07, I recieved a $7.15 refund because the export fee reduced, which put me in a great mood., bringing my final total to $218.85 which equals £135.69.

I got my travel adaptor from china years ago, so i'm not aware of how much it costed ( but you can get them for $1.46 = 91p on ebay. if not your local hardware store)

 

So there aren't really any pro's -

its your standard 3tb usb3.0 hard drive

doesn't make noise

oh - actually I guess its transportable ( its just a bit bigger than my hand and I was able to carry it and it's cables in a small bag to starbucks. (It weighs less than my laptop charger anyways.)

 

The only con is I don't think you can password the harddrive. (Ofcourse you can encrypt the files you store on it - taking care of that problem) I used winrar for this so I guess the con doesn't really make a difference. And also - I found passwording my other external harddrive to be a pain in the ass when I later tried to boot from it.

 

I'd give this 100/100, does what it's meant to do, had no problems, durable, doesn't get hot and no password doesn't cause any problems. And after the camera raws, I still have more space remaining than my 3 500gb harddrives put together, so big + for its space - I don't think i'll be buying another harddrive for several years.

Oh and as for price, £120 (with 13-23 days delivery from amazon) is awesome for 3TB, if you don't like it - there is a hefty price of around $45 = £27.90 for shipping it back (including tax & duties) so you lose around £20 returning it to the US than you would returning it to the UK.

 

I would imagine that this harddrive would be a bargain in the US as it would be $150. (Unless you guys hiding some secrets over there)

  • Like 1

8 Comments


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Jefke

Posted

Truecrypt and the drive is password protected (or winrar like you said is also possible ^^).

 

Did you run any speed test on it or did you try watching HD (720p or 1080p) directly from it.

The speed is the thing that interest me the most (although I don't need external HDD, I got nas devices ^^)

  • Like 1
jaie

Posted

I've watched plenty of HD videos from it - It has had no problems

 

I just did a winsat test, but did you have a program in mind to test it with?

C:\Windows\system32>winsat disk -drive F -xml winsat_F

Windows System Assessment Tool

> Running: Feature Enumeration ''

> Run Time 00:00:00.00

> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive F -seq -read'

> Run Time 00:00:08.80

> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive F -ran -read'

> Run Time 00:00:18.31

> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive F -scen 2009'

> Run Time 00:00:58.95

> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive F -seq -write'

> Run Time 00:00:06.57

> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive F -flush -seq'

> Run Time 00:00:03.14

> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive F -flush -ran'

> Run Time 00:00:11.54

> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive F -hybrid -ran -read -ransize 4096'

NV Cache not present.

> Run Time 00:00:00.05

> Running: Storage Assessment '-drive F -hybrid -ran -read -ransize 16384'

NV Cache not present.

> Run Time 00:00:00.01

> Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 136.95 MB/s 7.0

> Disk Random 16.0 Read 0.87 MB/s 2.9

> Responsiveness: Average IO Rate 2.32 ms/IO 6.8

> Responsiveness: Grouped IOs 10.95 units 7.0

> Responsiveness: Long IOs 4.89 units 7.7

> Responsiveness: Overall 53.58 units 6.9

> Responsiveness: PenaltyFactor 0.0

> Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 143.67 MB/s 7.1

> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 2.977 ms 6.7

> Latency: 95th Percentile 37.919 ms 2.3

> Latency: Maximum 72.962 ms 7.8

> Average Read Time with Random Writes 15.881 ms 3.2

> Total Run Time 00:01:48.45

 

 

Edit: Oh I also forgot it's was advertised as 7200 rpm (i'm not sure how it compares to toher 7200rpm hard drives)

Xander

Posted

You mentioned after formatting less disk space was available, you didn't mention however which filesystem was used. NTFS? Ext4, XFS, something else?

jaie

Posted

It uses NTFS

Xander

Posted

I'm not sure of the limits of the NTFS filesystem, but the 2TB version (I got it delivered yesterday) had 2TB minus 400MB which was default stuff.

 

I'm going to reformat the 2TB version to BrtFS I think. Then again, I'm assuming you use Windows so that leaves you with little choice regarding filesystem. The only con I've noticed so far is the sound it produces, it's not much - but you surely can hear it when your more than 50 cm away - maybe your desk is setup differently.

Jefke

Posted

Well, 3TB according to manufacturies is 3000GB , which is 3.000.000MB which is 3.000.000.000KB which is 3.000.000.000.000Byte

Which is of course bs :P

 

3TB = 3072GB = 3.145.728MB = 3.221.225.472KB = 3.298.534.883.328Byte

 

Pretty large difference ^^

 

3.000.000.000.000byte = 2.929.687.500KB = 2.861.023 MB = 2794GB = 2.73 TB (or 2.72TB depends how you round)

 

I did round some numbers here ^^

Just pointing out that 2.72 doesn't has to be caused by formatting, just BS from WD (and any other manufactorer :P)

  • Like 1
Xander

Posted

Your point is accurate and valid (it's bs they don't just use like 1024MB = 1GB, etc..).

 

I just checked with the "so-called" 2TB drive.

 

# fdisk -l /dev/sdd

Disk /dev/sdd: 2000.4 GB, 2000398933504 bytes

(snip)

 

While in fact, 2TB equals 2199023255552 bytes - even though fdisk reports it's 2000.4GB it's actually 1863.02 GB. (+-1.86 TB).

 

- You present a valid point DrJoske (once again, haha) - still now I feel cheated (should have checked better) >.>

PiNoY

Posted

Good review Jaie, I will wait more time for the price of this to go down and think about it . My idea tells me that I can use this on RAID-based backup external drive, though i dont need one yet.

 

Keep it up!

 

PS

There are reasons why 2TB is not 2TB after format btw.

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