Hacking FreeAgent - To buy or not to buy?

[Luriden]

I'm seeing mixed reports here after searching about how well they work. To be honest, I'm not even sure what the difference is between the Seagate Freeagent drives just the standard Seagate USB 2.0 drives.

Kmart has this for sale. It seems like an absolute steal, but it doesn't have FreeAgent listed anywhere on the package. Is this important, and in the Wii world, am I actually better off not getting a FreeAgent drive?

I may pick one of these up tomorrow, but I'd appreciate some feedback. For $80, I'm looking for a catch. No fucking way they can sell it that cheap without a catch. Unless external hard drives have really dropped in price dramatically over the years and I somehow missed that fact.

 

[Devvar]

I have that some external hard drive except mine is 1TB. I got it for $142US. It works perfectly.

 

[misteromar]

I have 320gb freeagent, it works perfectly. I hear the 500gb freeagent dosnt work.

 

[Diablo1123]

That's around the price I got my 500 GB external hard drive two years ago on Black Friday.

So I'd say get it, even if it doesn't work on the backup loader, it'll still work probably.

 

[Kleiner]

Don't trust anything Seagate, that's all i'm saying.

 

[True Grit]

Don't trust anything Seagate, that's all i'm saying.

What are you talking about? Seagate makes great hard drives. I'm not sure how often their external kits fail, but my seagate freeagent 320gb has been problem free for the wii.

 

[User423]

What are you talking about? Seagate makes great hard drives. I'm not sure how often their external kits fail, but my seagate freeagent 320gb has been problem free for the wii.

+1

 

[natemckn]

I have a Seagate FreeAgent 500GB, similar to the one in question but silver. Usually it works fine, but sometimes it is not recognized by the USB loader, but this is fixed by pulling the power from the drive then rebooting the wii and it always works the second try

 

[Bladexdsl]

Don't trust anything Seagate, that's all i'm saying.

don't you mean WD?

 

[mrtankjump]

I have a Seagate drive that does all of my downloading/storage ,is in use 24/7, and hasn't failed after 7 years. I just bought the 1.5TB version of this drive and backed up 2 HDD's to it, and started using it as a download drive. After 3 weeks it failed HARD. I went and bought another one of the same drive, managed to transfer all but 10GB of data over to it(then the MFT had read/write error and it froze any computer you plugged it into), then returned the first one. This line of hard drives is a hit and miss on quality which is why they're so cheap and only have a 2 year warranty.

 

[jesterscourt]

Seagate has had some massive problems with larger HDDs in the past 12-16 months, go to Newegg if you want this skinny. When I say larger I mean 500 MB+.

Incorrect firmware installed, DOA devices, irrecoverrable drives, etc.

I have both a WD and a Seagate external, as well as a Hitachi drive in an enclosure. Knock on wood I haven't had any troubles with any of them, but after seeing what Seagate went through, I would stay far away until they get their act together.

 

[manias]

The very best deal you could get for the wii is a seagate freeagent go 320gb I recon, big enough (For sure) for the wii, usb powered, cheap, no spindown issues.

 

[alucard77]

I would recommend buying this enclosure.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817145656

It is IDE internally, but I believe there is a SATA alternative as well. This way you can use any drive. The only complaints on this on newegg is that it does not spin down during inactivity, which is exactly what we are looking for in a Wii HD enclosure.

I bought this, and it works great. Just my 2 cents.

 

[donowprod]

I have a Seagate FreeAgent 500GB, similar to the one in question but silver. Usually it works fine, but sometimes it is not recognized by the USB loader, but this is fixed by pulling the power from the drive then rebooting the wii and it always works the second try

I agree, my Seagate FreeAgent 500GB has sometimes failed to be recognized by usb loader when rebooting the wii.
I find it really annoying because my Western Digital passport elite never had an issue.
By the way my seagate will play everything from hard drive with usb loader except for Ghostbusters.
For some reason there is a issue with the drive.
I will be replacing it with another WD passport Elite, (NOT Essential).

 

[CapitalQ]

Don't spend $80 for 500GB when you can double the storage to 1TB for $10-20 more on Amazon, Buy.com or NewEgg.

 

[Vergil902]

I've just purchased a new silver 500gb freeagent go. I removed the spindown and was pissed when it wasn't recognized by my wii, and it turns out that it was a faulty usb cable. The silver ones the drives come with are crap...

 

[OncleJulien]

I have a Seagate FreeAgent 500GB, similar to the one in question but silver. Usually it works fine, but sometimes it is not recognized by the USB loader, but this is fixed by pulling the power from the drive then rebooting the wii and it always works the second try

mirrors my experience exactly...

 

[Fiesty Panda]

I have a tiny LaCie 500gb external hard drive with retractable cord. Works flawlessly, was about $80 on amazon. When cord is retracted it literally is a tiny glossy black box, looks quite smexy

 

[dsfanatic5]

I have a couple 500gb Freeagent Go drives (silver and black), and they work amazingly with the usb loaders. While a bit pricier than the 500gb drive in the first thread, they are very tiny and compact, and are powered completely off the Wii. I prefer this power method, because when I turn my Wii on, they turn on and never fail to load perfectly on the first try. I can play a Snes game from one partition, and jump into USB Loader GX without having to get up or turn something off.

For my PC I have a 1tb Freeagent Desk (silver) and it works great. However, I was thinking about getting a second one for WBFS, but the reviews are horrible across Amazon, Newegg, and Bestbuy. It almost seems like a 40% failure rate, but mine has been working fine for about 6 months now. Just when I thought Seagate was the only one with harsh reviews, I noticed that most of the competition has the same problems.

Through my research of product reviews, I gather that smaller compact drives that are usb-powered tend to fair better than larger 1tb drives, in terms of durability, and longevity. Only time will tell if this proves correct with my drives.

 

[wiimano]

I have a freeagent go 500 GB as well, and I have similar success as dsfanatic, it works perfect on the wii. why would you go any other way with the wii, portable is the only way you should go. use power drives on your computer, not for the wii. turns on and off, never have to switch off anything. it loads up immediately, no wait times, no freezing in the games, its the perfect solution for the wii, period.