Seagate 12TB Expansion Desktop Hard Drive | USB 3.0 (STKP12000400)

After reading a lot of reviews that said it's noisy and slow I initially tried to cancel my order but missed the cancellation point, anyway I decided to keep it as it was a Prime day special offer, I haven't suffered any of the woes I read about in negative reviews and so far it works without fault it is actually very quiet in comparison with many other USB external drives I have used some of which I still own, to the speed I'm getting about 160MB/s transfer speed over USB 3.0 which I think is quite reasonable for an 8TB 3.5" 54 RPM HDD, I bought it to backup my film & TV series from existing HDD drives just in case one of them fails and I'm really glad I bought it when I did as I only paid £168.99 it's now selling for £240.65 so a saving of £71.66. Cost aside it's really useful backup solution and has a small footprint my only criticism is it doesn't have an on/off power switch so you'll have to unplug it

Works great and is very easy to set up. Quite noisy and you can feel the ticks within my desk. You have to use the enclosed PSU (not a generic 12v HDD PSU) because it uses a lot more power than other HDD's, but of course, 26TB means you can give away all those old units! The PSU comes with a variety of pin adaptors for every plug on the planet, including EU, UK, Oz and US. I have purchased this purely to backup my main file server and store it off site. To initially copy 21TB took about 30 hours and once initially copied, the weekly update takes about 15 mins, so quite nifty and perfect for my application. I personally, would not use this as a permanently connected drive, its a bit too big, noisy and clunky (and of course 26TB is way beyond a USB connection!), a built in drive is better for speed, power, ventilation, vibration proofing etc. and this drive is probably the ultimate for being able to transport that data in a safe secure manner. You will need something with lots of memory to connect to it because chances are that 26TB of data will probably be over a million files! Make sure windows is set to 'Not indexed' and your anti virus scanner is configured to 'not check' when connected because something this large in capacity takes hours not minutes (and my PC is 5.6 Ghz, 32G RAM so no slouch!)

Plenty of storage but a bit slow to respond. Doesn't take up to much desk real estate but I had to put it on a shelf to prevent it from adding to the hum. Not as solidly made as my old 2TB Seagate, let's hope it's as durable.

Firstly, the HDD cleared customs in approx. 8 hours, and arrived a day early, happily. It reads/writes at approx 40MB/s MAX, averaging around 35 to transfer a lengthy media file, in the 8TB Version, which has 7.27 TB of usable file space on it. Its not too big, the plastic case had a film on it, and the wires are adequate to sit at the PC or TV. It was plug and play with no need to format or worry about getting the HDD recognized by the system. It is easy to carry and move and would fit in most carry cases. Its jet black and moderately shiny and has an LED built in above the power port on top to show its active. I'm confident this drive should last me 10 years or more and will be a fantastic addition to my digital library. I played a UHD 4K video and it operated at a peak of 10%, mostly negligible usage. Although its not the fastest HDD you can get, I consider this very good value for money and a high quality product. You can plug this in your TV and play videos or music easily enough since its not USB powered which is a nice bonus.

This is now my 6th High storage hard drive from Seagate. I have had them when they first started with the 8TB then the 12TB, 14TB and again with the 16TB so this 20TB or 18.1TB after format, was the way to go because my 14TB drive has all my videos on and they need a backup. I know a lot of reviews say this does about 120-135MBs (note) I have learnt that if you are transfering a lot of data, point a standard home fan on hard drive to keep it cool and it will transfer at it's fullest for me that is 210-235MBs. I have just moved 1TB in hour and a half and am in the process of moving 8TB of video and it is hovering between 215 and 235MBs with the fan pointed at it and it is saying it should take about 11 and a half hours. Which sounds bad but is very fast. See Screen Shots! (this will change if any of the drives start to over heat) yes i could use a NAS but I started with these and it would cost a lot more to change now. So if you need high storage for videos or photos like RAW photos, these drives have lasted me years, i have some 2TB ones that are over 10 years old now. Also, it comes with different electrical connectors for if you go on holidays. Nice to have the option. Very sturdy build, easy to setup, i usually register them, then reformat to NTFS, sometimes you'll get a free photoshop package for a set period of time.

I ordered this item (the 6GB version) on the 3rd of July 2025 in order to move a large number of files I did not have room for on my laptop, and which were causing it to slow down, but that I wanted to keep. Today is the 3rd of September, just two months later, and I have switched on my laptop to find it not only frozen, but when I did finally get into it, various changes I did not make myself to my laptop, and this hard drive beeping and disappeared from my laptop, along with all of the files stored on it. So this hard drive is about as much use as a chocolate donkey, as far as keeping your files safe, and storing them externally. It also apparently makes changes to your devices, without your consent, and without your knowledge. I had various items and files stored on my desktop, including a screensaver, which have also completely disappeared, which were in no way connected to this hard drive, and were stored on my laptop itself. There is zero reason for any of this to happen. The hard drive has just been sitting on my desk the entire time, and there were zero error messages and nothing has changed. It just suddenly started beeping today, and on switching on my laptop I found it frozen and the desktop altered and files missing. There are no help screens, error messages and no way to access it to actually find out what has occurred either, so super helpful. I have already got my money back, but that's not really the point is it, the point is that I have lost all of my files, as have others, and that this product cannot be trusted for its one job. Literally its one job, and not even over the ridiculously short period of two months, and it's not as though this product is cheap either. If you cannot trust it, then it defeats the object of having it. If you're looking for a completely useless piece of black plastic, that wastes your time, energy and money, loses your files, makes changes to your laptop/computer without your knowledge or permission and costs you more than it is worth, I highly recommend this piece of rubbish. Update: this hard drive was sent back to Seagate, as per their "Data Rescue Services" guarantee, and despite absolutely nothing happening to it, and it just completely failing from merely sitting on my desk for a few months, weeks later they wrote to me to say nothing could be done to save any of my data so they would be scrapping it. They then sent me a replacement hard drive, which then failed before I had even had time to move files onto it. Not that I either had any files left, or felt inclined to do so anyway. During the time the first hard drive failed, I also had an issue with my broadband and had no broadband for months, so this hard drive was meant to be a back up for the fact that I was unable to save documents to the cloud. With both failing simultaneously, I lost all of my files. I'm still infuriated daily by discovering files I've lost that were moved to this hard drive during this period, and today was yet another day I went to find some files and discovered they were a whole bunch and weeks of work that were lost to this hard drive. So I came to update this review to advise you, in case you were wondering, that not only is this hard drive utterly useless, the "Data Rescue Service" is completely worthless too.

