Seagate Barracuda 4TB Internal Hard Drive HDD 3.5 Inch SATA 6 Gb/s 5400 RPM 256MB Cache For Computer Desktop PC Frustration Free Packaging

Great drive drive for archives etc. As per reviews my older computer(windows 10 with old mobo) only saw the drive as 2TB. I did have some issues getting it allocated and formatted to 4TB(3.6TB actual).Several well known disk partition tools wouldn't work for me such as Windows Disk manager, macrium, DParted USB, EaseUS. Even after changing disk type to GPT(as per reviews here). In the end it was Macrorit Partition Expert Free, that worked, immediately seeing the unused space , and allocating the entire drive as 1 partition, and format to HTFS.4 star for the hardware. 1 star of for the fiddling this might need.

If you are looking for high capacity storage at an affordable price then the 4TB Barracuda is a great choice, depending somewhat on your use case.One thing rather glaringly omitted from the marketing material is that this is a SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) drive. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing - SMR drives have been around since the early 2000s, back then they were marketed as archive drives. There's nothing wrong with the technology, and the significantly higher data density it enables has allowed manufacturers to hit low price points like with this model.Technical details aside, this drive is great if you are a typical computer user with typical data storage needs: video, music, games, applications, documents etc. this drive is great for. In fact, ... MoreIf you are looking for high capacity storage at an affordable price then the 4TB Barracuda is a great choice, depending somewhat on your use case.One thing rather glaringly omitted from the marketing material is that this is a SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) drive. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing - SMR drives have been around since the early 2000s, back then they were marketed as archive drives. There's nothing wrong with the technology, and the significantly higher data density it enables has allowed manufacturers to hit low price points like with this model.Technical details aside, this drive is great if you are a typical computer user with typical data storage needs: video, music, games, applications, documents etc. this drive is great for. In fact, provided you use case doesn't involve a crazy amount of random data writes this drive may even perform faster than non-SMR drives due to it's oversized cache (used to compensate for the downsides of SMR, I won't go into the technical details here but a quick Google will inform you if you're interested).Really the only reason to explicitly avoid an SMR drive is if you are using planning on using it in a RAID (seriously, don't use one in a RAID) or using it for a write intensive application like running a database. They are sort of okay for use in a NAS depending on the use case, low random write rate like a media server is fine, as long as it isn't using RAID (can't stress that enough).Bottom line: great drive for a great price, provided you fit the use cases which cover 95% of typical users.

Probably one of the most boring products to look at, but then we don't buy HDDs to look at. I have to say that this new Seagate drive is surprisingly slimmer than the previous HDD I've had to replace, so that should aid air circulation inside a NAS. Delivery from CCL was very prompt, with the HDD itself extremely packaged, bearing in mind it's internal mechanism. No doubt at some point in the future I'll probably have to replace another of the older HDDs in the NAS, but at least I know exactly which one I'll go for.

Avoid trouble, download the Seagate toolkit. Then it's smooth sailing.

haven't had enough time to judge the drive. That takes years. I am writing the review to make buyers aware of the fact that if they buy a Seagate drive they should download Seagate toolkit from Seagate support. I had trouble getting my computer to see the drive and later had trouble getting the drive to partition at the full 4TB. The toolkit solved all my questions very quickly and the drive is working fine. Frankly the drive was more of a pain than I expected. One would expect a SATA drive to be plug and play. It wasn't but all is well that ends well. Seagate support was willing to help even in the hours near the holiday, very friendly. The toolkit is very easy to use and covers all bases although Seagate has additional drive utilities that look interesting. ... Morehaven't had enough time to judge the drive. That takes years. I am writing the review to make buyers aware of the fact that if they buy a Seagate drive they should download Seagate toolkit from Seagate support. I had trouble getting my computer to see the drive and later had trouble getting the drive to partition at the full 4TB. The toolkit solved all my questions very quickly and the drive is working fine. Frankly the drive was more of a pain than I expected. One would expect a SATA drive to be plug and play. It wasn't but all is well that ends well. Seagate support was willing to help even in the hours near the holiday, very friendly. The toolkit is very easy to use and covers all bases although Seagate has additional drive utilities that look interesting. Downloaded them but haven't used them yet .If you have the toolkit then installation is a snap. Bottom line is that Seagate is a good company to deal with and Seagate drives are legendary. Well worth the few extra minutes to change the format to use the entire 4TB.

Disk errors. Unreliable operation.

