Product Listing

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro - Versatile Portable Storage

By Vijay Anand - 8 Jul 2010
Launch SRP: S$189

Conclusion

Flexing its Way to Consumers' Hearts

To be honest, we never expected such flexible and versatile storage solution options, but the Seagate GoFlex series definitely took us by surprise. While we were kind of skeptical initially of this feature, once we started using it, we realized its advantages immediately.

As highlighted within the article, the simplicity of the GoFlex drives is to leverage on the fast native SATA 3Gbps interface of the hard drives within and offer various external upgrade connectivity options for those who need it - FireWire-800, eSATA and USB 3.0. The drives come with the ubiquitous USB 2.0 GoFlex interface option and leave it to your discretion to top-up for any other options. Importantly, you don't have to necessarily hunt for a drive that can do it all and pay much more for such a device. You can instead choose to step up only when required. Plus the cable flexibility means the same drive can be used in almost any system. While we admit the various GoFlex cable options are a little on the expensive side of things, it's still a new product and we foresee more reasonable prices once there is a bigger user base of the GoFlex drives.

Besides the interchangeable GoFlex connectivity options, Seagate also offers an ecosystem of products such as the FreeAgent GoFlex Net Media Sharing Device and FreeAgent GoFlex TV HD Media Player that easily interface with the GoFlex Portable drives and expand their usability.

The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro 500GB portable storage drive stands tall amongst a sea of other usual storage options, thanks to the new GoFlex cabling system.

As for the top of the line FreeAgent GoFlex Pro 500GB drive reviewed here, it carries a premium price of S$189, but justifies itself with Memeo backup/synchronization software, a desktop dock and the use of a 7200rpm laptop hard drive within. Performance-wise, it was competitive with some of the top offerings from last year's group of 500GB portable drives, but sadly didn't better them. It was however a bit better than the FreeAgent Go drive, but that too is probably because of the newcomer's 7200rpm drive. Access times have improved greatly thanks to the faster spindle speed, so at least it would seem the drive is a little snappier than standard laptop drives. eSATA performance was quite breathtaking compared to USB 2.0, but the actual performance numbers were to our expectations.

A couple of things the FreeAgent GoFlex Pro 500GB could have improved upon was for better performance and a dock which can have interchangeable connectivity options just like the GoFlex interface cables. Wrapping it up, we think Seagate's concept of the GoFlex Portable drives is an interesting proposition and a breath of fresh air for the external portable storage scene. For that, we're giving the drive an Innovation award in addition to its respectable score of 8.5.

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8.5
  • Design 9
  • Performance 8
  • Features 9
  • Value 8
The Good
Upgradable Interface Options
Decent Performance
The Bad
Short GoFlex cables
Dock supports only USB 2.0
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