Looking for a great show to binge? Seagate Expansion Portable 2TB External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 for... Seagate Expansion Portable 2TB External Hard Drive HDD – USB 3.0 for PC Laptop (STEA2000400). The Bottom Line Though it offers little in the way of bells and whistles, the Seagate Expansion delivers a ton of storage for cheap. Just make sure you first format it into the supported file system. If fast performance, lots of storage space and a low cost are everything you're looking for in a storage device (I mean seriously, who isn't? For more options, including those with more features, check out our list of top portable drives on the market. CNET may get a commission from these offers. The new Seagate Expansion drive (left) and its legacy version. I had the files professionally recovered the same day. This frills-free storage device comes with no added value, however, as there's no backup software or encryption support. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. The new Seagate Expansion is a fast and affordable drive that will comfortably fit into your purse or pocket. All things considered, the Seagate Expansion is one of my favorite portable drives which I would recommend to almost anyone. Drive failed, then replacement drive failed. But that's all you need to get up and running. Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2017. Let's round up Amazon's best gems. Super unhappy about this foolishness. A tad troubling but so far they have not failed me in any way even when editing video directly from/to them. I've not even owned this piece of JUNK for 3 months yet!!! It allows the drive to remain simple and work well with different types of hosts, such as game consoles, something a password-protected drive can't do. This is not cool at all. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. The Expansion's internal storage is a low-power drive that spins at just 5,400 rotations per minute, and not at 7,200rpm. 6 months later it wouldn't turn on. A port where a cable is plugged and unplugged consistently should be attached more firmly with more than just 2 dots of solder and tape... Now i'm out 60 bucks. The Expansion ships in a spartan retail package that includes the drive itself and a foot-long standard Micro-USB 3.0 cable. Considering the fact it hosts a low-power internal drive, the Seagate Expansion's performance is a nice surprise and more than makes up for its lacks of features. I put that thing through a shredder. It took 19 minutes to transfer 3 games (118.3 GB) over from the internal hard drive to this external hard drive. Wish I could get a total refund because I bought one for myself and another one of these pieces of JUNK for someone else. In fact, I generally find that buying a drive like this is a much cheaper way to get storage for your Mac than buying a Mac-designated drive, which are generally much more expensive. Simply, it's saturated market with lots of viable options, while impact of "picking wrong" is quite profound. If you want to use the Seagate Expansion interchangeably in a mixed Windows and Mac environment, you can also format it using the exFAT file system. I purchased this drive on August 25, 2016. I tried it with the Xbox One and it worked very well. At first it said it didn't support it but after I restarted my PS4 it worked. Which one to trust? Reviewed in the United States on May 14, 2018. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. This means, among other things, if you lose the drive, anyone can have access to the data it stores, so if you use it while traveling, don't store sensitive data on it. I opened the casing to expose the hard drive only to find that the USB connector was barely attached with solder at 2 different points and TAPED down with metallic tape. Looking for entertainment other than Marvel and Star Wars? Now, it no longer works. If you can settle with less storage space, the drive is also available in 1TB and 500GB versions at $60 and $54, respectively (converted, about £40 or AU$77 for the 1TB and £36 or AU$69 for the 500GB). I literally just posted a review on this bad boy a few days ago, that it does what it's supposed to, and then two nights ago, it just started making this beeping sound. There is no backup software included and it's lacking any security features. The new SanDisk Extreme 900 Portable SSD is an extremely fast portable drive. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Though it offers little in the way of bells and whistles, the Seagate Expansion delivers a ton of storage for cheap. The Seagate Expansion Portable Drive quickly copies files and offers a ton of storage for the money. Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2017. Like all portable drives, the Expansion is bus-powered, requiring just one cable for both data and power. Unlike the Seagate Backup Plus family, such as the Backup Plus Fast , that boasts helpful features and useful backup software, the Seagate Expansion doesn't comes with anything, other than the program that facilitates the registration. Measured in megabytes per second, longer bars mean better performance. Xbox Series X availability: Check inventory at Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy and more, Black Friday 2020 ad scans: See the best deals and sales at Walmart, Best Buy, GameStop and more, Black Friday Walmart deals available now: $379 HP laptop, $148 55-inch Roku smart TV and more, Seagate Expansion Portable Drive (1TB, USB 3.0). Here are some of the best movies Netflix has to offer. Almost $70 for a piece of junk that's got all of my files STUCK and unable to be recovered. Seagate responded to my inquiry later saying they would not be honoring the warranty because I removed the drive from its casing. © 2020 CNET, A RED VENTURES COMPANY. The drive also works with USB 2.0 at around 30MBps, which is as fast as … The only option they offered was a $500+ file recovery. I noticed that the connection where the USB plugs into the device was loose. I bought this less than 4 months ago since it's a recommended product and the price was right, but it failed magnificently and without any warning. The hard drive sat on my desk and was used maybe 20 times since I purchased it. That's ok, I didn't want another defective drive anyway, Seagate. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Don't know what to watch on Amazon tonight? Overall, as far as performance is concerned, the Seagate Expansion is about as good as it gets for a drive of its type. Don't know what to watch on Amazon tonight? And on a Windows machine, you can use any third-party backup software with it. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. We delete comments that violate our policy, which we encourage you to read. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. The Good The Seagate Expansion Portable Drive quickly copies files and offers a ton of storage for the money. Good choice, but there are better alternatives. Here's CNET's... Don't know what to watch tonight? ), go ahead and get the Seagate Expansion. It's also compact enough to fit in your pocket and its no frills approach makes it easy to use with both computers and game consoles. And thanks to the straightforward design, the drive is especially good for a non-computer host, such as a game console or media player. Until I asked, Seagate did not even mention honoring the product's warranty. And it appears that my warranty window is now closed. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. There's 1.84TB usable after formatting. Let's round up some of its best gems. Portable drives that are faster generally have special performance-boosting features, such as RAID-0 or use a solid-state internal drive, which the Expansion does not. No luck with a Windows based computer, Blu Ray player, or a Mac. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. It failed on March 1, 2017. Looking for entertainment other than Marvel and Star Wars? You can also easily reformat it into HFS+ in order to work with a Mac, a process that takes just a few seconds. The Good The Seagate Expansion Portable Drive quickly copies files and offers a ton of storage for the money. However, this doesn't mean you can't use the Expansion as a backup drive. But if large storage space and fast performance are what you need, the Seagate Expansion is an excellent way to add more storage to your laptop. Reviews here don't help much: you read 1 star review saying "drive arrived dead", then you have 5 star review saying "drive is great". You could hear the drive arm "clicking" every 2-3 seconds, but never completing a transfer.