I didn't realize it at the time but this disk started going bad as early as 5 months after install. I was ripping ISOs of very old CD ROMs, backing them up to my new 4TB backup drive of course, and they were timing out and having errors. Some rips worked. It was about 50/50, so I chalked it up to some of my CD ROMs were damaged. Backing up photos from my phone always took forever and had weird on and off again transfer patterns. I blamed it on my phone's OS or USB connection being weird. Downloaded a large video to this drive, it caused 100% disk usage until restart, and the video itself wouldn't play past a minute in. I blamed the original upload. Then I redownloaded it to my SSD, which worked, and I realized the video had never fully downloaded to my hard drive ... MoreI didn't realize it at the time but this disk started going bad as early as 5 months after install. I was ripping ISOs of very old CD ROMs, backing them up to my new 4TB backup drive of course, and they were timing out and having errors. Some rips worked. It was about 50/50, so I chalked it up to some of my CD ROMs were damaged. Backing up photos from my phone always took forever and had weird on and off again transfer patterns. I blamed it on my phone's OS or USB connection being weird. Downloaded a large video to this drive, it caused 100% disk usage until restart, and the video itself wouldn't play past a minute in. I blamed the original upload. Then I redownloaded it to my SSD, which worked, and I realized the video had never fully downloaded to my hard drive because of write errors. Disk check fails, disk repair fails. I'm just now seeing and realizing this a whole 2 years after purchase, so I guess it's served enough of a purpose to not be 1 egg, but this is bad. Re-backing up what I can from this drive now, no data loss so far other than those old CDs I gave up on. I wish I could get a replacement. Sure it was a great price for a 4TB but it's still considerable money, and definitely not worth the time and effort spent on these troubles, and now I can't trust this disk.

Doubled my storage

My main computer is split between an SSD drive for programs and a large hard drive to store my photos. I thought 2 TB would be enough to handle all my needs, but after four years the drive was getting full and performance was declining. I was thinking about getting a new computer, but decided to double the size of the hard drive instead. Purchase and shipping was flawless. Installation was fairly easy. I had backed everything up and the whole process took about four hours. Very pleased with outcome.

Hope for the best, expect the worst.

Have two computers, one with low storage space and one with an aging data drive. Bought two of these drives to pop one into each. They both seemed to work great from the get go. However, when downloading a new game (ARK) on to one of them, Steam began repeatedly returning a "corrupt update file" error and Task Manager would show 100% active time on the HDD when no disk activity was being reported by Steam and no programs were running on that disk. It should be noted that the drive was being used exclusively as a library for Steam game files, so Steam was the only program that utilized that drive. When Steam finally managed to download the installation file and began the verification check, the disk began making a strange "squeak" every so often which would trigger a ... MoreHave two computers, one with low storage space and one with an aging data drive. Bought two of these drives to pop one into each. They both seemed to work great from the get go. However, when downloading a new game (ARK) on to one of them, Steam began repeatedly returning a "corrupt update file" error and Task Manager would show 100% active time on the HDD when no disk activity was being reported by Steam and no programs were running on that disk. It should be noted that the drive was being used exclusively as a library for Steam game files, so Steam was the only program that utilized that drive. When Steam finally managed to download the installation file and began the verification check, the disk began making a strange "squeak" every so often which would trigger a sudden plummet in Steam's reported disk speed. Before the verification finished (less than 12 hours after plugging the drive in), Win11 reported a drive error, suggested a chkdsk scan, and immediately lost connection to the drive. Opening Disk Management showed the disk had returned to an uninitialized state and Windows could no longer initialize it due to an "I/O error." Needless to say, the disk was dead. Given that I can't open the disk without voiding the warranty and losing my shot at getting a replacement, my best guess based on the "squeak" and related drop in disk speed is that either the read arm was colliding with the disk or the disk wasn't seated properly within the drive leading it to have an unstable spin, both of which should have been caught by Seagate during testing prior to shipment for retail considering how quickly the problem presented itself once the drive was spun up. This speaks to Seagate's low QA for their products but, unfortunately, it seems that relying on their customers to roll the dice on receiving a dead product has become par for the course from all the major manufacturers now. Being par for the course doesn't excuse it, though, so them sending a DOA product that would've been caught had they done a single second of testing prior to boxing earns them a 1 out of 5, which is sad given that had both the drives worked as well as the functional one does, I would've given a 5 out of 5.

