Seagate FreeAgent Go

David Bayon, Jonathan Bray, Alex Bradner, Mike Jennings | Jan 6, 2009 8:09 AM
Seagate | http://www.seagate.com
RRP: $323 (time of review)
Performance:  4
Features & Design:  5
Value for money:  5
Overall Rating: 
User Rating:  No user ratings.
Great design, but average performance lets it down.
Seagate’s FreeAgent series have just undergone a redesign since last we looked at it, and the results are as eye-catching as they are expansive. The new Go packs a modest 500GB and a number of issues we had with the old model have been rectified.

The design is now a significantly thinner 12mm, which makes it the thinnest of the lot. The weight has been kept down too: at only 175g it’s second only to the Freecom XXS. The gaudy orange activity light has been replaced with a softly glowing white pattern and on the whole it looks good.

The most significant change however would be the lower power requirement, meaning you can run it off a single USB port if need be. For an extra $30, you can also purchase a dock and carry pouch.

While the pouch isn’t exactly revolutionary, it does offer extra protection for the drive and the ability to dock the Go like an iPod is quite convenient.
The included software is fairly standard fare – Seagate’s own backup utility as well as disk encryption software.

Unfortunately, the only area where this drive didn’t shine was in performance. It came in slowest of the pack by about 10% in most of our speed tests. In reality this only meant about a second in terms of our results, but if you are shuffling large quantities of data around that difference will be noticeable.

At 65c/GB it is one of the more expensive drives in our roundup, but to some extent you’re paying for the luxury of good design. Coupled with the average performance, however, the FreeAgent definitely isn’t a winner, even if it’s still in the race.
This article appeared in the January, 2009 issue of PC Authority.