Model: Seagate 2TB FreeAgent GoFlex Desk External Hard Drive
Manufacturer: Seagate
Provided By: Seagate
Seagate has been a leader in the storage industry for more than 30 years. Beginning with the industry's first 5.25-inch hard drive, the company has lead the way, growing to become one of the world's largest manufacturers of storage products. Seagate currently manufactures a wide range of products for both consumer and enterprise applications. Along with internal drives for the mobile and desktop markets, it offers a number of external solutions, including the FreeAgent family of portable and desktop hard drives.
One of the latest additions to the FreeAgent family is the GoFlex Desk external hard drive. Available in 1TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities, this high-capacity desktop hard drive takes full advantage of Seagate's new GoFlex technology. While the drive supports USB 2.0 out of the box, its file transfer performance can be increased by up to 10x by swapping the GoFlex adapter base for one that supports USB 3.0 or FireWire 800. The GoFlex Desk drive also sports an illuminated capacity gauge and comes pre-loaded with easy-to-use backup software with encryption for both the Mac and PC.
| Seagate 2TB FreeAgent GoFlex Desk External Hard Drive | |||||||||||||
General Specifications
Dimensions and Weight
Other Features
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Needless to say, this is only a taste of what the FreeAgent GoFlex Desk has to offer. To give you an idea of what to expect, we'll take a closer look at Seagate's new external hard drive and then see how well it performs. Does the GoFlex Desk have what it takes? Can it deliver the performance and features that we've come to expect from Seagate? Keep reading as we find out.
Packaging and Contents:
The GoFlex Desk drive comes packaged in an attractive blue and black box. The front advertises many of the drive's key features including its 2TB capacity, USB 2.0 interface, bundled backup software and the ability to be upgraded to USB 3.0. The back and sides of the box show the GoFlex Desk from various angles and provide a bit more information including the drive's specifications, system requirements and features. The smaller, green and black box on the left contains the optional USB 3.0 desktop adapter, which Seagate included for this review.
Inside the box you'll find the GoFlex Desk drive as well as a USB 2.0 adapter base, USB 2.0 cable, AC power adapter, quick start guide and warranty information. The bundled backup software comes on the drive itself.
Physical Features:
For a desktop hard drive, the GoFlex Desk is surprisingly compact. Measuring 6.22 x 4.88 x 1.73 in (158 x 124 x 44 mm), the drive is smaller than your average hardcover book. The GoFlex Desk's case is constructed out of lightweight, black plastic. While the edges and the adapter base have a glossy finish, the sides have a rougher, matte finish which makes it a little easier to hang onto when moving it around.
While the GoFlex Desk drive itself is nearly featureless, the adapter base has a set of white LED's along the front of it. The small, round LED lights up when the drive has power and will slowly pulse to show disk activity. The four, larger LED's function as a capacity gauge. When connected to a computer with the necessary software, they will light up to show how much space is in use.
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Along the back of the adapter base, you can see the GoFlex Desk's USB 2.0 interface and power connector. Unlike Seagate's portable GoFlex drives, you will need to use the included AC adapter to provide power.
As I mentioned earlier, the interface on the GoFlex Desk can be upgraded to allow for faster transfer speeds. To do so, pop off the included USB 2.0 adapter base and replace it with one with a USB 3.0 or FireWire 800 interface. To attach the new base, insert the combination SATA/power connector into the bottom of the drive and gently push until it clicks into place.
I wasn't able to crack the GoFlex Desk drive open. However, using CrystalDiskInfo, I was able to see what hard drive was in the enclosure. Looking at the screenshot below, you can see that Seagate is using their 2TB Barracadua LP (ST32000542AS) hard drive. This low power hard drive features a SATA 3.0Gb/s interface, 32MB cache and a 5,900 RPM rotation speed.
Installation:
As with most USB drives, the GoFlex Desk was very easy to install. Those running Windows XP, Vista or 7 can simply plug the drive into any available USB 2.0 or 3.0 port on their computer. If the computer is already turned on, plug and play will automatically detect the drive.
If installed correctly, the GoFlex Desk should show up in the Device Manager. Under Windows 7, the drive is identified as a "Seagate FA GoFlex Desk USB Device".
The GoFlex Desk comes formatted with NTFS, giving you about 1.81TB of usable space. Of that, about 218MB is taken up by the PC and Mac software that comes bundled with the drive.