NOT 4 TB

I purchase this product for a clean Win10 installation. Win10 could only partition drive to 2 TB, leaving the other 2 TB unusable. I tried all the suggestions I could find on the internet to extend or create new volume. Still stuck at 2 TB. Seagate Site offered no help that I could find. (The product manual is strictly technical specs with no help for a "user".) Site only supplied a telephone number where the computerized voice told me very rapidly (I had to call repeatedly to make sure I had heard right) I go to live.seagate.com for live chat tech assistance. Site apparently doesn't exist. Gee, Seagate- you used to be the best. What happened?

Seagate Is awful

I've had to RMA a few drives in my life while the 2 that I got DOA Newegg will take care of it thank you newegg. But the two drives that were in my computer I had to send to Seagate and let me tell you that Seagate Doesn't care about you. They want money and only Money. Why am I so miffed you might ask well their RMA process is the most anti consumer thing Ive seen in a long long time (Imagine EA selling HDDS). If you Improperly pack an Item that's not on their STRICT list of packaging well sorry son you're S.O.L your Warranty is gone void NADA. Yup bubble wrap it the way Newegg does and ship it off NOPE! bye warranty, Ship it in a double stuffed bubble packet? NOPE! What about packing peanuts everyone uses those....Sit down cause your warranty is now void and you ... MoreI've had to RMA a few drives in my life while the 2 that I got DOA Newegg will take care of it thank you newegg. But the two drives that were in my computer I had to send to Seagate and let me tell you that Seagate Doesn't care about you. They want money and only Money. Why am I so miffed you might ask well their RMA process is the most anti consumer thing Ive seen in a long long time (Imagine EA selling HDDS). If you Improperly pack an Item that's not on their STRICT list of packaging well sorry son you're S.O.L your Warranty is gone void NADA. Yup bubble wrap it the way Newegg does and ship it off NOPE! bye warranty, Ship it in a double stuffed bubble packet? NOPE! What about packing peanuts everyone uses those....Sit down cause your warranty is now void and you just wasted money. I guess I can be to blame for whatever reason my GMAIL dinged their packing instructions as junk mail. I Gave these drives a 4-2-1 Egg review Seagate's Consumer policy changed it to a 1 real quick, I build computers as a hobby/job and Seagate unless they do right will never see another penny from me again. Also paid for shipping back...not really a huge gripe but still kind of upsetting the drives just died so why do I have to pay more to get an actual working product. I'm up for bets this will be a Review that Seagate won't respond to. UPDATE: Seagate actually sent out two drives one worked like it was new the other? Well they sent me a "refurbished" HDD that was D.O.A. Is this some sort of joke? Because guess who has to pay the shipping costs once again? This guy! I spent about $70 CAD on RMA'ing drives in, $50 more cad and I could buy a brand new 4TB. ALL I WANTED WAS WORKING STORAGE SPACE!! UPDATE 2: After half hour on hold and an hour on the actual call I managed to get a free UPS shipping label out of them. Unfortunately after telling the lady where I lived and knowing full on that there was a facility a province over she set the label to Southern California. That's the entire continent over, as of now I've cancelled future orders of Seagate products and will not use them again after this whole ordeal. I want to preference this when the drives work they work good as good as any other 5400RPM HDD, But as for my luck and experiences I would not wish this upon anyone. Update 3 will come when it comes.

So Far So Good

After reading some of the reviews from users experiencing early failure, I was hesitant to purchase, but the price per terabyte was too good to pass up and I really needed the extra storage space. So far I am pleasantly surprised by the performance of this hard drive. It has been running nonstop since March 12, 2018 without any problems. I never turn off my computer, or set the HDs to go into sleep mode when not in use, with the exception of the occasional shutdown to make hardware changes or cleaning maintenance. Some reviewers reported very slow speeds, as low as 1 MB/Sec, when transferring many small files. I have not experienced this with the HD i received. The slowest transfer speed I have noticed was 50 MB/Sec while copying hundreds of 5 to 10 Mb files which ... MoreAfter reading some of the reviews from users experiencing early failure, I was hesitant to purchase, but the price per terabyte was too good to pass up and I really needed the extra storage space. So far I am pleasantly surprised by the performance of this hard drive. It has been running nonstop since March 12, 2018 without any problems. I never turn off my computer, or set the HDs to go into sleep mode when not in use, with the exception of the occasional shutdown to make hardware changes or cleaning maintenance. Some reviewers reported very slow speeds, as low as 1 MB/Sec, when transferring many small files. I have not experienced this with the HD i received. The slowest transfer speed I have noticed was 50 MB/Sec while copying hundreds of 5 to 10 Mb files which is still very decent performance. When used as secondary storage, which it was designed for, this HD is definitely up to the task. If I need more room, and of course I will, I will have no problem buying another one of these HDs or recommending it to others.