Seagate Expansion

If you are looking for the Seagate Expansion USB 3 5tb desktop external hard drive stbv5000100, than you should know, that such drives are no longer manufactured by Seagate company. New successor is Seagate Expansion USB 3 5tb desktop external hard drive steb5000200. Older models is still can be purchased from Amazon, but before that you should know main differences between these two drives.

The biggest difference between these two drives is that older model partitioned MBR instead of GPT. New Expansion drives are coming out of the box partitioned GPT (GUID partition table) which could make it tricky using them on the Windows XP 32-bit OS systems. The newer model up to 5TB only works on Vista and up since it only supports GPT. Big advantage of MBR, which is used by older model, drive up to 8TB works on all operating systems from XP to Windows 10.

GUID Partition Table (GPT) is a partitioning scheme that is part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface specification; it uses a globally unique identifier for qualifying devices. It is the next generation partitioning scheme designed to succeed the Master Boot Record partitioning scheme method. GPT disks are supported only by Windows XP 64-Bit Edition and above. You cannot move GPT disks to computers running 32-bit versions of Windows XP. You can convert an MBR disk to a GPT disk and vice versa only if the disk is empty or you are not concerned with losing the data on the drive, since doing so will completely wipe out anything that is on the drive.

But since Windows XP is long ego discontinued, there is no point in reviewing old drive. That’s why our review dedicated to Seagate Expansion USB 3 5tb desktop external hard drive steb5000200

The Seagate Expansion 5TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 instantly adds storage space to your system an you can free up some space from your primary data storage to enhance the system performance. It is easy to setup, just connect the power supply and USB cable and your are ready to drag and drop files.

It is compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista, and SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port. The package includes an Expansion Drive, 4-foot (120cm) USB 3.0 Cable, Power adapter and Quick Start Guide.

Since the Expansion 5TB USB drive comes with it’s own power supply, it will work with any open USB port, even one found on an unpowered hub. And since it’s backwards compatible with USB 2.0, it will work just fine with your existing PC – even if it isn’t equipped with superspeed USB 3.0.

Seagate Expansion 5TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 is a 4.5 star rated drive that features the easiest installation ever, just plug in and your computer automatically detects the drive enabling you to start sending files immediately.

Some consumers have conversed about the slow transfer of data, but transferring one file of 2 TB and multiple files of 2 TB are two different ways of storage and will always require different transfer time.

If you want to use it for macs, especially if you want to be able to create multiple bootable HFS+ partitions, when you need reformatting. Make sure that you make the base partition scheme GUID Partition Table, not Master Boot Record (MBR). If the base partition scheme is MBR, it won’t let you make HFS+ partitions. Once you adjust it to be GUID Partition Table, you can make multiple HFS+ Journaled partitions just fine.

This is previous model review, but package content is the same.