Seagate FreeAgent Go for Mac 320 GB USB 2.0/FireWire 800 Portable External Hard Drive ST903203FJA105-RK (Silver)

I purchased the 500gb free agent (USB & Firewire) to use as an external hard drive for my iPhoto library and eventually my iTunes library. The problem is that I purchased a Canon XTi Rebel and now I take a ton of photographs, so my iPhoto library grew to 40gb after about 1 year. Plus the music keeps coming and at this point I have about 60gb in my iTunes library. My MacBook Pro's HD is 160GB. When my HD had less than 10% free space, there was a noticeable impact to the performance (everything seemed to slow down). So I moved my iPhoto library to this FreeAgent, and next will be my iTunes library. Note that there are very specific steps to doing this, just google it to find out. Last point is that theoretically this keeps working with Time Machine. In other words, as long as this drive is plugged in when I am using Time Machine, then it is also backing up this drive (which is really important given that all of my music and photos will be on it). Final points on this product:1 - It is very fast with FW 800. When I am scrolling through photos in iPhoto, there is zero noticeable delay even though the photos are all on the drive. That is great.2 - It runs kind of hot. I was surprised that even when I am not actively using the drive, it will heat up very quickly. I hope this won't shorten the lifespan, but Seagate knows what they are doing at this point I hope.3 - It isn't as small as my other external drive, but it is not bad at all. The shape / size of it reminds me of one of the first Palm devices. It fits easily in a bag. Also, the little leather case that comes with it is functional, as it protects the drive and has a tiny pouch on the outside to store a single cable (usb or fw).I would definitely recommend this product.

This hard drive has failed on me in 5 days of use. The Mac OS X Disk Utility recognized the failure as "Invalid Volume Header." Running the "Repair Disk" function of the Mac OS X Disk Utility resulted in reporting that the problem has been fixed but the hard drive volume was not accessible. I have installed a trial version of "Data Rescue 3" application, and it seemed to be able to read the data on the drive and be able to retrieve it. I am going to purchase a full version of "Data Rescue 3" and retrieve the data from the drive. Then I will send this drive for replacement. Actually, this is my third bad experience with Seagate HDD. The previous ones were with the 128 GB external powerless drive that was purchased back in 2006. They both failed. Seagate should be ashamed of the quality of its products.

When it came to external hard drives, I only bought Seagate. We have three other seagate external hard drives in our household. I upgraded to this model and in less than a year it broke. The people at Tekserve (Manhattan's independent apple store) told me that it happens to all external hard drives. But when it came time to purchase another external HD for them to transfer whatever they can salvage from the broken drive, i was told that the model they see the least of for repair was the G Drive Mini.

I went with the 320 GB FreeAgent because I quickly used up the 128GB internal storage on my Macbook Air. Apple isn't down with the whole USB 3.0 thing and Thunderbolt Drives are too expensive at this point. So the dwindling supply of Firewire 800 drives seemed like a logical choice. However, I'm a bit disappointed in how physically large this thing is. Compactness is a pretty important quality for a portable HD. I do not think this will be a constant co-companion with my laptop.

This is a fabulous successor to a previous Seagate USB 160GB portable drive that connects with a horrible Y-cable. That drive is still going strong and has never given me any trouble, but the look of this drive and the Firewire connection were irresistible. The included dock and its built-in FW800 cable works with my Powerbook G4; the drive connects to my iMac G5 with the included FW800-to-400 cable. Still the dreaded Y-cable for USB, though. The included soft carrying case has a handy elastic on the back that can hold whatever cable(s) you need. The inside of the case is a snug fit around the drive. It has worked without a hiccup no matter which computer it's connected to, and I love the fast write speed when copying files. It's so fast that I didn't bother to partition the drive. The cables are fairly short for portability. My only gripes are that the drive's finish seems easily marred--it had some light scratches within a day of use--and that it heats up quite a bit. The dock helps keep it cooler because the drive is upright. When the drive is not in the dock I usually prop it up against something and never put papers or anything on top of it. I'd give it 4.5 stars if I could. Wish there was a choice of colors in the Go Drive for Mac as there is in the PC Go drives.

This product works flawlessly. Out of the box it was easy to connect and ready to go. The Fire Wire 800 makes a huge difference especially when transfering large files. I would reccomend this drive to anyone looking to move and store large files who need it done quickly. The drives docking station comes with it so don't buy it separately as this is an option!

***I meant to give this three stars, but I can't seem to edit my rating... sorry!!***This is a great external hard drive... it looks great, the light on the end is incredibly sleek, and it's very portable. Having said that, the "Mac ready" version is a waste of money. You pay a 50% price premium over the regular version at the same capacity, and the only difference is the addition of a firewire port and the fact that it comes pre-formatted for Macs. If you can live with just a USB connection, simply buy the regular version for much less money and format it yourself. It literally takes less than two minutes in Disk Utility....I have only one other con to mention... it is made out of plastic, and for some reason I was naive and I expected it to be made of anodized aluminum.