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

My Apple Time Capsule failed a few weeks ago. I went to the Apple Store to get another...only to find out that Time Capsule is a discontinued product. This did not leave me pleased, since we have a number of computers in this home that use the time capsule to access the internet and backup data. So, I bought a new router and this 6TB hard drive from Amazon to recreate the Time Capsule function. After a few minutes of reading, I was able to configure the router to recognize the hard drive. A few clicks in the Time Capsule applications, and computers started backing up to the new drive. I think I am all set...and I have enough capacity that I will not worry about local storage for many years. Yes, I also back up in the cloud, but I have become accustomed to relying on the Time Capsules ability to go back in time to recover files that may have been changed incorrectly or corrupted. BTW: For computer historians, I bought a 20 MB hard drive in 1986 for $1,295. So this drive cuts the cost per bit by over 3 million times!

Seagate usually makes reliable external drives and this is very the case with this version. I was looking to expand my PCs memory for gaming given I dont have a sizable ssd and I knew an external hdd would do well enough. With the price of the 6tb version youll definitely be getting you moneys worth. Plus with its easy installation the matter of moving and installing large game files to this thing was extremely smooth and simple. To be more specific to its installation, the ex drive is a model that requires to be plugged in order to operate so dont expect this thing to be portable with just a simple USB plug in. Which something I dont mind as that was what I was expecting from, you know, a pc thats intended to stay in one place. Overall, Id give this a recommendation if your looking for a sizeable external hdd

This is an older drive that has been in daily use for several years. I bought it when the 5 TB drives first came out. I gave it four stars for capacity because now there are many drives with much more capacity. When I decided to switch operating systems with the next computer I bought, I stopped buying internal drives. The PC that I was using when I purchased this drive was finally replaced a few years ago with a Mac. One of the nice things about a USB drive is that when you switch operating systems you just plug it in to the new machine and reformat it to use on the new system. (back it up first). I like the way Mac OS manages the Seagate USB drives. When they are not in use, my Mac totally powers them down. As I have several external hard drives for different projects that is nice. I keep my operating system and program files on the internal SSD drive so even with my data on USB drives my machine is still fast where it counts. If you have other data that is mission critical and you need instant access, you can keep that drive spun up all of the time. As my drives are idle 90% of the time, I like that they are not wearing out while I am working on a file in RAM. I have a couple of Western Digital USB drives that I use to back up my critical data. The Mac OS does not seem to power them down. So when they are idle (even unmounted) they stay on standby. I back up once a week so afterward I power down my computer to make sure the buffers are written to the hard drives then turn off the surge protector for those drives. Otherwise the flashing lights bug me all week until the next backup. This Seagate drive has been a workhorse and has had no problems for its entire life so far.

Ordered the 8TB, 5 days ago and the first drive failed to allow me access although I installed the software specified by Seagate. Disk Utility wouldn’t work nor Zero’ing out the drive via commands in console... Thank goodness I bought it via Amazon and did a RMA same day. I waited another two days to receive the replacement and it worked fine. I ran the new 8TB drive for 19 hrs straight on the fastest transfer speed via usb 2.0 transferring 2TB of film data. (Bottleneck of the transfer was the old drive max speed) The Seagate is NOT made for constant use say Mac Pro editing. But it’s a great way to backup your work and tuck it away. FYI The Mac instructions are, 1) Attach and power up your computer/Drive. 2) Go to the Seagate website for the Mac Fat32 app/driver. 3) Run Paragon 4) Make sure you can read and write to the drive. 5) Use Paragon or Diskutil to convert the Seagate drive to ONLY OSX extended Journaled. (After this first reformat you can choose EX, etc. This Drive is very slow so don’t expect speed performance at this price point. Overall great. Maybe I will update this with video and a 90 retrospective. Update June 6th 2019 The 8TB drive has been working out great. USB 3 speed is more than decent and working well as a backup device...

I bought this to use as a NAS drive to allow things to be acceptable to all computers on out network. I have it plugged into the USB 3.0 port on out router (which I had to add as the old router had no USB port). I previously was using a 1TB NAS drive attached directly to the network. That drive was getting nearly full though (lot of pictures and video) and so I was looking for expanding storage. The 1TB NAS drive had a USB port but it is only 2.0 so I had to upgrade my router to get a USB 3.0 port. I was able to off load a large portion of large files to this drive from the 1TB drive. I now also have all of my photos on both drives making me feel much better about not losing them. With 500GB transfered over the 1TB drive has plenty of space again and this 8TB drive has tons of room left. The only thing Id like better is if I had a 2nd one of these mirrored to this one. That and Id have loved for this one to have had a network connection instead of USB 3.0. Not really complaining though as this isnt sold as, nor priced as, a network drive.

