# External Drives: Seagate FreeAgent Pro vs. WD MyBook Premium



## beachboy_ce (Jun 25, 2007)

Same price, same capacity, which one is better?

Western Digital / MyBook Premium / 500GB / 7200 / 16MB / USB 2.0/Firewire /

Western Digital MyBook Premium 500GB 7200 16MB USB 2.0Firewire External Hard Drive WDG1C5000N in Canada at TigerDirect.ca

or

Seagate / FreeAgent Pro / 500GB / 7200 / eSata/USB 2.0/FireWire /

Seagate FreeAgent Pro 500GB 7200 eSataUSB 2.0FireWire External Hard Drive ST305004FPA1E3-RK in Canada at TigerDirect.ca

Thanks for your help!


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## gwillikers (Jun 19, 2003)

•The Seagate is an SATA drive offering USB 2.0/eSATA/FireWire 400 connectivity.
•The WD is an IDE drive offering USB 2.0/FireWire 400 connectivity.

Between those 2 choices, considering the Seagate is offering more, I'd get it. (Not to mention the good service all my Seagate drives have given me.)
Even if you can't use the eSATA connection now, you may in the future. It's a very fast connection, faster than either FireWire, or USB 2.0.

Considering our strong dollar, these are the cat's pyjamas...
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/

I have two, and they're worth the money. But then everybody has their opinions on these types of things.


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## gizmo321 (Oct 27, 2006)

The WD is being sold at Costco right now for $179.99


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## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

There's also warranty to think about. As far as I know, the WD Drives come with 1 year, and the Seagates (even these externals) have a 5 year warranty.


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## jaline (Jul 7, 2007)

Seagate has 5-year warranty, WD has 3-year, Lacie has 1 year.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

fyrefly said:


> There's also warranty to think about.


While I agree wholeheartedly, if these purchases are made with certain credit cards, the warranty period is doubled.

I've never used the extended warranty yet. Usually the equipment has been upgraded and sold/trashed long before the warranty period is up.

$0.02


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## jaline (Jul 7, 2007)

FeXL said:


> While I agree wholeheartedly, if these purchases are made with certain credit cards, the warranty period is doubled.


That's true.


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## HowEver (Jan 11, 2005)

.


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## outrider (Jul 13, 2007)

Some thoughts. Faster rotation speed does not mean faster access time to a particular file. Bigger cache provides better perceived access for contiguous files, particularly beneficial for photo and video. eSATA moves the most data but the gating factor will be the interface on your computer. Firewire 400 (400mbps) is actually more efficient than USB2 (480mbps) in many situations because of how it constructs the stream and manages checking, while USB2 is more ubiquitous if you will be moving the drive around. If your machine (no specified) has an available external SATA port, that should influence your decision. Also be aware that there are FW800 versions of many products available, usually only through Mac stores. If you have FW800 ports available and you will be moving high volumes of data and cannot go SATA, the nominal uplift to get FW800 is usually worth it. I don't know the FreeAgent but there is a version of the MyBook with FW800. As another poster has proposed you can also build your own external. I've done this with great success building big externals in FW800 capable cases.

Good luck.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

When did you start assuming that TigerDirect's product information was reliable? 

If the product is new, it has a 5 year Seagate warranty.

http://www.seagate.com/support/freeagent/SG_3-5-in_CES_sales_sheet_gold.pdf


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## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

CanadaRAM said:


> If the product is new, it has a 5 year Seagate warranty.
> 
> http://www.seagate.com/support/freeagent/SG_3-5-in_CES_sales_sheet_gold.pdf


That's what I was looking for and couldn't find.  Hahaha. Thanks CanadaRAM.


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## beachboy_ce (Jun 25, 2007)

If I want to partition a volume on the external drive to use as a regular, scheduled back-up of my internal drive, what size should the partition be? Exactly 160GB (size of internal)? Or a little but smaller, since there is never actually 160GB of free space on a 160GB drive?

Also, if the external enclosure is FW only, could I hook it up to the MB, and move files from a PC without FW (hooked up to my MB via a regular ethernet cable) to the external drive? Or would everything have to transfer to the MB's internal drive first?

Thanks for answering my rookie questions., I really appreciate it. Theres just so much that needs to be done before I can finally let go of my PC and enjoy my new Mac!


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

beachboy_ce said:


> If I want to partition a volume on the external drive to use as a regular, scheduled back-up of my internal drive, what size should the partition be? Exactly 160GB (size of internal)? Or a little but smaller, since there is never actually 160GB of free space on a 160GB drive?


Do a GetInfo on the internal drive and find out how many Binary GB it actually is, then make it a bit larger than that.



beachboy_ce said:


> Also, if the external enclosure is FW only, could I hook it up to the MB, and move files from a PC without FW (hooked up to my MB via a regular ethernet cable) to the external drive? Or would everything have to transfer to the MB's internal drive first?


Sharepoints would be required to make a shareable folder on the external IIRC


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## beachboy_ce (Jun 25, 2007)

One more question...if I partition a volume on my external drive, can I un-partition it or add GB's to it at a later time?

Right now I've got a 160GB internal drive, but I plan on upgrading to a WD Scorpio 250GB internal, as soon as WD fills my supplier's backorder. I would need to increase the backup partition on the external drive from 160GB to 250GB.


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## CanadaRAM (Jul 24, 2005)

beachboy_ce said:


> One more question...if I partition a volume on my external drive, can I un-partition it or add GB's to it at a later time?
> 
> Right now I've got a 160GB internal drive, but I plan on upgrading to a WD Scorpio 250GB internal, as soon as WD fills my supplier's backorder. I would need to increase the backup partition on the external drive from 160GB to 250GB.


Unpartitioning/resizing from DiskUtility will blow away all data on all partitions of that drive. The safest thing is to make the partition the full size from the start. Unless you're good with reformatting, and starting over.

There is apparently a way of soft partitioning from the UNIX command line, but.. that takes more Mac-fu than I possess, grasshopper...


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