Customers are positive about the product's storage capacity, overall performance as a backup device, and ease of use. Some customers appreciate the speed and price. However, some customers have reported concerns about the noise produced by the hard drive.
This summary was generated by AI based on customer reviews.
The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.
Page 1 Showing 1-20 of 109 reviews
Pros mentioned:
Speed, Storage capacity
Cons mentioned:
Noise
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Quick and compact
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Works great, it is a 7200RPM so it is a bit noisy if you're trying to install a large game on it or torrenting. In normal usage however it's not too bad. After downsizing to an ITX build, something like this is invaluable for storage until SSDs can get to a similar price range per TB. Also USB 3.0 is near equivalent to SATA for read/write speeds (5Gb/ps vs 6Gb/ps), so you're getting the same performance as an internal drive.
I attached my CrystalDiskMark score with an old screenshot of an equivalent speed test of the same model as my internal 5TB 7200RPM from KitGuru that I replaced with this 16TB model.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Just what I needed
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Posted .
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This external hard drive works as described. Plug and play immediately out of the box. Fast, secure, portable, branded quality. I will definitely buy one again (but not for a while...after all, it is 16 TB of storage capacity).
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
Good drive; not USB C as stated in specifications
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Good drive but not USB-C as stated on bestbuy's specifications page for the product (as of 04/09/2025). Customer services only resolution was to return and replace. Seems that sending and adapter would be cheaper than spending money on return shipping and shipping another drive. Especially since i bought it based on misinformation from bestbuy's website. 4 stars for the drive, 1 star for the experience so i will give it 3.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Overall performance
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
ext HDD
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
seagate are always stable and reliable external hds
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
My hard drive
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Excellent work great and be able to save my pictures
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Storage capacity
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Very Fast Drive, Works Great with Xbox Series X!
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
The most important thing you should know about the Seagate 16 TB HDD is that it comes with a high end 7200 rpm HDD inside its solid casing. This is basically as good as you can get with a mechanical HDD.
Also worth mentioning is that the power cable comes with 2 adapters. Most of us will need to snap on the standard 2 prong piece. This is the first external HDD that I've purchased with a plug like this, and I've purchased many over the years. I've never even bought a HDD enclosure with this type of plug. Long story short, I didn't like it. It comes with two types of adapters and an extra for each, so four total. It feels cheap so I am guessing that why they included 2 of each. However, it shouldn't be an issue.
For those of you wanting to use this on your Xbox Series X (or Series S and even Xbox One), here's some very good news. It works great for all your Xbox One, 360, and OG games. It can move next-gen titles back and forth very quickly. To be fair, it's ridiculous that Microsoft (and Sony) limit their next-gen titles to SSD. They would work absolutely fine (albeit with longer load times obviously) on drives such as this.
Returning to my main point, googling revealed much misinformation on external storage with Xbox. Common is the false statement that Xbox has a 16 Tb limit. I have this 16 TB Seagate, a 8 TB WD HDD, a 2 TB Samsung T7 SSD, and the 1 TB SSD expansion card operating perfectly together on the same Xbox Series X. The only limit to storage expansion would seem to be the number of USB ports. Contrast that with PS4 and PS5 where Sony limits you to one external storage device not exceeding 8 TB.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Overall performance, Storage capacity
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Always Reliable
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This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Very good for media storage. They've upgraded them several times over the last decade, and I tend to buy the larger-storage ones such as this and keep the older ones for projects/archives that require less space. To be honest, the older vertical design of the Seagate drives was more convenient for my use, as I use a bookshelf-style setup for a nearby connection. As far as performance is concerned, though, I have no complaints. Good transfer speed. Reliable (I haven't had a problem with a Seagate drive for about 8 years). Good price, given how long it takes to fill up the space (I generally move up to the latest/larger size expecting that I'll be using it for at least two or three years before I might need to reorganize folders and buy another or a newer model). I'd recommend the product for media storage without any reservations (if a buyer is looking for simpler data storage, a smaller Seagate drive might be a better choice).
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Top end SATA HDD inside, mediocre USB-SATA bridge
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Posted . Owned for less than 1 week when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Top notch SATA HDD inside, mediocre USB-SATA bridge
The 16TB Seagate Expansion Desktop (STKP16000400) external drive with USB interface contains an internal 3.5" SATA drive inside its enclosure. The enclosure also contains the electronics for converting SATA to USB. I have tested it fairly thoroughly with Seagate's SeaChest tools and also with third party SMART control utilities.
Warranty: One immediate issue is that the retail box outside claims a 3 year warranty, but that seems incorrect: When I enter the serial number printed on the case in the Seagate warranty checking website, it shows a 14 month warranty.
The drive inside is a top-end internal 3.5" 7200RPM Seagate 16TB Exos X18 series CMR SATA drive (with a different serial number than the one printed on the external case of the Expansion Desktop drive). I had bought that same model bare internal drive for $20 more a few weeks ago, also from Best Buy, and it came with a full 5 year warranty (verified again with Seagate website). OTOH, when I enter the serial number of the internal 3.5" Exos SATA drive that is inside the external Expansion drive case, Seagate says no warranty.
Shucking considerations: People needing only SATA (not USB) may buy this cheaper external drive and then shuck the internal SATA drive out to save $20, but the trade off is in the warranty: The enclosure cannot be opened without damage and it will void even the 14-month warranty. So the additional cost for the bare internal drive can be viewed as the price for purchasing a 5 year warranty. OTOH, while this external USB Exapansion drive has very little warranty, it comes with a USB enclosure if you need USB.