First thing to note is that these are SMR drives. What is SMR? It means Shingled Magnetic Recording, basically the data on the drive is written overlapped like shingles on a roof. This means you can get more data on each disk platter, hence less platters for a given size and thus the drive is cheaper. Ok thats great right? Well the problem is this DRASTICALLY slows down the write speed for long sequential writes. It can get bogged down during large writes and become very very slow, like 10MB/s on average slow. Reads are fine it is only writing that is affected. That being said, the SMR technology does make this drive one of the best for $s/TB on the market, just dont expect amazing performance from it. You definitely get what you pay for, and for its intended purpose as a backup drive it works fine. I cant speak for the long term reliability as I havent had them for very long, but it has a 1 year warranty (most drives have a 2 or 3 year). The warranties are specifically calculated to balance between how cheap the manufacturer can go on the components and how many RMAs they will get when a certain expected % of the components fail. I wouldnt expect to get 5 years out of this drive, not that its not possible but you are relatively lucky if you do. Summary: -SMR = slow writes -Only 1 year warranty = components of meh quality -For the price and purpose, not a bad drive

Ive had this hard drive for 2 years now and it hasnt missed a beat. I use it as a storage expansion for my PS4. With 4TB, I still havent run out of storage. I never experience any freezing, slowness, or hitches playing games off of it. I guess the only complaint I would have with this drive is the size. It is a little big, but not big enough to be a problem. I very much appreciate the indicator light to show me that its powered up. Its so silent that youd never know it was on. Lol I was so impressed with this drive and its longevity, that I purchased another drive from Seagate for my Xbox! Id say absolutely go for it if youre looking for reliability and performance for gaming!

I was hesitant to order this 6TB drive simply because I did not desire to source a longer USB cable than this drive advertises it is bundled with. It states the cable is 18 long. I believe it to be 36 in length which worked perfectly for our use as the drive and the pc are on two different elevations. After backing up over 3TB of precious data I can now say we are pleased with the drive. It is functioning very well. One thing to mention though: We have the drive setting on the desktop in an inverted fashion. The majority of the vent holes on the enclosure are on its intended bottom. We decided to simply face this end of the drive up for improved heat reduction. Ive tested the drive thoroughly and will attach a screen cap of the ATTO results when I can. The option strangely is not available on AMZ right now for some reason.

Bought 2 of these (8TB) almost 2 years ago, no problems at all. 1 holds videos, the other is a back up for it. I have a few 5TB other Seagates as well, and over the past 7 years, 1 drive went bad but of course I had a back up running on it. Always buy 2 drives when you need only 1 is my motto. I dont know how Seagate stacks up against other brands, the price per storage cant be beat though. Back in the 90s all the brands had high failure rates, not so much anymore I suppose. Over time theyve gotten better. I must stress that Im running a Plex video server so the slow writing to it isnt a big deal, and reading from it is just fine. Videos play fine across my network and family that streams them once in a while. If youre putting anything important on them do yourself a favor and get an extra drive as a back up and have one of those free software programs do a nightly or weekly back up. Should be done no matter what brand you go with.

I purchased a seagate expansion drive on Amazon in October 2020. A month ago while I attempting to backup my data into the cloud the USB connection stopped working on the drive so I was unable to back my newly completedprojects and personal data. The usb would not register on my Mac or any computer. After many attempts contacting and speaking with several Seagate reps. giving me the run around and getting nowhere. I reached out to Amazon who was able to connect me with someone at seagate who was finally able to help me. My purchase came with a data retrieval program. If anything happened I could send in my drive and Seagate would try to retrieve my data and send back on a brand new drive. The rep. at Seagate said he would send me a drive-in new drive right away so I did not have to wait and he was also including a shipping label along with it and I was to ship my old drive back to Seagate so they could retreat my data and then send my data back on a another drive. A couple of weeks ago I contacted Seagate to find out the status only to be told they destroyed my drive. First they tried to lie and say I agree to a send my drive in for a new drive and not have my data retrieve in return which was a boldface lie. They corrected themselve after I informed them that the Amazon rep. stayed on the call as I spoke with Seagate so it had all been recorded. Thank God for the Amazon representative recording the conversation because rep. try to lie. Now Ive been in talks with both Jasmine and her supervisor Daniyal, whove apologised. However, Im out thousands of dollars because I have to make it right with my clients for their videos and audio footage being destroyed by Seagate. After several times speak with them they want to send me 2 drives but it still doesnt come close to what my loses due to Seagates negligence. They also offered a software that will help retrieve data on any SD cards or drive that I may have had my data on prior to transferING to the drive they destroyed. Heres the thing, I was in the process of backing up the new information and final projects when the USB connection stop working. So all is loss, gone, destroyed, forever thanks to Seagates negligence. So mine and my now former clients data are completely gone and now I have to make it right with my client and one now former client, due to Seagates negligence. I really dont want anything to do with Seagate because it seems as though they know they screwed up because at 1st they attempted to lie. They can do more but they are just hoping that I settle for the scraps they are tossing my way. With that said I dont recommend anyone to use Seagates products unless youre ok with them mishandling/destroying your important data and throwing you scraps just to Pacify you and hope you go away. So the supervisor Daniyal promised me 1 drive only to send the wrong drive he explained he did not want to send a refurbished drive a brand new drive. Which is understandable, Only now they want me to return the drive the that drive before sending the correct upgraded drive/hub. I have not only lost important data but my time they dont seen to mind wasting. After thinking about all of this I am totally out and it doesnt feel right. Buyers beware! Do not purchase Seagate products and expect them to deliver anything but but scraps especially if your out thousands of dollars and a client, not to mention your own personal data. So thanks alot, Seagate. You have lost a customer and now I am letting others know what has happened. To the Seagate rep that cause all of this, I would like to thank you as well sir! I am a small business and I count on every single job that comes my way and as well as my clients word of mouth, to keep my business going. I dont know what else to do at this point. Twitter is my last resort. Thanks Jasmine and Daniyal but you guys really dont get just how much Seagate has affected my business. It is disheartening when youre told no more can be done and being made to feel as though my little business does not matter to a large corporations like Seagate.