Seagate (STEB8000100) Expansion Desktop 8TB External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 for PC Laptop

I use this hard drive as extra storage on my PS5 and it works excellent. Holds tons of game titles from its large capacity, if your looking for a good gaming drive this is it!

On USB 3.0 Port, Windows 7 I get the following speeds (8GiB file 9 times in test) - READ SEQ = 193 MB/s, WRITE SEQ = 133 MB/s Here are the total results from CrystalDiskMark 5.0.2 x64: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CrystalDiskMark 5.0.2 x64 (C) 2007-2015 hiyohiyo Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * MB/s = 1,000,000 bytes/s [SATA/600 = 600,000,000 bytes/s] * KB = 1000 bytes, KiB = 1024 bytes Sequential Read (Q= 32,T= 1) : 193.082 MB/s Sequential Write (Q= 32,T= 1) : 133.095 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 0.439 MB/s [ 107.2 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 32,T= 1) : 6.495 MB/s [ 1585.7 IOPS] Sequential Read (T= 1) : 192.335 MB/s Sequential Write (T= 1) : 130.246 MB/s Random Read 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 0.228 MB/s [ 55.7 IOPS] Random Write 4KiB (Q= 1,T= 1) : 1.317 MB/s [ 321.5 IOPS] est : 8192 MiB [E: 99.8% (7435.3/7451.9 GiB)] (x9) [Interval=5 sec] Date : 2017/12/18 12:24:41 OS : Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64) Also I tested these six drives I purchased in IOMETER - heavy testing, with full load, for over a week and did not have one drive failure. Also I see many people, on YouTube, remove these hard drives from the enclosure - there is one single 8TB drive in this enclosure and that drive can be used directly but you of course would be voiding the warranty. Overall very happy with p-r-i-c-e, 1_4_9_.00 & performance desertrider

Normally I dont review things until Ive had them for a long enough time to make useful comments. In this case, I wanted to comment on a couple things about it working with Windows 7 and Windows Backup. First, the disk is formatted MBR (I just bought this June 2015 from Amazon) Im running Window 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1, with latest updates (as of 7/3/2015). I plugged the drive into a USB 2.0 port and Windows Explorer told me there were 3.63 TB available (no 2 TB limitation on how much Windows 7 can access). -File backup works fine. After completing, Im able to browse for files in the back up that were part of those selected for backing up. I havent tried a restore, but it looks like it would work. -Image backup fails with an I/O error. Time to try other software--Ill start with Macrium Reflect Ive now added a USB 3.0 PCI-e card (Anker USB 3.0 PCI-E 4 port card) to my desktop system and tried copying a couple 2 GB files to check what speeds I see: -USB 2.0 built into my Gateway DX4840: 27-40 MB/sec -USB 3.0 (Anker USB 3.0 without UASP mode): 60-80 MB/sec -USB 3.0 (Anker USB 3.0 with UASP mode on): 98-102 MB/sec -Copying 160 GB of picture files (75K files in 2.5K directories), started about 30 MB/sec and rose to 59 MB/sec after a couple minutes. These speeds are probably more dependent on what USB 3.0 card you have and what you are copying than the capabilities of the Seagate disk.