Performance and management: Sequential read and write speeds were ~245MB/sec under the uas driver in linux. However, the USB/SATA bridge chipset that Seagate is using is not the greatest. If you use the uas driver in linux, then it seems "ATA pass-through over scsi" does not work, and so SMART and EPC cannot be viewed or configured. To use SMART or EPC, I have to use the vanilla usb-storage driver without uas (via a quirk), which is a little slower with sequential R/W at ~230MB/sec. This has been a problem with all Seagate external USB HDDs (I have seven, Backup Plus/Slim, etc). When I use my other bare internal 3.5" Seagate Exos drive (the same model and size that's inside the external Expansion case) with a better quality USB/SATA chipset (ASM1153), ATA pass-through over scsi works with the uas driver and I get even better speed, sequential R/W at ~280MB/sec.
Power management: The drive has EPC and a 2min timeout from Idle_A to Idle_B. Timed standby seems to be disabled and I could not enable it, even with Seagate's SeaChest tools. Manually putting it to standby (spin-down) works.
Power consumption (at the AC wall adapter): Drive starting/spinning up = ~23W, Actively reading/writing = ~10W, Idle_A (heads loaded) = ~6.5W, Idle_B (heads parked) = ~4.5W, Spun down to Standby_Z or in Sleep = ~1.8W, USB cable unplugged from host = 0W.
Bottom line: If you are happy with the limited warranty and USB is what you need, then this is a good purchase at less than $16/TB.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Ease of use, Speed, Storage capacity
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Video Backup
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Seams to store video well. Speed good. Easy to navagate.
I would recommend this to a friend
Cons mentioned:
Noise
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Seems okay but
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
It seems okay however I haven't had it for very long. A couple of notes however. Yesterday when I went to backup files, Windows gave me "there's something wrong with the drive thing". (It didn't find anything on the scan and repair option.
The other item that bothers is some noise it makes at startup. Definitely not impressed with that. I'm using this drive as my offline backup for now.
It doesn't have legs for it to stand up and there's no power switch on the enclosure. It did come with a lot of power adapters for different voltages and countries however.
(The website forced me to make a selection on buying it)
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Overall performance
Cons mentioned:
Noise
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Plug and play..
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Posted . Owned for 2 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Works just like you would hope. Easy to connect and use. It can get a little noisier than you'd like, but still not not that noisy.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Solid Drive with a touch of noise.
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I purchased this drive to replace a failed Time Machine drive for my Mac Mini. It worked flawlessly upon connection and the system connected and formatted it without any issues. The device is fast and connectivity to is solid. It IS a bit beefy in size, and you do need to keep in mind this drive is not bus powered. It requires you to plug it into its own power source, but for a backup drive, that should be standard. I would NOT consider this drive to be a portable, but you do you.
It can get a little warm, but nothing outrageous and it is not silent or even quiet. It does make noise when active with various clicks and knocks but I personally only found it distracting for the first day and with my headphones or normal sounds from my computers, I rarely hear it. I feel it through my desk more than audibly hearing it.
Overall, it is a solid drive that does exactly what it's supposed to do.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Speed, Storage capacity
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Lots of space
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Posted .
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Plenty of space and speed. Connected to my PC and it worked right out of the box.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Overall performance, Storage capacity
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
16tb data storage
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Posted .
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Connected this to a Windows server. Formatted it to NTFS for best storage capacity. Works fine as backup device.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Overall performance, Storage capacity
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Seagate USB Drive 16 TB
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Posted .
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Works well as it should. Plenty of backup storage.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Storage capacity
Cons mentioned:
Noise
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Noisy
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Posted . Owned for 4 months when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
Storage capacity is great. Only reason for 4 star is the sound it makes. It’s pretty loud compared to smaller capacity storage.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Slow and Steady Wins the Race
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Posted . Owned for 3 weeks when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
This drive is a workhorse, storing massive amounts of data with easy formatting and plug and play connectivity. I find it to be slow in its transfer speed, even for an external spin drive, but if that is not an issue, this drive is safe, reliable, and an awesome place to consolidate data from multiple sources.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Overall performance
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
Good external drive
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Posted . Owned for 1 month when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
I had a drive failing and needed to quickly back it up prior to startung recovery of the drive.
Split this into two logical drives and recovered from the first partition back up to the new partition, before moving it to a new internal drive. Worked well.
I would recommend this to a friend
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
LOVE SEAGATE EXPANSION HARD DRIVES
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Posted . Owned for 6 months when reviewed.
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
WE LOVE SEAGATE HD EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES. SO EASY TO USE. WE HAVE SEVERAL WITH MOVIES, OLD TV SHOWS, CONCERTS ETC. WE OWN A-- 16TB, 12TB, 4- 8TB'S, 2- 5TB'S. NEVER HAD A PROBLEM OR ISSUE WITH THEM. THEY ;OAD GREAT AND FAST.
I would recommend this to a friend
Pros mentioned:
Storage capacity
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
Awesome!! will buy again
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Posted .
This reviewer received promo considerations or sweepstakes entry for writing a review.
it works wonderful! It holds a lot of memory!! I have one on my pc and i got this one for my husband's pc.