Seagate GoFlex Desk USB 3.0 3 TB drives any good?

[dbminter]

I needed to get a larger size USB HD to store my daily backups of Windows and my partition that basically serves as my My Documents. I had a 1 TB drive, and the only larger sizes I could find in Office Depot here in town (Staples had roughly the same choices.) that were larger than 1 TB were a 1.5 TB USB 2, 2 TB USB 3, and 3 TB USB 3 drives. I went with the largest one because it was on sale for the largest margin, off $70 from its $199 regular price tag and I knew that 3 times the size would probably hold me as however long the drive lasts before it goes tits up. I don't think I've ever had a Seagate drive before. My USB HD's have consisted of IOMega drives and the 1 TB Lacie I needed to replace. So, I wanted other people's opinion, even though I've already bought it and mitigated the Lacie contents over to the Seagate. Does Seagate make a good product? Thanks!

[laserfan]

Well, you want confirmation I guess and I can tell you that I bought the GoFlex USB3.0 2Tb drive and am deliriously happy with it. I can back-up a full system image to it in under 5 minutes, where it used to take nearly a half hour.

 

NOW, I will also point-out that I've seen complaints from people on at least the Acronis forum about having trouble with 3Tb drives--something about the rescue environment not dealing with the 3Tb aspect, and having to re-partition to <2Tb. Dunno if this will impact you at all but there you have it.

 

This is my 3rd Seagate USB drive going back maybe 5 years, now 3 different models of desktop ext hdd, and I've been happy i.e. the other two are still in service and working flawlessly (knocking-on-wood here now!).

[dbminter]

I stopped using Acronis TrueImage. The last version that worked right was TI 11, NOT 2011. Absolutely NOT 2011! 2011 is so full of bugs, bad programming choices, and a user interface that no one on the forums seems to like, and I agree with them. I've not tested trying to restore a Macrium Reflect backup made to the USB yet.

 

 

I used to get IOMega drives because they had worked right. I only ever had to replace 1 drive because it stopped working, and that was the last IOMega one I got. The drive itself was all right, but, apparently, the USB bridge was the fault. Every other time, I only had to replace USB HD's because my space needs required more space. I shouldn't have a space problem now. Hence why I got the 3 TB version.

 

 

I shouldn't run into a 2 TB partition problem because I've already partitioned it off into multiple partitions. The largest one is the 1 TB one where Macrium Reflect system backups go. All the other remaining partitions are 100 GB each, and only 1 of those is almost full at around 96 GB. I've got like 1.4 TB of unallocated space sitting there waiting to be redistributed someday.

[laserfan]

I stopped using Acronis TrueImage. The last version that worked right was TI 11, NOT 2011. Absolutely NOT 2011! 2011 is so full of bugs, bad programming choices, and a user interface that no one on the forums seems to like, and I agree with them. I've not tested trying to restore a Macrium Reflect backup made to the USB yet.

I've had ATI since release 1.0, and IME they got funky after v7.0. I didn't even have much luck with ATI 11 myself, was finding "corrupt" images on restore. Not good. I'm now running ATIH2010 and it is rock-solid, apart from some glitches in the Linux-based rescue disc. Yeah I hear poor reports about 2011.

 

As for Macrium Reflect, it's cool but their Free version's Rescue disk doesn't Backup, and its Restore doesn't work with my USB3.0 GoFlex. If I were not already invested in ATI, Macrium is the product I'd be using though (I think their WinPE (payware) version solves the USB issues).

[dbminter]

My only problem with ATI 11 was that it would periodically return that backups had not been run when they had in fact been run. The only way to fix it was to completely reinstall the software. A big deal when you have to recreate the jobs and the schedules. Well, it is possible to copy over the jobs from a certain directory, which one I forget, but, you do have to manually reset each job's scheduled time.

 

 

My problem with TI 2009 and 2010 was their restore CD's were useless. They were fine right up until you start the restore. Then, the discs would suddenly lose their ability to detect USB drives. BUT ONLY after the software has already deleted the target partition if it exists, of course.

 

 

I tested my 3 TB USB 3 GoFlex last night with a restore in Reflect. The only issue I came across was one I would expect. Images made by Version 5 would not restore under Version 4's PE environment. I had asked their tech support if V 4's disc would restore V 5's images, and they told me it would. But, it doesn't. Logically, I wouldn't expect it to, anyway. The Next button that would start a restore never became selectable.

 

 

I had no problems with Macrium 4's Linux disc. V 5's, though, I could not get to work on either my last PC or this Dell one. When a restore is started, it shells out to Linux to do something, but, gets stuck at what I'm guessing is an attempt to find a network connection. At least, unlike TI 2009 and 2010, it doesn't do the actual deletion of an existing partition until it actually starts.

 

 

I use the PE version because, like you say, you can create partitions in it outside of full Windows. I like to make factory default partition backups before I start a new computer for the first time. In case I ever need to restore to a virgin partition to test something. Or if I end up returning the PC for whatever reason, I can return to factory default condition.

[laserfan]

The interesting (unfortunate) aspect of these imaging programs is that nobody has exactly the same problems as anyone else. I attribute this to different PC configurations, both hardware and drivers. I have tried (too many) imaging programs, most recently Macrium and EaseUS, and for my particular setup(s) including a netbook, I've gravitated-back to ATI, but since 2010 actually WORKS for me, in every way that I need/want it to, I will never "upgrade" it i.e. I have to resist like hell the temptation to take advantage of whatever upgrade may be offered to me!

