I started work this week so things have been pretty busy (and somewhat tiring). As the end of the week and beginning of the month came around, I stumbled upon a lovely Amazon.com box at my front door. Lo and behold my Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1TB HD came today!
So why did I buy this interesting piece of hardware? Well, my (now) old external HD is just not compatible with Windows 7. Plus I was running low on space on it (it’s a SimpleTech 320GB HD). So this year’s Black Friday, I splurged and bought the GoFlex.
Anyways as any happy geek would do, I proceeded to unwrap my new “toy”:
(Sorry for the terrible room lighting, I got home late so I had to turn on the lights)
 Majority of the box has a grippy-feel to it. It is smooth where it shows the GoFlex. |
 6.5in (h) x 5in |
 Again smooth on pictures of the GoFlex, grippy everywhere else. |
x 2.1in (d)
 Simple packaging |
 User Guide and Warranty Info |
 Shiny HD is shiny |
 Ah, there's the cable (and adapter)! |
 Cable and adapter connected |
 Cable and adapter detached |
 Front view |
 Top view |
 Side view |
 Bottom view |
 Putting it all together... |
 ...and a little more... |
 Cable is 16.5in long. Adapter is 0.5in (h) x 0.45in |
 When plugged in, the adapter's white lights turn on. |
My first impressions after opening are:
- It is USB powered – no extra external plug needed. More cables can cause lots of troubles (tangled up cables, misplacing cables, replacing cables, etc.)
- Small size – fits in my hand. Doesn’t take up a lot of physical space. Very portable as advertised.
- 1TB – which is a good upgrade from anything below 500GB.
- Windows 7 compatible – its annoying when your HD goes dsyfunctional when plugging into a computer with a new OS.
- Separate Adapter for USB 2.0, USB 3.0, eSATA, FireWire – definitely a double-edged sword. On the plus side, Seagate just needs to make a new adapter whenever a new serial bus interface rolls around. On the other hand, you need to buy a new adapter for every cable type you want to use.
- I haven’t found any real negatives to this HD yet… so I guess thats another point for the GoFlex?
When you first plug it in (after your computer recognizes it), you will notice that it comes with a Registration and Backup program. I did the Registration (very straight-forward) and promptly ignored the Backup program. After that I reformatted it to regain 200MBs.
Right now I’m currently copying all my files from my old SimpleTech to my new GoFlex. This is about 300GBs from external->computer->external… So I’m not expecting this copy to be done anytime soon (I’ll update when its done…*update below!*). I’ll probably convert my SimpleTech into another drive for my desktop… although, I’m not sure what to do with it after that…
As of now, I’m satisfied with my purchase. It was in the $110-$120 price range when I bought it from Amazon.com, although I’m sure it’ll go down since the holiday season is approaching rapidly. To learn more about Seagate’s GoFlex click here.
UPDATE: So my transfer between my old external->computer->new external completed. Started it at like 10pm on 12/2 and finished at 7pm on 12/5. That’s about 3 days…. 100GBs each day. I hope to never do that again…
dragonfly horizon 