This external drive has SMR (Single Magnetic Recording) media and THAT means.... I opened one of mine up to find the actual disk drive inside the box. My 8TB drive had Seagate (no surprise here) Archive line of products. This drive was initially (and still sold as) enterprise level drive with very low power consumption on stand-by and quick retrieval. Here and there, Seagate literature states write performance is limited. However, this write limitation is for bare drive only and not-at-all mentioned for this external version marketed for consumers. I have this drive installed on Linux box as internal drive. Everything works great in write mode until I accumulate about 370GB in one go. (it works fine if you do this little bit at a time. Im doing copy operation in one go.) Until this point, I cannot tell anything is different. BUT, at around this amount, write slows to few kilobytes per second. Yes, KILOBYTES! Basically crawls to slowest possible speed! Now, granted, I am using this internally and it wasnt how it was sold, but I can also see why it wont make any difference as the same drive is also sold for internal use for enterprise customers. This is an archive drive. TO ME, that means huge amount of data is written to it and the product goes to sleep, only to wake up later for retrieval. BUT the problem is, this data must be written to this drive first, and thats where it isnt acceptable. Yes, I read it is slow-write drive but few kb per sec is extreme. I dont know how this is going to be useful for enterprise customers and even for consumers. It is not unusual these days for ordinary folks in home setting to have tera-bytes of files today. This limitation isnt mentioned anywhere on advertisement either. In fact, this device being SMR appears to be an open-secret, but still a secret. Maybe if this was a backup drive and back up is done per-small-transaction basis, it may be fine. But thats really not what archive is typically done. Amazon was wonderful in letting me return untouched drives, so I am left with just one. Further, Amazon gave me a price concession on this drive. So Im not upset with Amazon. But Seagate and by representation, Amazon, should have disclosed this pertinent data PROMINENTLY and avoid this issue. I bought my set (two drives) for my personal use at home but I also am an enterprise level IT guy. I went through my installation and I can find nothing wrong with it. I also confirmed bottle neck isnt anywhere else. I cant really say I am not going to recommend it as in some uses (basically small writes at a time), its fine. Its what I expect it should do, being a HUGE drive, is the problem. So buyers should be aware before getting excited about this low price in shuck-able configuration.

Removed from external enclosure, used as internal drive, dead after 3 months... Seagate says no to warranty. UPDATE I contacted Seagate about a warranty and they said I should not have used an external drive as an internal drive. I not only used the external drive as an internal drive but I had all of my steam games on it and it was running constantly. Seagate first said they would not replace it that it was not their policy. I wrote back and told them it was not my policy to purchase another drive from the same manufacturer when this one only lasted three months. This was when they wrote back and told me that external drives were not designed to withstand the rigors that drives designed to be internal were designed to withstand. Then they kindly said they would, this time only, replace my drive with a refurbished drive and they would also replace it with a refurbished internal drive designed to withstand the data reads and writes that I was subjecting the drive to. So I learned two valuable lessons... Lesson 1, dont trust your data on a drive that was sold as external re-purposed for internal when subjecting that same drive to other rigorous use. This is also why external drives usually cost less even though they have an extra enclosure included. The 2nd lesson is that Seagate is a great company and they go out of their way to keep you as a customer as long as you can be reasonable and understand things also from their point of view too. If I ever do re-purpose an external drive internally, it will only be to store data and not to use it with constant video streams and loading and unloading gaming data for hours on end. I hope this helps others avoid the same mistake I have made. I have another internal Seagate drive that I bought 6 months before, this internal one is still going strong. Dont try and save a few bucks by re-purposing an external drive internally. Dont use an external drive for gaming unless that is all you use it for, and your games are also saved cloud based. Definitely do not use an external drive for both your data and gaming. That is a recipe for disaster.

listen, there are some thing you need to know before you buy this, first of all, perfection is a tall order, it will have a bug or two here and there, i bought this in late december and as of the time i am writing this, it has given me but one problem, every know and then when i plug it it nothing will happen, all i have to do is unplug it, wait about 20 - 30 seconds, and then plug it back in, problem solved, also, for the people whining about data corruption or unrecognized device, that means youre just pulling the damn thing out of your computer, if you want to avoid both of those, (windows only, i dont have a mac) 1. go to the bottom right corner and right click on the little USB stick (if you dont see it click the arrow) 2. after right clicking click the text that says something along the lines of eject seagate expansion drive wait a moment, and all connections to it will be cut off 3. unplug it 4. if it comes up with a message saying can not eject while in use that means you have something still open, close it then repeat steps 1 - 3 or if you have a laptop like i do, close out of all your programs and close your laptop, and make sure it goes into sleep mode then unplug it all in all, this thing has given me the ability to play even more games and not have to worry about any kind of memory issues

