Seagate FREEAGENT DESKTOP 250GB Hard Drive UK-VER 3,5" 7200RPM 8MB USB2.0 - ST302504FDC1E1-RK (Electronics)

brilliant wouldnt hesitate to buy this again, if i had to, small, very quiet, no installation or formatting required, excellent for the small cost.

No software, but no problems worked straight away - just connected power and USB, drive was recognised immediately and appeared on the desktop. But no user guide or software provided. Downloaded the user guide from the website, it refers to the manager software, which I eventually also downloaded and installed. But - works well, very quiet.

arrived unformatted, support was rubbish The drive arrived unformatted, and the programmes I needed to access to reformat for my Mac weren't there. The customer support is automated, so it guesses at which links to send to you (all wrong). On the website I finally found the downlaods I needed, but the drive wouldn't allow me to download them onto it (it said it was read-only). Only succeeded when my techno-wizard brother figured the correct way to format it manually via the Mac's own disk utility. Overall very frustrating. (I understand this isn't just a Mac issue - some PC users have found it unformatted too.)

Plug in and Play! All the instructions that this comes with is a set of childish pictures that show that (doh) you have to plug it into the mains and your USB. The great thing is that that is all you need! The only indicator it has is a vertical amber bar that glows dimly, brightening slowly when it is active. Probably not enough for the geeks, probably more than you really need to know, but pretty! The device consumes about 9.75 watts (say £8/year) when powered but the computer not runing, and about 15 watts when the computer is running. You do switch your system off at the mains when not in use, don't you? If you read the reviews of external drives (not necessarily this one) you will find the odd few about drives that crashed, losing all data. As always, the drive is warrantied, but not consequential loss. Only the risk averse, the reckless and the ill informed trust irreplaceable data to a single drive. (Think about a DVD writer as well.) (I got mine a tad cheaper from Maplin.)

Superb This is a great piece of gear & one i think everyone should have, always good to reg backup your files. I ordered it on Thurs & Fri morning it had arrived, great service Amazon. Install is the easiest i have ever known, plug in the PSU & the USB & my PC saw it straight away. The only slight draw back (which is why it gets 4 stars instead of 5) is the external PSU. This really does not bother me but could be a problem for some users if your not in the office etc. Runs very quiet. Infact if it were not for the stunning pulsating yellow strip you would'nt even know it was working. File transfere very fast. Over all, top marks