FreeAgent Products

[samue23]

I bought a new old stock freeagent go pro for mac, sealed original packaging, it took longer than anticipated for the initial back-up 33gb took several hours and the drive got very warm. Is this normal? 

[AlanM]

http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=207851&NewLang=en

What happens if you try that? 

Also, were you using FireWire 400, or USB?  Or some other interface cable?

[samue23]

I have not tried to reformat it. It worked right out of the box I just thought it would be faster. It was pre formatted from seagate.

[AlanM]

OK, well, it was preformatted, yes, but for use in a PC.  You'll need to format it in MacOS.

Please see the Common Issues thread at the top of this board and search for Accepted Solutions in the forum for more help on this issue.

[samue23]

I bought the for MAC version of the freeagent go pro drive and I used firewire (800) for connectivity.

Why would I need to format it if it was already formatted for MAC, at least thats what the packaging says?

[AlanM]

Doh!

You're right, and I missed the "for mac" part of your original post.  Very sorry to have wasted your time.  Ignore everything I said up to now, haha.  

(I can hear you saying: "Um, that was the plan.")   :-D

OK, you're right, it was preformatted FOR MACOS when it came in the box, as you said.  Now, your original question was whether it's right that it'd take several hours to backup 33 GB and that it'd get warm.  I would say yes, that's not surprising.  If it had taken ~1 day to back up that much, then there might be something worth troubleshooting.  Also, if it gets so hot that it's almost too hot to touch, then that might be a problem.  Let me know if either of those are true.

[fzabkar]

ISTM that any external enclosure without a fan is a potential hotbox.

I don't know what is available for the Mac (except smartmontools), but on the PC platform there are several SMART tools that can monitor the temperatures of external drives.

Smartmontools version 5.38 - How to Download and Install on Mac OS X:
http://smartmontools.darwinports.com/

BTW, a reasonable data transfer rate for external HDDs over USB 2.0 is 20MB/s.

That means that you should expect 33GB to transfer in ...

33000 / 20 / 60 = 27.5 minutes

[2520hollywood]

I bought the 2TB Go flex desk at Costco and I hooked it up to a 27 "inch iMac using the USB and separate power supply. 

The thing mounts, but randomly goes offline and displays a message the drive was not ejected properly, even thou I never ejected it. It seems to loose power.

I have it direct connected USB from drive to back of the computer & power source plugged directly in the wall?

I hope this drive is not a lemon.