I had completely given up on full-sized external hard drives. They are heavy, noisy, require a power supply connection, and generally are matched in storage size by their diminutive, ubiquitous 3.5 counterparts. So why the five-star review here? Well, sheerly out of desperation, I bought this because I needed a large storage drive for a relatively massive file transfer process I was about to undertake. Boy did this turn out well. Yes, it is still big. But it is surprisingly quiet, and actually looks good, with a beveled black case and integrated rubber feet. But more importantly, not only does this thing hold 8 (yes, you read that right, EIGHT) gigabytes of data, but it is fast, fast, fast. When I connect it to my laptop, I routinely get 160Mb/s transfer speeds, blowing away the standard USB 3.0 speed of about 100 Mb/s. I must say I was completely surprised. Is it because perhaps they have put in a 7,800 or even a 10,000 rpm drive in it? Or that perhaps an integrated SCSI interface? I dont know, because I havent opened the case (and dont plan to). But the speed and quietness of this thing is amazing for a traditional mechanical drive. And when one considers the ridiculously low cost of the unit -- only $180 for eight gigabytes of space -- it hits all the right bells. Bought out of forced desperation, it is now a favorite drive of mine. Five stars. NOTE: A word of caution that applies to ALL storage, not just this device. When someone purchases a drive this size, it is usually for backup reasons (like it was for me). REMEMBER THAT A BACKUP IS ONLY A BACKUP IF YOU HAVE A *DUPLICATE* COPY OF THE DATA SOMEWHERE. So, if you copy your data from your computer to this drive, then delete that data off your computer, THAT IS NOT A BACKUP. It may be an archive, but it is certainly not a backup. If the drive fails, you may lose your data. You have to DUPLICATE your data in TWO SEPARATE LOCATIONS to have a true backup. Its just worth reminding everyone of that because it is easy to forget.

First off, i was wary of the number of review stars on this drive since A) its a seagate which seems to get a bad rap as of late, and B) most of the 5-star reviews are vine voice reviews of free products. Over the last year or so ive come to the conclusion that these elite reviewers would rather keep their free stuff coming than provide honest reviews... but who am I to judge... id probably do the same. Rant aside, this drive is fast as hell. I was surprised how quickly it comes out of sleep mode (~ 2 seconds vs the 10-15 it takes my old(er) WD 3.0TB drive). I ran a long SMART check that came back clean and ive copied about a TB of stuff over to it. Zero complaints so far... but as others have said, well see how it fares in the long-term. If I needed another 5TB right now, I wouldnt hesitate on buying another one of these. Amazon packing was a little sketchy... the air bags stopped the HD from moving horizontally in the box, but not vertically. Other than that, im happy with this purchase. (Update 06/29/2016) Drive is used daily and still comes back clean with long SMART tests. Still very satisfied with this drive. (Update 02/16/2018) Now being used as a nvr drive for 10, 4MP ip cameras -- pretty much constant writes for over a year and still going strong. Id comfortably say this drive has exceeded my expectations.

this is much faster then the 2.5 hard drives that dont have its power most 3.5 hard drives have 12v dc plug i am using it on my xbox one no issues it format easy and isnt lagging on games like my 4tb 2.5 usb 3.0 did i am going to only buy 2.5 hard drives for computers use to back up data then disconnect it and put it in my fire safe so if my house ever burns down i will not lose what is more imported to me house is a house but i know so many people that have lost all photos, videos, mp3s of family member i want to make sure that when i get old and start forgetting thing that i have all my family photos video and songs i am the one at every family get together that has everyone put them video and photos into my dropbox my computer has never want down i dont download free games or software and i am the only one in my family that doesnt every 3 to 4 month i have to fix one of my family computers because of spy-ware ad-ware and viruses if you are going to get a hard drive then i would say get this one it doesnt cost to much 5tb for 129 that only 26 a tb great price one more thing i only use 2.5 usb 3.0 because if we go on a trip i can hook it up and watch or look a photo and video of my family with out having to worry about having a 2rd plug in the van and this means less cables to get messy

