(STEB8000100) Expansion Desktop 8TB External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 for PC Laptop

I'm using the 5TB version of this drive to host all my movie files. I've owned these drives for about 7 months now, and went across the world with these in my carry on. It works great and I haven't had any issues yet. I'm using this on a 5k maxed out iMac with the Plex Media Server to stream content to any device on my home or remote networks. All I did was reformat this drive to Mac's Journaled formatting (via Disk Utility) and didn't want to install the NTFS driver as I'm all Apple here. I bought two drives and use one that is connected 24x7 to my Mac and use the other as a back up locked up in a fire proof safe when not in use. I've also turned off the "Put Hard Drives to Sleep" function so that it is always spinning (plex has an issue with sleeping hard drives). Transfer rates are good. I've transferred about 1700 movie files (over 2TBs of data) in about 5 hours going from my the 1st 5TB drive to the 2nd 5TB drive (completely blank) over USB 3. The only time transfer speeds suffer is when doing lots of deletes and transfers simultaneously (for example, swapping out a standard definition movie for a higher definition movie). For smaller transfers, it's quick. I can transfer a 2GB movie from my Apple's SSD to this in under 1 minute. When transferring lots of data, I have both hooked up to my computer's UPS just in case of power failure (which is common here in Korea). The footprint and texture of the drives are nice. I just have them standing on my desk and they take up little real estate. There is a slight hum that comes from the hard drive, which isn't too distracting. It uses a USB 3 cable and a separate power cable. There is a blue light that blinks at a constant rate when transferring data. It will be solid if the drive is on, but nothing is reading or writing. It turns off after about 5 minutes of no activity which you can disable in your computer's power saver settings. It takes about 10 to 15 seconds to spin up. I'm looking at purchasing two more drives as I'm running out of room, and might go for the 8TB of this same model to store my movies, and use the 5TBs to store all my seasons and shows. Remember to always have a back up strategy as these drives can fail without warning. Also, ensure you eject the drive from your computer (click the eject button in OS X's finder window) and let the drive spin down before moving. Overall, I would recommend these drives to anyone who needs to archive lots of data.

It’s good product , nicely performed

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Got this at a great deal! Years later I still have room to store data. Mainly use with my gaming console. Very easy to use.

This review is for the 8TB hard drive. Included with the external hard drive are the instructions, a power cord, approximately 65 inches in length and a 3.0 USB cable, approximately 45 inches in length. This is one of the few times that I don’t have to complain about short cables provided with external drives as these are plenty long enough. I got this drive to use as extended storage for my PS4. I have previously been using the Seagate Expansion 1TB external drive for extended storage but after a recent game buying splurge, I have run out of space with that drive. I have two of those drives and both are approximately three years old ago and are still going strong (one as the PS4 drive and one as a security cam drive) with no issues. Both of those drives were great for portability as well because of their small size. This 8 TB isn’t quite as portable as the smaller Seagate drives at approximately 7 inches by 5 inches by 2-inch thickness and this drive requires a power supply unlike the smaller drives but considering the space that this has and that it is primarily being used on my PS4, it is less of an issue. Like all extended storage drives for the PS4, it has to be formatted by the PS4 but that is quick and painless to do. The transfer of files from my main PS4 and the 1 TB drive to this drive took a bit of time but that is mainly because there is no easy way to move the game files from expansion drive to another expansion drive in the PS4. The file transfer was fairly speedy otherwise. I have use a variety of brand name drives, including WD, Toshiba and these Seagates. I have not had any issues with either the Seagate drives or the WD as they both make very reliable drives and I expect the same from this drive. With this drive priced at about 18 dollars per TB, it is a reasonable cost for this size drive. Although I am not using it for that purpose, with this drive being USB 3.0, I expect this is just as speedy as most USB 3.0 drives on a Windows based computer. This has a power/hard drive light in the back-left side of the case. Although I am not personally a fan of the light in the back, it does make it less distracting and since I am using this as a drive for the PS4, being able to see the light isn’t a huge issue. Oddly, these drives only have 1-year warranty, unlike the 1TB Seagate expansions that I bought that had 3-year warranties. Maybe that is a trend with manufacturers for lesser warranties, but I hope that doesn’t indicates its drive reliability. I will update my review if I have any issues with durability. Overall, I like the drive for my PS4 expansion drive and it is so far working as it should with no slow down or stuttering when playing a variety of games. 4 stars

