Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro - Versatile Portable Storage
Seagate's strutting its new series of portable drives called GoFlex, which is probably one of the most upgradable and versatile drives out in the market at the time of review. Easily swap out the default USB 2.0 interface with optional eSATA, FireWire or USB 3.0 connectivity. So how does this new entry fare as a whole? Read on to find out.
Seagate's New GoFlex Storage Solutions
External storage drives are a dime a dozen these days, all the more because they are affordable and people increasingly realize the importance of these must-have gadgets. More people are using their PCs and engaging the internet in creative ways, thus creating the need for greater storage. While cloud services are growing, there's nothing like proper personal storage for privacy and immediate usage needs.
Not much has changed with portable storage drives these days other than the new USB 3.0 interface adopted on a few of the latest storage devices. However by large, most options in the market are still on USB 2.0 today. Seagate however, has a different take on their brand new series of FreeAgent GoFlex series of storage solutions. Emphasizing on flexibility and versatility, the new GoFlex products are pretty comprehensively thought out from implementation to marketing and we think they are on to something. We check their new line-up with the top of the line Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro 500GB external portable drive.
The packaging of the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex series has improved heaps from the FreeAgent Go lineup we've seen previously. Note that the Pro versions of the GoFlex drives as seen here are based on a 7200rpm drive and it's prominently noted on the box too.
The contents of include the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro 500GB drive, GoFlex USB 2.0 interface cable, and the GoFlex Dock.
The star highlight of the GoFlex series is that the drive interface electronics is now on a dedicated attachment device, thus enabling Seagate to offer a whole array of interchangeable connectivity options and features with accessory add-ons. By default, all GoFlex drives get a GoFlex USB 2.0 interface cable bundled in the package. Upgrade options available from Seagate include a FireWire 800 kit, USB 3.0 kit, Powered eSATA kit, Auto Backup kit and more. You can even get multiples of any of the cable kits so that you can have one for your work place and another for your home, thus you only need to travel with the slim drive. As you might have guessed from the cable options, the drive is immediately compatible with PCs and Mac-based systems, just be sure to get the right connectivity option. These cable upgrade kits are a little expensive though, ranging from S$30 to S$60, depending on the cable choice.
Here's an example of a Powered eSATA cable upgrade kit. Take note that unlike the other connectivity options, this eSATA kit expressly indicates that it requires a powered eSATA to work such as the USB and eSATA combo ports. The GoFlex adapter doesn't have any power input options, so there is no way you can hook it up to a DIY eSATA expansion kit often found in slightly older motherboards where eSATA and power connections are separated.
In addition to connectivity options, Seagate also has an expanded ecosystem of devices such as the FreeAgent GoFlex Net Media Sharing Device that allows you to dock up to two of their GoFlex portable drives that converts them into a NAS device and enables web interactivity (sharing and streaming content) via a Gigabit connection through your router. There's also a FreeAgent GoFlex TV HD Media Player that allows you to dock your external portable drive to effortlessly enjoy your media content with your home AV devices.
Now that you're more aware of the versatility offered by the GoFlex storage system, let's get back to finding out more details of the top of the line GoFlex Pro portable drive. Also, you might want to check on the Specs tab to get a quick overview of the drive's stats.
The GoFlex Pro 500GB External Portable Drive
The GoFlex series of drives achieve their versatility by sticking to basics. In this case, Seagate used the 2.5-inch drive's native SATA 3Gbps interface as the basis of all connectivity for their GoFlex storage system and the expanded ecosystem. By using a superior interface as the base, Seagate was able to offer a plethora of external connectivity options and ensuring the drive's capabilities are best utilized as per the individual users' needs. The GoFlex series of portable drives are very compact, besting those we've seen in our last roundup which represented the best of last year. As you'll soon see, this compactness is achieved partly because Seagate moved almost all other electronics on the add-on adapters while the drive itself is just encased in a plastic shell.
The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro 500GB is among the most compact 2.5-inch external portable drives in the market, definitely besting last year's rivals.
The base of the drive is given a rough plastic finish for better grip in your hand or on the desk.
Note the 'GoFlex' connectivity of the drive is basically a SATA interface. Here you can see both SATA power and data connections. And yes, given the right type of cables without protrusions, you can even hook it up to your motherboard directly. And this is why we are confidently saying so...
