OLD MODEL Seagate Expansion USB 3 0 5TB Desktop External Hard Drive STBV5000100

I bought this review as I was quickly running out of space on my other, smaller USB drives. My main use for the drive is for home theater storage- I use a media center PC that is connected to my HD-TV. So, for me it was important to find a drive that is fairly "future-proof", ie, with a high capacity, which is why I opted for the 3TB edition. After reading many online reviews (Amazon reviews are a great way to assess a product for purchase!), I opted for this new Seagate drive as it is the latest model and seems to perform well. I was considering purchasing a network drive, such as the Western Digital model, but I was put-off by its lack of USB support (I worry- what happens if my network is down or the networkable part of the drive stops working! -No way to retrieve my data), and the Seagate model was getting unfavorable reviews also. I was also concerned whether my home network would be able to handle the streaming of high definition video files.. It seems that maybe the technology just isn't ready for home NAS yet, at least for my purposes? Upon receiving my drive, I noticed how light on packaging it is- more environmentally friendly. Also, I notice how small the drive is. I have a 500GB Western Digital desktop drive I bought a few years ago, and this new Seagate drive is around half the size! Its really amazing how much storage they can pack into such a small device. So I've already moved many of my media files onto the drive and have not run into any problems. Transfer speeds are about average- My PC only supports USB 2.0, so I cannot comment on USB 3.0 speeds. The drive does feel a little warm, but no more so than any other electronic device- it doesn't alarm me. Also, the drive is incredibly quiet! I had to check the first few times using it to make sure it was actually powered! I will update my review in the coming weeks, as I've only had the drive home for one day, so time will tell if this was a good investment. Also, I'll probably at some point purchase a new network router that can accept USB storage. Read more

So far, I don't have a whole lot of time spent on this specific external hard drive. (received it 10-15-2014,). However, I will update this review as I use it. Keep in mind that so far, this review is based off of first thoughts and may or may not change as I use the product. Out of the box, the hard drive is packaged very well, so you can expect it to handle the abuse of shipping, not to mention Amazon adds its own packaging which helps even more. The hard drive has a very solid feeling build to it. The cables are of good quality and fit snugly into the external hard drive. This hard drive is extremely quiet, you wouldn't be able to tell it was on unless you saw the light or felt the drive spinning. I have also noticed that this hard drive doesn't produce very much heat, at least it stays cool to the touch. Keep in mind that I have mine in my basement which is consistently between 57-65 degrees F depending on the time of year. I bought this expansion hard drive specifically for my Xbox One. I plugged it into one of the rear USB ports on the Xbox One and the drive was detected instantaneously. It has a blue light at the back indicating whether or not it is on. It turns on and off with the Xbox One, so you don't have to worry about the drive running all of the time. It shows 2.7 TB of available space which is my only gripe so far. I am not sure where the 300GB is from the advertised 3TB, but either way, I don't see myself needing to add another one in the near future. It is matte black, so if you are using for an Xbox One like I am, it matches perfectly. I will try to install Halo: Master Chief Collection on the hard drive to see if there are any problems with data transfer for gaming. I would expect that everything will be fine since it has USB 3.0. Update 11/12/14 I have officially downloaded Halo: Master Chief Collection to this hard drive. So far, I have yet to run into any problems whatsoever. The game runs smooth, loading screens are short, and the drive still runs cool even after hours of continuous play. I found out that if data is being accessed from the external hard drive, the little blue light will flash. If the light is solid, the hard drive is on but isn't being accessed. Update 01/03/2015 I have now been using this external hard drive for a few months. I got an ACL reconstruction on the 2nd of December which means that I had nothing but time to play games. I was using this hard drive for 8-10 hours a day between myself and my fiancé for about two weeks. I have zero problems to report on this drive. When playing matchmaking on the Halo 5 beta, I always load the game faster then my friends do by about 10 seconds. I am not sure why that is, but my point is, you definitely do not have to worry about data transfer speeds using this hard drive. I still couldn't be happier with my purchase. Read more