Seagate GoFlex Desk for Mac bootable?

Question

Seagate GoFlex Desk for Mac bootable?

Hello all -

I am contemplating buying a new Seagate GoFlex Desk for Mac 2TB external hard drive. The model number is STBC2000100. It comes with an adapter base that has USB 2.0 and Firewire 800. I plan to use FW800. I'm running Lion 10.7.2 on a new mid 2011 Mac mini. I am interested in this drive because Seagate has announced a new adapter base for Thunderbolt that is claimed will be able to work with this drive.

First: When I talked to Seagate technical support pre-purchase, they told me this drive will NOT function as an external bootable drive, even if Mac OS X is installed. Can this really be true? Has anyone else used this drive as an external bootable in 10.7.2?

Second: I've seen so many messages, both here and at the Seagate forum about problems with new Seagate 2TB and 3TB external drives that I can't mentally keep track of all of them. Some say the problem is only with USB 3.0. Others say its more prevalent than that. I've not seen any messages specifically referring to the Mac specific Seagate model number I have indicated. I don't want to waste my time if this isn't going to work correctly (files not available, drive goes to sleep and freezes Lion, drive spins all the time or will not sleep correctly when my mini sleeps, etc). Does anyone have recent specific experience with the model STBC2000100 or 2000101 (black case) and Lion 10.7.2? I would really appreciate hearing other's experience before I spend my money and time on this.

Thanks! - Randy

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.2), (mid 2011); 2.7GHz i7; 8GB RAM

Posted on Jan 25, 2012 1:34 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Jan 25, 2012 2:17 PM in response to Randy Knowles

If Seagate says the drive is not bootable, that means they won't warrant it to be bootable, whether it really is or not. After the many reports of problems with those drives that I've seen on this site, I wouldn't trust one.

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Answer 2

Jan 26, 2012 12:05 AM in response to Linc Davis

The reason why I asked my question here is that the pre-purchase rep at Seagate did not seem to know what he was talking about. He first told me the drive was bootable "with Time Machine". After telling him twice that Time Machine backups are NOT bootable, he said I could boot with a restore with Time Machine. Only when I specifically asked if I could boot without Time Machine did he say no. My impression was he didn't have a clue about Macs.

I am aware of many complaints regarding Segate GoFlex 2 and 3 TB drives. Many of them seem to concern the Windows dual version (both Mac and Windows) drives, STAC2000100. Many others seem to relate to drives with USB 3.0 interfaces, but not FW800. That is why I asked my question specifically regarding the Mac version model number(s) and with Firewire 800, not USB 3.0.

Short of paying more than $500 Seagate seems to be the only game in town for going to Thunderbolt. I would love to hear from people with actual operating experience with the STBC2000100 or 101 and 10.7.2, Firewire 800. If this Seagate model is not a viable alternative, then there is NO other affordable drive available right now as far as I can tell.

Thanks - Randy

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Answer 3

Jan 26, 2012 7:58 AM in response to Linc Davis

Well I called Seagate pre-purchase again to ask a different question. Nauturally I got a different agent. On a whim, I decided to ask about booting from the drive again. This agent told me yes, I can use this drive as a boot drive. Allso I have noticed the Seagate Data Sheet says "Since the drive is fomatted for Mac computers out of the box, it takes full advantage of all the tools the operating system has to offer."

If Best Buy has a decent return policy I just might try this out. If so I'll post my results here.

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Answer 4

DCJ1

Level 1

59 points

Jan 26, 2012 9:36 AM in response to Randy Knowles

The Seagate rep who said that you can't boot from the drive is wrong. He gave his best guess about the Mac OS.

I have used the 1TB seagate GoFlex Desk drive for seven months with a FW800 adapter. The drive is bootable now, and it will also be when I use the Thunderbolt adapter next month.

I don't know about any consistent problems across any Seagate product lines. But i have not had any problems.

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Answer 5

Jan 26, 2012 9:44 AM in response to DCJ1

DCJ1 -

Thanks much for your answer. Its extremely helpful to have the benefit of your actual operating experience. Looks like the myriad problems have been the Windows version drive STAC2000100 and/or with the USB 3.0 adapter base. I'm going into my local Best Buy to check on their return policy, and if its reasonable, I'll give this a try. Thanks again.

- Randy

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Answer 6

DCJ1

Level 1

59 points

Jan 26, 2012 10:52 AM in response to Randy Knowles

You said:

"Looks like the myriad problems have been the Windows version drive STAC2000100 and/or with the USB 3.0 adapter base."

I realize that their is a Seagate GoFlex Desk drives sold speciically for Macs. But the other drives are not necessarily Windows version drives. The drive that I've been using with my Mac is the STAC1000100. I don't remember if it was originally formatted for Mac or Windows. But the usual procedure when I buy a new drive is to format it for Macs.

I also recommend not using the software that comes with the drive. I feel that Apple's back up software - Time Machine - should be much better than anything that comes with a third party drive. I erased the contents of the Seagate drive as part of the formatting process.

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Answer 7

Jan 26, 2012 1:40 PM in response to DCJ1

DCJ1 -

Ah perhaps the fact that you reformatted your drive is significant. My new drive out of the box has a single GUID partition and is fomatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - per Get Info and Disk Utility. Disk Utility also reports that there are 150 folders and 470 files on the drive out of the box.

2 Icons are visible at first glance: Read Me.pdf and Seagate GoFlex Software.mpkg. The Read Me file says that the drive is ready to use out of the box, but that the software provides additional features:

[1] View real-time drive capacity and other helpful information about your drive

[2] Turn the activity lights off if they are distrcting

[3] Run diagnostics to verify that the drive is functioning properly

[4] Activate the capacity lights on the GoFlex Desk model

I don't see any Seagate provided back-up or other software.

Having seen messages before that suggest that the Seagate software alters the driver's sleep parameters, I'm hesitant to install this. I think I'll call Seagate Tech Support and ask about the sleep function. In the mean time I'm going to test the drive by letting it have no activity for at least half an hour to see if it does go to sleep.

My System Preferences-->Energy Saver is set to Never sleep the computer and the box "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" is not checked. This is because I manually put the computer to sleep when I am not going to be using it for a significant period. Apple Tech Support has told me in the past that OSX does communicate ok for drives to sleep when the computer is manually put to sleep, but the external drive firmware must be able to recognize and act on this information.

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Answer 8

Jan 27, 2012 3:47 PM in response to DCJ1

Well the drive does not go to sleep no matter how long there is no activity (good). It does go to sleep if I put my mini to sleep with the Apple Menu command (good). I installed the Seagate software and it does not change this. I have partitioned the dive with 4 volumes so far and have started cloning the contents of my old FW400 drives over. So far so good.....

- Randy

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Answer 9

Jan 28, 2012 12:47 PM in response to DCJ1

DCJ1 -

Thanks again for sharing the benefit of your experience. I now have several bootable partitions on my drive, all of which work just fine as start up discs. The drive is working flawlessly as detailed above. The capacity leds are enabled and working correctly, and the power led varies in brightness when there is read or write activity. I'm loooking forward to going to Thunderbolt next month!!!

🙂 - Randy

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