Edited September 14, 2011 by laserfan

[dbminter]

Sometimes, they don't make it easy in terms of deciding to upgrade. I couldn't update Disk Director to Version 11 and still use Version 11 of TrueImage. Both programs cannot be installed together. TI stops working if you reboot after installing DD 11 and attempting to uninstall DD 11 after installing it on a TI 11 installed system will cause a BSOD and can only be fixed by booting into the recovery environment and letting it attempt a fix. Of which, I think it just does a System Restore of the latest backed up data.

 

 

I tried EaseUs's imaging software, but didn't decide to use it because if I remember correctly, there was no way to monitor a backup that was actually running. You'd have to wait until it finished and then check the log. I did, though, migrate from Disk Director to Partition Master. It's free and the only thing the paid versions do that the free doesn't that I would want is provide a bootable recovery disc.

[laserfan]

I did, though, migrate from Disk Director to Partition Master. It's free and the only thing the paid versions do that the free doesn't that I would want is provide a bootable recovery disc.

EaseUS' free offerings seem almost too good to be true, and owing to my natural state (of Paranoia) I became uncomfortable using ToDo. I'll keep Partition Master in mind if my ADD10 boot disk ever fails to do what I want (I never upgraded to 11).

[dbminter]

I had to migrate away from Disk Director 10 because updates wouldn't install on Windows 7. (Maybe even Vista, too, I forget.) So, first, I tried the trial of DD 11 then couldn't migrate to that because it broke TrueImage 11. Then, I discovered Partition Master. PM does one thing slightly differently than the way DD does. DD has a Hide partition option. To do the same thing in PM, you must use the Change Drive Letter and select No Drive Letter. I also do NOT recommend moving over to DD 11 because the trial I tested out had several features that "run" but don't do anything. The trial version is supposedly not crippled in any way except for the time trial limitation. I remember that the Convert Partition Type from FAT to NTFS "ran" but the partition was still FAT once it was completed.

[laserfan]

I had to migrate away from Disk Director 10 because updates wouldn't install on Windows 7.

There are probably some good reasons to install DiskDirector to the OS, but I never found a need for anything but booting my PC from a boot disc and doing partition manipulations from there. No W7 compatibility issues that way.

[dbminter]

Yes, but if you installed the software on Vista and then upgraded to Windows 7, the only way to update your boot disc would be to restore down Vista first and then install the new version of Disk Director to create the updated disc. I know this by heart as I used to do it.

[dbminter]

Discovered another reason why I would have needed to switch away from Acronis Disk Director. DD Version 11 Build 2121's boot disc does not recognize the 3 TB USB 3.0 Seagate GoFlex HDD; Partition Master does recognize it.

[dbminter]

I have discovered one drawback to this Seagate USB 3 3 TB drive. DVDShrink cannot write to any of the partitions I created on the drive. For whatever reason, it returns the error: DVDShrink encountered an error and cannot continue. Failed to write file FILENAMEHERE The parameter is incorrect. If I write to the SATA HD inside the PC, it writes, so, it must be the drive as none of the partitions will allow write in DVDShrink. The C: is NTFS as are all the USB partitions. There is plenty of free space for the targeted output. Go figure.

[dbminter]

Discovered another limitation of the drive that is making me a little wary about it. First had a difficulty in getting the drive recognized when I first partitioned it. It would NOT be detected when connected to the USB port that my old 1 TB USB HDD used to run on. It would be detected on one of the PC's front USB ports and when I eventually swapped around USB cables connected in the back, got it detected. But, I think it's a problem with that particular port or in Windows because my keyboard also wasn't detected when connected to that port.

 

 

What I've discovered now is if I use one of the partitions for temporary files, like ImgBurn disc read image files, ImgBurn target image files, DVDShrink output, and for temporary files in general, the output is inconsistently corrupt. For instance, some DVD target files created by DVDReMake work and sometimes they freeze up PC DVD playing software. Not when those files are burned to the internal SATA HDD. So, I won't use one of the partitions for its intended purpose: to store Windows temporary files, my DVD temporary work files, ImgBurn temporary files, and the like. It just means adding one extra step to setting up a new PC, instead of just plugging in the USB HDD and changing the drive letters around.

 

 

For my own future notes, for testing on future new PC's, I was using Doctor Who: Earthshock as the source for DVDReMake. When VIDEO_TS.IFO is loaded in Windows Media player, there is NO freezing of the DVD playback after playing the BBC logo.

 

 

Plus, there was one major drawback to using the USB drive for temporary files: the read/write speeds. ImgBurn writing to HD was significantly slower than SATA HD, which makes sense.

[dbminter]

I was also having 2 other issues I discovered while using the USB HD as my tempdir. Sometimes, ImgBurn would be burning to a DVD-R and then just stop. The write speed would drop to 0.0x, but, the drive activity still continued. The drive wouldn't stop spinning until power down, even after restarting Windows.

 

 

The other was a minor issue writing to 24x CD-RW using image files that were stored on the USB HD. A window would pop up during the write that said something about a read error, but the write would continue until end of burn, even if I didn't close the error dialog window.