I was in desperate need of a back up solution for my photos and videos to free up space on my NAS. The solution did not need to be "always on demand" but rather a manual back up device that I could plug in once a month. The transfer speed were absolutely acceptable and what peace of mind to now have an empty NAS ready for our next travel adventure to upload photos and videos to knowing all of our historic memories are saved on this drive. Fully compatible with our Apple ecosystem. No messing around with installation set up apart from ensuring the file formats were correct. USB - C connectivity ensured fast data transfer. Sits nicely under tour monitor so it is not in the way.

I was hesitating whether or not to buy another Seagate hard drive. My old one had been really noisy for quite a long time now, but the price for 8TB was irresistible compared to other alternatives. Also, my previous Seagate hard drive lasted for 7 years of hourly incremental Apple Time Machine back-ups. I bought this for the same purpose, and I'm really impressed so far. It only took a few minutes to reformat the drive using the Apple disk utility. You need to do this if you want to use the disk for Time Machine back-ups. My first full back-up took 2 to 3 hours. After that, hourly incremental back-ups are now only taking a few minutes. Before they used to take over an hour, so the next one was started before the previous one had finished. This disk is less than half the noise volume of my previous one, in terms of noisy disk spinning and chuntering. I now barely notice a back-up is being performed. This is a really nice sleek looking compact unit too. You don't have to place it vertically. If you want a well priced back-up disk for Time Machine, this one is perfect.

Don't be fooled .. saving your info to the 'cloud' .. is just sharing to someone else's computer. Save everything on your own devices and share not with who knows who's out in the aether. Privacy is privacy and this is how you do it.

Great service and so far a perfectly extra storage backup hard drive....it is perfect for all my photos. The seller was amazing.......my item arrivede earlier than expected..it I would order again!

Bom

Riesige Speicherkapazität und einfache Datensicherung für Zuhause und Büro Die Seagate Expansion Desktop 20 TB ist eine hervorragende externe Festplatte für alle, die große Datenmengen sicher speichern möchten. Mit ihrer enormen Speicherkapazität eignet sie sich ideal für Backups, Fotos, Videos, Spiele oder umfangreiche Dokumentensammlungen. Die Einrichtung gelingt unkompliziert per USB 3.0 und dank des integrierten Data Rescue Services bietet sie zusätzliche Sicherheit bei unerwarteten Datenverlusten. Praktische Beispiele aus dem Alltag: 💾 20 TB Speicherkapazität: Genug Platz für Millionen Fotos, tausende Videos oder umfangreiche Datensicherungen. ⚡ USB 3.0-Anschluss: Schnelle Datenübertragung für Backups und große Dateien. 🖥️ Ideal für PC und Notebook: Einfach anschließen und sofort mit der Datensicherung beginnen. 📂 Perfekt für Backups: Ideal für Time Machine, Windows-Backups oder die Archivierung wichtiger Dateien. 🎬 Große Mediensammlung speichern: Optimal für Filme, Musik, Fotos und Videoprojekte. 🎮 Auch für große Spielesammlungen geeignet: Bietet reichlich Platz für umfangreiche Spielebibliotheken und Downloads. 🔒 Data Rescue Service inklusive: Zusätzliche Sicherheit für den Fall eines unerwarteten Datenverlusts. 🏠 Ideal für Homeoffice und Familien: Alle wichtigen Daten zentral an einem Ort speichern. 💼 Perfekt für Kreative und Profis: Geeignet für Foto-, Video- oder Musikprojekte mit hohem Speicherbedarf. 🎁 Sinnvolle Investition für langfristige Datensicherung: Ideal für alle, die ihre wertvollen Daten zuverlässig archivieren möchten. Fazit: Die Seagate Expansion Desktop 20 TB überzeugt mit ihrer enormen Speicherkapazität, der einfachen Bedienung und der schnellen USB-3.0-Verbindung. Ob für Backups, Medienarchive oder große Projektdaten – sie bietet reichlich Platz und sorgt mit dem integrierten Data Rescue Service für ein zusätzliches Maß an Sicherheit. Eine klare 5-Sterne-Empfehlung. 💾⚡🖥️✨

External HDD that is fast in data transfer, large in capacity and value for money. Got it during lightning deal, which makes it every more worthwhile!