Really, really fast delivery. Product as advertised. One of the largest drives you can buy at an affordable price point. There are 8TB drives out there as of this writing but the cost-premium does not make as much sense because prices on those even-larger devces have not dropped yet due to the relative infancy of these new device product cycle. Simple installation (the installation guide is a single picture), and the device booted and formatted within minutes. Only 4.5TB available after formatting but adequate for moving files off of several lower-capacity drives into this newer, more-reliable device - and that should allow most users for a few more years of reliabilty for their storage needs. The connector wire appears to be a USB 3.0 Type A Male Connector 2 on the computer side to a USB 3.0 Type Micro B Male on the drive end. The cable is backward compatable to older USB formats such as USB 2.0 which was my application. Write speeds were around 18MBs/sec while drive was still relatively empty, but this was on a USB 2.0 port. The drive is slightly smaller and lighter than previous versions of consumer external storage devices. The performance appears to be fast and solid. The properties showed that the device was pre-formatted NTFS. I always copy the pre-loaded files that come with the drive to another location and then do a quick format with NTFS before moving the files back. I learned the hard way that filling a humongous drive on the factory format is a recipe for disaster because after the drive gets filled up, those files suddenlybecome unavailable right when you don't, of course, have an even-larger drive to move them to before the drive fails because you just bought the largest drive available. This is also known as a storage disaster. My sage advice: format that puppy when you first receive it - and avoid mucho-heartburn down the road. My pleasure,

Been a year and 8 months now. I still have it but I use a WD now because it's a little quieter. But I still use this drive and it stop works flawlessly, of course I don't use it each day anymore but it does still work. Now I'm thinking I may hook it up to my ps4 soon 5th month now, still no issues, it may have disconnected once i think but went right back. Still loads as fast as internal, i hardly use the internal for anything. I dont transfer stuff alot on it, but when i do my photosand videos i send them right to the drive and its very fast. I only currently have about 500gb on it but i just got a new cam and using lots of RAW files and my camcorder creates big files at 60fps so i needed this. I also should mention a few things again: 1 i formatted my drive before i transfered anything that way my pc can be more compatible per se. 2. It's only been hooked up to my one pc, if i wanna get something off another i use a flash drive between the two. 3. I dont move it, it sits on the floor where it's basically been since i got it, again i dust it and lift it to do that but that's it. Remember its a desktop external its not made to keep moving, get a portable for that. So it's been 4 months now and the only thing that has happened is it seemed to disconnect twice but reconnected immediately, although that could have just been my computer but doubt it. Other than that it's still working perfectly fine. I keep up with what others write just to look for any red flags. I should also note that I hardly ever move or touch this drive, i moved it twice to dust it and that was minimal, its been sitting in the same spot laid on its front for the whole time. My data still loads as fast if not faster than the internal drive and has no lag. Seems this drive is hit or miss with other users. I saw these drives at walmart as well but didnt see the 5tb. This is my first external and have nothing else to compare it to, so buy at your own risk I rated 5 because it's the first day. So I will explain as much as I can. First understand this device is as good as the device you connect it to. I use it for my pc, it's a great pc if you have a slow older pc it may not perform at its best. Alot of reviews complain the speed is slow but you have to format it so that your computer can format it to its settings, once I did that my speeds went to about 179mbps i transfered about 410gb in 20 min it flew by, also I used the 3.0 port which is 10 to es faster than 2.0. The drive doesnt have many vents, ut I laid it on its side with the bottom facing out so that it can breath, it only gets warm, hasnt gotten hot. Also I read some complaining about the cords, well my port is very tight so the cord stays in and I have the drive sitting by the power cord so I mever even had to unwrap that. Seagate claims to have a file online to turn off the LED light. As far as noise, it's low to me kinda like a light fan sound, it's relaxing, I like it, some don't. Other reviews clai ed once you format it to xbox u cant use anything else with it...unless of course you reformat it to whichever device you're trying to use. Now with ,y computer the device shuts down when ,y computer shuts down and it boots up right along with it. I also noticed after just leaving my computer idle for awhile the drive seemed to go into standby (indicated by the blue light going off) but i could still access the files on it and 2 sec later the light came back on. So next thing I did was I wanted to see if I could access the files as quickly as my internal drive, I had a bu ch of HD videos and pics...in case you are wondering I used a HP slimline desktop very great computer and fast. Anyway, I was able to open my video just as fast as when I use my internal, same with pics, it actually seemed like it may have been faster at times. Now i dont know if it's because the drive is that good or because my computer is fairly new but like i said its as good as the device you hook it to. I also want to note that contrary to another reviewer this device has not slowed down my pc whatsoever. I forgot to mention I have the 5tb model. Last thing I will say is, there was some reviews stating not to leave the drive running. Like i said it seems to spin down when not in use for awhile but i am ot 100% sure. Regardless hard drives are made to be used and running, my old crappy computer from 2009 i still have and i us3d to leave it running 24/7 for the better part of 6 years because i dont like restarting unless I have to and it still works. My current computer I also leave running 24/7 and no issues whatsoever. Lastly, understand this is a "desktop" expansion hard drive NOT a portable drive, meaning it's not meant to bounce around from place to place or even room to room in my opinion, desktops are stationary as should any desktop external drive connected to it. If you plan to switch between computers etc, should probably consider a portable drive. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. UPDATE: So it has now been a month and this thing is still running smoothly, I haven't moved it it has been on it's side the whole month, has handled transfers smoothly, spins up rather quickly, quiet for the most part and still very fast. I really think the bad reviews come from people who move it around alot, like I said it's a desktop external not a portable, so if you get this get it woth the intention of keeping it stationary as opposed to moble. If any questions, just ask

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