Laptops just don’t come with enough storage space, which is one reason why ultra-portable hard drives have become so popular lately. The problem with most of them is that most of them are based on USB 2.0, and the industry has moved onto faster technologies. If you’ve already spent some money on a large hard drive, then why should you buy a new one just to take advantage of a faster interface?
Seagate has introduced a new modular external storage system, dubbed the GoFlex series. This system allows you to purchase a simple bare drive, buy only the interfaces you need, and hot-swap between them without a fuss. Currently you can choose between USB 2.0, USB 3.0, eSATA and Firewire 800, which covers just about every computer and media device made today or in the conceivable future.
The GoFlex system is a simple, but rather clever concept. Each adapter has the hardware interface included at the base of the cable, which plugs directly into the GoFlex drive. The drive receives its power from the host cable, so no DC adapters are necessary. If you take the drive somewhere that has a different (or faster) interface, then all you have to do is unplug the adapter cable and plug in a new one.
The GoFlex system goes beyond interface convenience. You can also hot-plug these devices into Seagate’s GoFlex TV and GoFlex Net media appliances, which allow you to watch TV, share videos, photos and music across a personal network or even the Internet.
One disadvantage to this system is the price of admission. Yes it’s great to have a flexible and future-proof system, but you must consider the cost of each adapter that you need. Below is a table with all of the available adapters and its cost.
| Module | MSRP |
| Seagate GoFlex bare drive (320GB – 1.5TB) | $50 – $129.99, depending on model |
| Firewire 800 upgrade cable | $39.99 |
| eSATA upgrade cable | $19.99 |
| USB 3.0 upgrade kit (includes PC Card adapter) | $79.99 |
| USB 3.0 upgrade cable (cable only) | $29.99* |
| USB 2.0 cable | Comes with kit |
* Some drive kits come with USB 3.0 cable included
The USB 3.0 upgrade kit includes a USB 3.0 PC Card adapter for use with laptop computers. The card uses the same NEC D720200F1 chip used in all current USB 3.0 host adapters. Although this chip can support 2 USB ports, only one is included (due to space on the card). A small round plug is included that allows you to power an additional USB device, but cannot supply data to it.
Seagate’s USB 3.0 Notebook PC Adapter has one useful USB 3.0 port
The drives is encased in a glossy plastic shell, which is available in several different colors. The drive also comes with either a USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 interface able, depending on which package you select. The available kits are listed in the table below.
| Capacity | Color | available included interface |
| 320GB | black | USB 2.0 |
| 500GB | black, red, silver, blue | USB 2.0 |
| 750GB | black | USB 2.0, USB 3.0 |
| 1TB | black, blue | USB 2.0, USB 3.0 |
| 1.5TB | black | USB 3.0 |
*information as available from Seagate at press time
The kit we received for evaluation was the GoFlex red 500GB model, and we also received all of the other interfaces for testing, which are only available in black. Seagate’s optional media devices are also only available in the black color, so keep this in mind when selecting drives. The drive color need not be a fastion statement, as you could color-code the drives based on their content. Most people should just choose the black color for the drives, as that covers all the bases and there won’t be any color clashes.
On the next page we test the drive and its cables…
The drive is encased in shiny plastic and has rounded corners. The drive is featureless except for the Seagate logo on the front top of the drive. The back of the drive has an embedded internal connector. The connector looks similar to SATA, but is just different enough to be proprietary to The GoFlex system. Power and activity lights are included on the adapter portion of the cable, which lights up when plugged in properly.
The (almost) complete GoFlex suite: The drive, all the cables, and GoFlex Net (missing GoFlex TV)
Getting a drive up and running is a very quick and painless process (for a PC). After unpacking the drive, all you have to do is plug the adapter into the back of the drive and then connect to your computer. The USB 2.0 cable is removable, but all of the other adapter’s cables are permanently attached. The cables are all rather short, too (1 and 1/2 feet, or 48 centimeters), so the GoFlex is clearly targeted at laptop users. When testing this drive, we barely had enough lead to place the drive on top of the PC when plugging into the motherboard’s back USB ports.
The GoFlex drive and eSATA adapter
The drive is pre-formatted with the NTFS filesystem, so Mac users will either have to install software to read the drive, or reformat it.