Been a year and 8 months now. I still have it but I use a WD now because its a little quieter. But I still use this drive and it stop works flawlessly, of course I dont use it each day anymore but it does still work. Now Im thinking I may hook it up to my ps4 soon 5th month now, still no issues, it may have disconnected once i think but went right back. Still loads as fast as internal, i hardly use the internal for anything. I dont transfer stuff alot on it, but when i do my photosand videos i send them right to the drive and its very fast. I only currently have about 500gb on it but i just got a new cam and using lots of RAW files and my camcorder creates big files at 60fps so i needed this. I also should mention a few things again: 1 i formatted my drive before i transfered anything that way my pc can be more compatible per se. 2. Its only been hooked up to my one pc, if i wanna get something off another i use a flash drive between the two. 3. I dont move it, it sits on the floor where its basically been since i got it, again i dust it and lift it to do that but thats it. Remember its a desktop external its not made to keep moving, get a portable for that. So its been 4 months now and the only thing that has happened is it seemed to disconnect twice but reconnected immediately, although that could have just been my computer but doubt it. Other than that its still working perfectly fine. I keep up with what others write just to look for any red flags. I should also note that I hardly ever move or touch this drive, i moved it twice to dust it and that was minimal, its been sitting in the same spot laid on its front for the whole time. My data still loads as fast if not faster than the internal drive and has no lag. Seems this drive is hit or miss with other users. I saw these drives at walmart as well but didnt see the 5tb. This is my first external and have nothing else to compare it to, so buy at your own risk I rated 5 because its the first day. So I will explain as much as I can. First understand this device is as good as the device you connect it to. I use it for my pc, its a great pc if you have a slow older pc it may not perform at its best. Alot of reviews complain the speed is slow but you have to format it so that your computer can format it to its settings, once I did that my speeds went to about 179mbps i transfered about 410gb in 20 min it flew by, also I used the 3.0 port which is 10 to es faster than 2.0. The drive doesnt have many vents, ut I laid it on its side with the bottom facing out so that it can breath, it only gets warm, hasnt gotten hot. Also I read some complaining about the cords, well my port is very tight so the cord stays in and I have the drive sitting by the power cord so I mever even had to unwrap that. Seagate claims to have a file online to turn off the LED light. As far as noise, its low to me kinda like a light fan sound, its relaxing, I like it, some dont. Other reviews clai ed once you format it to xbox u cant use anything else with it...unless of course you reformat it to whichever device youre trying to use. Now with ,y computer the device shuts down when ,y computer shuts down and it boots up right along with it. I also noticed after just leaving my computer idle for awhile the drive seemed to go into standby (indicated by the blue light going off) but i could still access the files on it and 2 sec later the light came back on. So next thing I did was I wanted to see if I could access the files as quickly as my internal drive, I had a bu ch of HD videos and pics...in case you are wondering I used a HP slimline desktop very great computer and fast. Anyway, I was able to open my video just as fast as when I use my internal, same with pics, it actually seemed like it may have been faster at times. Now i dont know if its because the drive is that good or because my computer is fairly new but like i said its as good as the device you hook it to. I also want to note that contrary to another reviewer this device has not slowed down my pc whatsoever. I forgot to mention I have the 5tb model. Last thing I will say is, there was some reviews stating not to leave the drive running. Like i said it seems to spin down when not in use for awhile but i am ot 100% sure. Regardless hard drives are made to be used and running, my old crappy computer from 2009 i still have and i us3d to leave it running 24/7 for the better part of 6 years because i dont like restarting unless I have to and it still works. My current computer I also leave running 24/7 and no issues whatsoever. Lastly, understand this is a desktop expansion hard drive NOT a portable drive, meaning its not meant to bounce around from place to place or even room to room in my opinion, desktops are stationary as should any desktop external drive connected to it. If you plan to switch between computers etc, should probably consider a portable drive. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. UPDATE: So it has now been a month and this thing is still running smoothly, I havent moved it it has been on its side the whole month, has handled transfers smoothly, spins up rather quickly, quiet for the most part and still very fast. I really think the bad reviews come from people who move it around alot, like I said its a desktop external not a portable, so if you get this get it woth the intention of keeping it stationary as opposed to moble. If any questions, just ask