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

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

Writing this review has been a roller coaster ride. I got my original drive from Amazon, plugged it in to an XP system and essentially Nothing. The Seagate product specs say that its plug and play compatible with Windows XP, but it didnt work on my XP system, but read on. Normally, XP cannot handle drives that are bigger than 2TB because XP does not natively understand how to handle the GPT (GUID Partition Table) format. The GPT format is necessary for drives over 2TB. So at least in theory, XP cannot access this 5TB drive, but keep reading. I called Seagate tech support, but hung up after 30 minutes on hold. I went through Seagates online troubleshooter and it said to return it which is what I did. Now the punch line. My replacement drive from Amazon arrived. I plugged it into my XP system and bingo, there it pops up into My Computer as a 5TB drive (4.54TB usable space). WTF??? Its not supposed to work on XP!! Yet there it is, and I loaded no special drivers either. It turns out that the Seagate 5TB USB Expansion drive really is Plug and Play for Windows XP. The original drive that I received from Amazon was simply a bad drive. The replacement drive is working just fine so far. How do they do the impossible? The Seagate Expansion drive is actually two drives (from the USB ports perspective). The first is a small drive that is a standard MBR format that Windows XP can read without any problems. The contents of that drive get autoloaded by XP which contains a GPT driver for USB drives. Then that drive is switched off and the main 5TB volume gets loaded. The result is that the drive really is plug and play for Windows XP. And not only that, but its the full 5TB volume and not split into multiple 2TB volumes. So while the DOA Seagate drive did not impress me, the working replacement seems to be fine. I should also point out that while XP now works flawlessly (as far as I can tell) with this drive, Windows 7 was a bit flakey. That was remedied by installing SP1 for Windows 7. I do recommend SP1 if you have Windows 7 and of course SP3 for Windows XP if you want this drive to work optimally. UPDATE: The drive continues to function well. I tested it on Linux Mint and also Tomato. Tomato worked at first, but then crashed. The problem is with Tomato as it just couldnt handle the large 150GB file I sent it all at once. Had I sent a series of smaller files, I think it would have been fine. I also tested it on a Win7+SP1 machine using a USB 3.0 port. I dont believe the drive supports USB 3.1, but the 3.0 speeds were awesome. UPDATE 2: I see that other people are having similar problems with this drive not working properly on XP. Because this drive needs to have its pseudo-drive autoloaded, I will suggest that they make sure that autoloading is enabled. Some people, and possibly anti-virus programs, will turn off autoloading for security reasons. I would suggest trying the drive with autoloading enabled and then disable it again once the drive comes up. Also, Im not sure where Seagate keeps this hidden pseudo-drive with the XP driver. It is either in firmware or on a hidden partition. If its the latter, then repartitioning the drive can ruin its XP compatibility.

I purchased this drive (5TB) as a redundant backup drive for my Windows Storage Spaces (4TB). I needed an extra level of security so that I could sleep well at night knowing my image files had a double level of backup, and I wanted an external drive I could keep away from the main system in case there was an unfortunate virus attack or other calamity. Cost per TB is so low these days that its hardly worth quibbling about price and value. Im a life-long Seagate enthusiast from way back in the early 80s. I stick with what has always worked for me, I dont ever consider any other brand at this point, just to keep it simple. I dont do speed tests, or any other type of bench testing, because Im just not that kind of end user. I worry about how long a hard drive lasts (they arent supposed to last forever), how well it holds up after endless hours of work, and if the warranty will cover my purchase well enough should it need replacing. To date, Ive never had to use a warranty, my drives always seem to last longer than expected. Im one of those users who lost a fair amount of data ages ago and learned my lesson. I always use a redundant backup scenario now, and having such a large drive (5TB) to simplify my needs makes my life a whole lot easier. So far, not a problem yet, and everything keeps on keepin on!

I bought this over 6 years ago and its still going strong without showing any signs that its going to fail soon. The key to making it last is to not move it while is running and keep it away from vibrations. (Like having it on a desk that you drop stuff on. Any jolt like that has the potential of damaging it over time) I have mine on a separate shelf with my battery backups to avoid problems.

This is my second 5 TB Seagate drive from this series and my 5th Seagate expansion external drive. I use them as storage, backup and they do not disappoint. I run it through USB 2 hubs so high speed is not so critical as I am hamstrung by USB. I have 8 drives all working and addressable simultaneously. Pros Low cost/TB Transfer rates over 35MB/s via USB including encryption overheads plug and play easy to use Reliable: I have various Seagate running since 2008, and older ones were retired still working Cons The LED has tended to move all over the place in different models: side, top, back etc., and its useful as added feedback of drive activity. You cant stack these drives and see the LEDs in the same spot It comes with no utilities and software, but users can get them from Seagates website, e.g. Seatools Fairly tough drive, if the head is parked. A few years ago one cable was caught in my headphones that I yanked so fell from a 1.5 foot perch to a rugged floor. No data was lost, the drive was fine after a Seatool testing. Months later I tipped over a drive and it fell on its side, subtly damaging the drive. I was able to recover the data and Seagate even replaced the drive under warranty. External drives seem robust but they are fragile during reading or writing data. I have since mount all drives on a rigid frame so they cannot be knocked over. Ive routed cables and zip tied them so they cannot be accidentally pulled out. Ive also replaced my headphone with a bluetooth one.