… because the drive within is a standard notebook hard drive that's just encased in a plastic shell. There are no other electronics within, so the drive's SATA 3Gbps interface is directly interfacing with the real world with the various GoFlex cables acting as your interface converters. Note that the drive model used in this FreeAgent GoFlex Pro is a Seagate Momentus 7200.4, ST9500420AS 500GB 7200rpm drive.
As mentioned earlier, the GoFlex Pro, such as the device in review here comes bundled with Memeo software for backup and synchronization, a GoFlex USB 2.0 interface cable and a desktop dock. In terms of hardware specs, the Pro version is equipped with a speedier 7200rpm drive. The standard GoFlex drives use normal 5400rpm laptop drives and forgoes the dock as well as the more comprehensive software options.
While the default GoFlex interface cable can be swapped out with other higher-end options, the desktop dock is however a USB 2.0 only device. So while we applaud the dock being included in the premium model, its interface should have been made modular as well if users want to pair their drive with a faster interface, just like the GoFlex cables that connect to the drive directly.
The versatility of the GoFlex series of hard drives lie with these GoFlex cables that connect to the drive, thus detaching them from the usual boundaries.
The provided dock however, is old-school and is hardwired for USB 2.0 connectivity only. Had it been given the GoFlex cable treatment, it would have been more valuable.
Test Setup
All the drives in this review were tested using the following system configuration.
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz)
- MSI 975X PowerUp Edition (Intel 975X Express chipset)
- 2GB DDR2-667 RAM
- XpertVision GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB (ForceWare 186.18)
- Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1
The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro 500GB was tested in both USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces and was compared against a set of 500GB USB 2.0 portable drives from such as the FreeAgent Go, Samsung S2 Portable, Toshiba Portable, Verbatim Executive portable and WD My Passport Essential. Do note that the eSATA interface is an optional purchase, but we thought you might be interested to know how it would fare with a better interface.
Benchmarks
Since these are external personal storage drives for backup and transition purposes, we didn't stress test them as much as we would have done so with local internal storage drive and NAS drives. As such we ran a reduced benchmark workload as listed below.
- CrystalMark 2004R3
- PCMark Vantage
- HD Tune Pro 3.5
Results - CrystalMark 2004R3
As can be expected, the eSATA transfer speeds are off the charts. This however, isn't anything extraordinary and is pretty much what you can expect from any drive using this interface. We managed to get similar eSATA performance when we about two years ago too.
Over on the USB 2.0 performance side of things, the Verbatim drive has a notable lead in performance with its USB Turbo Speed drivers instead of the default drivers by the OS. The custom driver streamlines the USB interface overhead to derive better performance. With that said, the new Seagate GoFlex Pro drive fares quite competitively with the rest of the drives in this comparison. It's marginally better than the FreeAgent Go model, but that's to be expected since the Pro version is a 7200rpm drive.
Results - PCMark Vantage
Next we used PCMark Vantage to find out how these drives fared in real-world scenarios by focusing on the hard drive test suite. These tests range from gaming performance, to loading applications and media creation performance - all in all, testing a mix of read/write performance whose blend varies in each of the test scenarios. We would like to add that most of these scenarios aren't usually performed on an external hard drive, but there are times when users might just work off or execute stuff directly from the portable drive for the sake of convenience. Hence this benchmark will reveal how these drives cope to these ad-hoc needs.
The new Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro managed to come out tops in USB 2.0 performance - besting even the turbo-charged Verbatim drive and certain pulling well ahead of the simpler FreeAgent Go drive.
Results - HD Tune Pro 3.5
Tuning in to HD Tune's results where we got a better handle sequential/random read performance as well as access times. We had to forego write tests as it would completely wipe all existing data off the drive and we needed to return it back as they were provided. Since part of the write performance can be seen from CrystalMark, there's no big loss here for this class of drives.
Stating off with sequential read results from the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro, we found that it was close to our findings from CrystalMark. However for USB 2.0 performance, it was only on par with the rest of the drives. Even on the random average speed tests, the 7200rpm drive failed to outshine some of the better comparisons. eSATA performance was decent though.
Sequential and random drive access times are pretty welcoming on the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Pro drive thanks to its 7200rpm design.
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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