Included software
The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex comes pre-installed with 4 pieces of softare: The Seagate Dashboard, Memeo Instant Backup, drivers for Seagate’s USB 3.0 PC Card Adapter, and a Mac installer (to read the pre-formatted NTFS format). Included when you install the suite is Memeo Sync, Memeo Share, and Memeo Send. The Seagate Dashboard and Memeo Backup software is basically a marketing device to entice you to purchase their software, as you receive nag screens almost constantly about all of the other Memeo software you should buy. The Dashboard does not provide any useful functionality like SMART information, but allows you to set the power-down timeout and LED settings. “Testing” the drive tells you nothing more than “the drive is functioning normally”. Most people will just delete the included software, and believe me you’re not missing anything if you do.
Seagate Dashboard Drive Options are rather sparse
The Seagate Dashb… I mean Memeo Marketing Tool
The internal drive is a 5200 rpm SATA laptop hard drive, so it doesn’t get very hot. Using an infrared thermometer, we measured the temperature of the plastic shell, which reached 95 degrees after several hours of data swapping (the same as other ultraportable hard drives we’ve tested).
Read the next page to find out how the drive performs with all of these interfaces…
We not only tested the drive with several PCs, but with media appliances such as the Patriot Box Office, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360. We had no problems at all having the drive instantly recognized using the USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 interfaces. Because the GoFlex is so portable, we brought this along with us (along with the PBO) on overnight stays so that we could watch our favorite TV shows rather than being stuck with crappy hotel cable.
We have discovered through many test iterations that USB device performance greatly depends on the chipset used. We have found that the NEC chips used on all current USB 3.0 interfaces deliver the best performance for USB 2.0 drives, so the USB 2.0 devices were tested on this. Just to confirm, we did test the USB 2.0 cable with the each motherboard’s integrated USB 2.0 chipset, which edified our assumption. The USB 2.0 drive performance chart listed uses a NEC USB 3.0 host adapter.
|
||||||||||||||
We did have a few issues getting the eSATA and Firewire 800 adapters to work. It is not specified on the box, but the eSATA adapter requires a powered eSATA port, which most PCs and laptops do not have. We tried several different computers and laptops in our lab before we found one that would power the drive. Other computers would show the drive in BIOS, but somehow the OS could not read the drive. The Firewire 800 adapter uses a square “beta” connector, which is completely incompatible with Firewire 400’s “alpha” connector, which is included on many PCs. Since this interface is mostly found on Mac computers, we were unable to test this adapter. Based on testing the other interfaces, we assume that the Firewire 800 bandwidth is sufficient enough to deliver similar bandwidth of USB 3.0 or eSATA, which is about 60MB/second.
USB 2.0 tops out at 34MB/s. USB 3.0 tops out at 62MB/s
Each device’s throughput was pretty much as you expect it would be. The USB 2.0 interface is easily saturated by the laptop drive, and delivers around 32 megabytes a second. The USB 3.0 and eSATA interfaces show a greater bandwidth improvement, but the USB 3.0 version has some odd dips among the drive head as it goes across the platter. This could be due to the interface controller or drive’s firmware, and the drive peaked out at 59MB/second. The eSATA cable shows a more natural progression of the drive head, and a slightly faster transfer rate of 65 MB per second, which is about as much as one can expect from a 5200rpm 2.5″ hard disk drive.
HDTach shows USB 2.0, USB 3.0, and eSATA performance
So is GoFlex worth it? Read our verdict on the next page…
The GoFlex system also supports Seagate’s GoFlex TV and GoFlex Net media appliances, which allow you to plop down a few drives and immediately watch videos or share your media across the internet. The drive is fast enough to stream several 1080p movies without any problems, and won’t cause any heat problems. It’s also small enough to carry in your laptop or gear bag, so you’ll always have your data with you.
We had a few problems getting the eSATA adapter to work, as it requires a powered eSATA port, which most computers do not have. The extra performance you get over USB 3.0 is negligable, and USB 3.0 is more available. If you don’t have a laptop with USB 3.0 ports, then you can upgrade to a PC card, or just use the USB 3.0 cable on a USB 2.0 device, which will work just fine, but at slower data rates. Our recommendation is to pay a little extra for the hard drive kit that includes a USB 3.0 cable and call it a day. You’ll be able to connect to just about any computer (PC, Mac, or even Linux) without needing any additional cables. Where you’ll want to switch cables if if you actually need bandwidth above and beyond USB 2.0 (32MB/sec).
This drive performs as well as any other ultraportable hard drive on the market, and is about the same price as (if not slightly cheaper) its competitors. The reasons why you would choose the GoFlex system depends on if you care about the convenience options delivered. If you are frequently bringing your data between several different computers (and those computers have different interfaces) then Seagate’s GoFlex may be just what you need, but at the added expense of those extra proprietary cables.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||