You will need a USB 3.0 interface, but at 8TB, it is cheaper than bare drives, and will store EVERYTHING. You need to backup. Cloud? Can you really restore terabytes of data? Backup needs multiple different media, and saved in different places. With this you can easily buy two and swap between them, backing up every bit of your data on two redundant drives (Im not even talking RAID here). You dont have to worry about deleting older versions. Beyond that, it just works. Plug in power and USB and you get a full drive. Suggestions: If you are on windows using NTFS, turn on compression immediately so you can store more than 8TB raw, and the transfers might even be faster. Copy everything to it (even if you are rotating two, you can sync them monthly), even if you dont think you need the old docs, you have the space. Defragment once a month - it will take a while the first time, but be easier after that. It is storing very high density, so make sure there isnt a lot of noise or vibration, and watch it if youve left it in a very warm or cold area since it gets confused until it is nearer room temprature.

Don’t remember when I bought this, but it was years ago & still works w/o any problems. I usually keep it on, however in the last couple years haven’t been using it as much as it just houses mostly movies and tv shows for my digital library that was filled up years ago and more into streaming last few years. However still works fine hooked up to newest PC.

Im using the 5TB version of this drive to host all my movie files. Ive owned these drives for about 7 months now, and went across the world with these in my carry on. It works great and I havent had any issues yet. Im using this on a 5k maxed out iMac with the Plex Media Server to stream content to any device on my home or remote networks. All I did was reformat this drive to Macs Journaled formatting (via Disk Utility) and didnt want to install the NTFS driver as Im all Apple here. I bought two drives and use one that is connected 24x7 to my Mac and use the other as a back up locked up in a fire proof safe when not in use. Ive also turned off the Put Hard Drives to Sleep function so that it is always spinning (plex has an issue with sleeping hard drives). Transfer rates are good. Ive transferred about 1700 movie files (over 2TBs of data) in about 5 hours going from my the 1st 5TB drive to the 2nd 5TB drive (completely blank) over USB 3. The only time transfer speeds suffer is when doing lots of deletes and transfers simultaneously (for example, swapping out a standard definition movie for a higher definition movie). For smaller transfers, its quick. I can transfer a 2GB movie from my Apples SSD to this in under 1 minute. When transferring lots of data, I have both hooked up to my computers UPS just in case of power failure (which is common here in Korea). The footprint and texture of the drives are nice. I just have them standing on my desk and they take up little real estate. There is a slight hum that comes from the hard drive, which isnt too distracting. It uses a USB 3 cable and a separate power cable. There is a blue light that blinks at a constant rate when transferring data. It will be solid if the drive is on, but nothing is reading or writing. It turns off after about 5 minutes of no activity which you can disable in your computers power saver settings. It takes about 10 to 15 seconds to spin up. Im looking at purchasing two more drives as Im running out of room, and might go for the 8TB of this same model to store my movies, and use the 5TBs to store all my seasons and shows. Remember to always have a back up strategy as these drives can fail without warning. Also, ensure you eject the drive from your computer (click the eject button in OS Xs finder window) and let the drive spin down before moving. Overall, I would recommend these drives to anyone who needs to archive lots of data.

First off, let me start by saying this... I have NEVER written a negative review on Amazon before. However, I had too. Due to the fact that Im not only disappointed with this product, but Im also disappointed in myself for being tricked into buying another Seagate HDD again. I couldnt resist the price, thus the reasoning behind the two stars. Other then that, I have nothing but malice for this drive! I purchased this 5TB External from Amazon around 5/5/15, drooling over the fact that I would soon be able to store all of my personal and business related files on this drive as a backup, before cleaning, upgrading, and reformatting my PC. My PC was already top-tier, sporting (two Nvidia 970 GTXs, the Rampage V: Extreme mobo, i7 5960x Intel Chip, 24GBs of Ram, a 240GB SSD drive, and Windows 7 Ultimate) its not a slow PC in the slightest. In terms of speed, I was shocked by the slow transfer rates, which were (at times) the equivalent of an old ATA hard drive. It took almost a week to transfer over 3TB of data. I also did not like the fact that I had no other option but to take the AC adapter out of the unit in order to turn it off. I did this, because the power switch on this unit is nonexistent. After restarting my upgraded and updated PC, I went on to install all the latest drivers, and reconnected everything. (EXCEPT the 5TB HDD) After making sure every device was in working order...I reconnected the AC adapter, and plugged in the Seagate Expansion 5TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 (STEB5000100) into my Windows 7 Ultimate PC. What happened next, frightened me...a loud humming noise came from inside the drive, as if it was attempting to spin, but it never fired up because Windows 7 never picked it up. I tried countless of times to fire this...device up. No matter which USB slot I plugged it into, the...DEVICE is never detected. Im so tempted to take this piece...of hardware out of its enclosure and place it inside of my docking station, or internally into my PC to see if I can access all of my important files. I dont want to void the warranty by doing so. At this point, I feel as though, this...DRIVE is holding my files hostage. And Im so close to going into full John McClain mode on this piece of **** hard drive. If I cant find a solution to getting my files off this ****, Im going to take off the gloves and get on the phone. And it wont be Seagate Ill be calling, so somebody better tell me something. P.S. Thank you, Seagate...for giving me yet another reason to NEVER buy your products again. -J

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.