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Freecom Hard Drive 500GB External USB-2, silver | 
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| Brand: Freecom
Category: CE
Buy New: £67.95
New (13) from £67.95
Rating:  42 reviews
Sales Rank: 158
Media: Electronics
Fragile: No
Batteries Included: No
Hard Drive Size: 500
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 98.4 x 85.8 x 35.4
MPN: 28604
Model: 28604
EAN: 4021801286048
ASIN: B000LQA652
Release Date: February 1, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The Hard Drive is a 3.5" external storage device which comes with a storage capacity of 500 GB to file, share and store of all your video, music and photo data.Its elegant slimline design and its aluminium finish make it an ideal external device which will fit in perfectly to your working space.The Hard Drive is immediately ready to use and does not need prior installation thanks to its USB 2.0 connection and "Plug & Play" compatibility.The Hard Drive external hard drive combines the style, performance and user friendliness that users have come to expect.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 37 more reviews...
 Great drive August 16, 2008
S. Malpas (Cardiff, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Only recently received mine, so I can't speak about longevity yet (will post back if anything breaks), but from first impressions it's a beautiful looking thing, and while compact, feels nice and solid. The aluminium case is great.
It's near-silent: some people might hear more humming noise than others depending on the surface on which it sits, and from what I can tell that's down to vibration rather than anything else. (ie. if you place it on a mouse mat, you'll notice the sound disappears.)
It seems to be well-sealed too, so less chance of dust getting in. There's no bracket with this drive, so while it's sturdy enough to stand on its side without wobbling, you should make sure it's not placed somewhere where it might get knocked.
Firewire would indeed have been nice, but then it would have been more expensive! Quite honestly, USB2 is fast enough for me.
Finally, as others have said, it comes pre-formatted as FAT32. Unless you're going to be swapping files between Mac and PC, you might want to format it to something else - NTFS (for Windows users) or HFS+ (for Mac users).
Does exactly what it says on the tin... July 28, 2008
Tim1 (London)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
A solid well made bit of well designed and good looking technology that does what it's designed to...
I have two of these drives - one as an ongoing backup of my computer files and another which I switch around as a monthly backup to keep off-site in case of fire/burglary etc.
Just plug the drive in and it's ready to go - instantly - it's that simple.
Rather than copy paste your data, there is included "NTI Shadow" software which gives very simply laid out backup options ranging from updating the drive with every change you make on your computer to setting a backup to run on a particular time and day or once a month etc etc etc.
If you want to re-format it to NTFS then you'll do that, but if you don't know what NTFS means then it really won't bother you! It works out of the box just fine. Unusually for such products though, the manual actaully starts to tell you about the differences between NTFS and FAT32 etc and gives you instructions on how to reformat should you choose to do so.
Data transfer speed is obviously limited by USB2 - I copied over about 400GB as soon as I got this and it does take some time, but that's for the initial backup. Once that's done the Shadow updates will only take a tiny fraction of the time.
What I can promise you that the transfer time is a lot less painful than if your hard drive dies and you've not saved those precious photos/videos etc in a backup.
Feel the fear and buy this now - splash out and get two - the peace of mind is worth it.
 Very Quick Use by Date July 19, 2008
Chris (Selby, Nth Yorks United Kingdom)
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
This was the second freecom hard drive I had bought for having a similar problem as one of the prior reviews mentioned of a faulty charger with the first one, which was instantly replaced (thus considering them reliable).
However, soon after this the first one that I had bought stopped being recognized by the computer. Yes, Freecom do offer a warranty however, all, ALL of your information is lost. The warranty only covers the drive and a replacement at that (why you'd want a replacement when you know they aren't reliable I don't know). They seem to clearly have a lot of faulty returns as I was given a very strict list of all the reasons they'd look for to refuse my return when I sent it back, which includes paying for the (expensive) delivery yourself, all of which fortunately amazon didn't do (the second one I bought) who paid the refund and the delivery. Which brings me to my second point.
To my disbelief again, the second hard drive experienced a very similar problem. As a fellow consumer I can promise you I looked after these two hard drives very carefully, and was using them fine the same day they broke prior to the completely unexpected shut down. In both cases over 400GB of information has been lost forever, and while I received a replacement from Freecom I have no intention of even opening the box.
I should also add as well as being incredibly unreliable, they have a huge power supply/ are big things themselves, whereas a lot of hard drives at this price can now be bought and charged directly with the USB and are MUCH smaller.
DO NOT USE FREECOM!
 Major failure after just one month July 17, 2008
Ivan (somewhere boring)
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
After only one months light use the drive started making a rattling noise then within a few moments all life ceased.
Having given considerable thought & spent rather too long reading reviews the one conclusion I have come to is that external hard drives all seem somewhat tempremental. If or when yours fails you are likely to lose your data. If you cant live with this then make sure you always run 2 drives with one as a back up.
On the plus side this drive was quiet & cool in operation and worked, fast & simple in the extreme.
Great product June 12, 2008
Drew M (N. Ireland)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I bought this product having read other responses on Amazon. I was not dissappointed. An excellent product.
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