Seagate 750GB External USB/Firewire Hard Drive Review

Data, it is the life's blood of most business organizations, and my small (growing) computer consulting business that I run from my home is no different.  Over the years I have gone through several backup solutions from external to internal tapes, internal hard drive storage and DVD's.  I finally settled on large capacity external USB/FireWire hard drive drives onto which I now save my data. 

I initially purchased one and then two Seagate 300GB external hard drives; these replaced a 40GB (compressed) Sony tape backup unit and 20/40GB tapes that was installed in one of my server.  The tape backup unit had worked well in the past, but as I have added more storage capacity to my file server, the files stored therein have seeming multiplied overnight to where a full backup no longer fits on one tape.      

However, I came to the realization that I needed even more backup capacity, and moving to another tape back solution would prove far too costly in both hardware and software.  Seagate provided a solution in the form of the 750GB external IEEE 1394a Firewire/ USB 2.0 hard drive.  I recently purchased two.    

My Viewpoint

I like Seagate hard drives; they are comparable in price the trouble-prone Western Digital drives, but in my estimation, they represent a far more reliable alternative.  And Seagate is a nameplate I can trust and have trusted for a very long time; the company has around since the beginning of the PC revolution.  I choose a combo Firewire/ USB solution for flexibility; i.e. I wanted to be able to move the drive from computer to computer if need be, utilizing either connection technology. 

The Seagate 750GB External HHD USB 2.0/Firewire is a high-capacity, compact, (fairly) lightweight, flexible, and durable, 7200-RPM drive with 16MB cache that meets all of my current-and, hopefully, future-backup needs.  

The 750GB External HHD can be connected to your computer with either USB version 2.0 (No USB 1.1 backward compatibility I'm afraid), or IEEE 1394a FireWire.  The 750GB External HHD is Hot-swappable, so you can connect and disconnect the unit from your computer without powering down the CPU.  I have attached all of my Seagate's (400GB and 750GB) via USB 2.0 because of the technology's faster throughput.   The back of the 750GB External HHD is adorned with (2) IEEE 1394a Firewire ports, (1) USB port, (1) power connection.  A solidly fabricated base attaches to the bottom of the drive to allow it to stand vertically.

Installation of the drives is simple since they are plug-n-play.  You can use the drive any version of Windows that supports at least USB version 2.0; the drive is not USB version 1.1 compatible.  Windows 95/98 users need not apply.  Windows 95 does not support USB, or Firewire, and Windows 98/SE has no native support for USB 2.0.  The drive may or may not work with Windows Me.  There was an upgrade to Windows 95 that supports USB version 1.0, but it was released only to OEM vendors

Out of the box the drive is preformatted FAT32; I reformat my drives for NTFS, because it allows for robust security and the file system uses drive space more efficiently.  I say that but interestingly enough the formatted capacity of the drive is the same-698.5GB-no matter which file system is used.

After the Seagate 750GB External HHD was assigned a drive letter by the OS, I reformatted it using NTFS and the initiated compression on the drive.  I calculated that this should allow me to store two years worth of monthly (full) and nightly (differential) backups on the drive; I store (6) months of backup's on each 750GB drive. 

Note: be advised, that if you have a preponderance of mapped drives already on your computer, as I do, Windows XP may not assign the HHD the next open drive letter; this has happen to me.  If after installing or attaching the Seagate 750GB External HHD and you get the message that new hardware has been found and is now available for use, but the drive is not assigned a drive letter, you must go to Control Panel /Administrative Tools/ Computer Manager/ Disk Manager, to manually assign the drive letter, or reassign the CD-ROM(s), a drive letter.  Alternatively, you can right-click on My Computer, click on Manage and then click on Disk Manager.

Also Note: As noted above the Seagate 750GB External HHD ships formatted FAT32.  If your computer's hard drive is formatted NTFS, as most are these days you might have trouble copying data to the drives.  My advice (if your C:\ is formatted NTFS): reformat the drives NTFS and the problem will go away.  How to check: right click on My Computer/ Click in Manage /Click on Disk Management under Storage.  Find the drive and note the file format.      

Concluding Viewpoint

Seagate 750GB External HHD's are high capacity, flexible, reliable (thus far), and highly transportable (if the need arises).  The drives warrant serious consideration if you need to backup large quantities of files on a continual basis.  And for those who might need a portable drive, the Seagate 750GB External HHD will most surely fit the bill.