Software:
The GoFlex Desk comes bundled with Seagate's Dashboard software as well as a number of applications from Memeo. Using the Dashboard, you can change the power and LED settings, test to make sure the drive is functioning correctly or check to see how much space is being used.
Memeo Instant Backup is installed alongside the Dashboard and can be launched directly from the main menu. Offering simple "one-click" backup, Instant Backup protects your entire computer by backing up all of the files on your C: drive. The application also provides continuous protection by instantly backing up any new or changed files on the disk.
Along with Memeo Instant Backup, the GoFlex Desk includes a 30-day trial of Memeo AutoSync. This application lets you synchronize between the folders on your computer and external hard drives, USB flash drives or a shared folder on a network. Whenever you insert your storage device or reconnect to your network folder, new and updated files are automatically copied in both directions.
The GoFlex Desk also comes with Memeo Share. This application removes the hassles commonly associated with sharing digital content by allowing you to share photos and videos with friends and family members right from your desktop. Memeo Share lets you create your own private Sharing Circles and invite people by email address or create a public Sharing Circle and share your content with anyone online.
Last, but not least, we have Memeo Send. This service from Memeo offers secure, assured delivery of files to anyone on the Internet. Files are uploaded and downloaded using 128-bit SSL encryption and stored in Memeo's fault-tolerant data center for two weeks. The Memeo Send software also includes tracking capabilities so that you can check when your files were downloaded and by whom.
The test system used in this review was an HP dc7900. The computer came equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz CPU, 2GB of DDR2 800MHz memory, Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250310AS 250GB SATA hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX570 256MB PCIe graphics card, Intel 82567LM-3 gigabit network card and Patriot SuperSpeed USB PCIe host card. For the operating system, I installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Enterprise.
To test the performance of the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark 3.0, HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0, ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.43 and HD Tune Pro 4.01. These benchmarks were first run with the included USB 2.0 adapter and then with the optional USB 3.0 adapter.
CrystalDiskMark 3.0:
First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark tool measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its random read and write speeds using blocks 512K and 4K in size.
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk - USB 3.0
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk - USB 2.0
The GoFlex Desk performed very well when using the optional USB 3.0 adapter. In our tests, the drive reached speeds as high as 116 MB/s when reading and 105 MB/s when writing.
HD Tach RW 3.0.4.0:
Next, I used HD Tach to test the GoFlex Desk's read, write and burst speeds as well as its seek times and CPU usage.
When using the USB 3.0 adapter, the GoFlex Desk had average read and write speeds of 94.3 MB/s and 90.5 MB/s, respectively, as well as a burst speed of 129.8 MB/s. The drive wasn't nearly as fast when using USB 2.0 though. Compared to what we saw with USB 3.0, the GoFlex's Desk's average read and write speeds dropped by nearly two-thirds.
ATTO Disk Benchmark 2.43:
I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the GoFlex Desk's sequential read and write speeds. The test was run using blocks ranging in size from 0.5KB to 8192KB and the total length set to 256MB.
 Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk - USB 3.0 |
 Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk - USB 2.0 |
When tested with ATTO using the USB 3.0 adapter, the GoFlex Desk's read speeds topped out at about 120 MB/s and its write speeds at 100 MB/s.
HD Tune Pro 4.01:
Next, I ran a series of tests using HD Tune Pro. This hard disk utility measures a drive's performance by testing its sequential read and write speeds as well as its access time, burst rate and CPU usage. For this review, I used it to benchmark the GoFlex Desk's random read and write speeds, random access times and the number of operations per second.
 HD Tune Read Benchmark - USB 3.0 |
 HD Tune Read Benchmark - USB 2.0 |
 HD Tune Write Benchmark - USB 3.0 |
 HD Tune Write Benchmark - USB 2.0 |
Once again, the GoFlex Desk performed very well when connected using the optional USB 3.0 adapter. The drive had average read and write speeds of 115.8 MB/s and 90.7 MB/s, respectively, and a burst rate of 117 MB/s.
 HD Tune Random Access Read - USB 3.0 |
 HD Tune Random Access Read - USB 2.0 |
 HD Tune Random Access Write - USB 3.0 |
 HD Tune Random Access Write - USB 2.0 |
Using the USB 3.0 adapter didn't have nearly as big of an effect on the GoFlex Desk's random read and write performance. Nevertheless, the IOPS and average speeds were slightly higher than what we saw when the drive was connected using the USB 2.0 adapter.
There's a lot to be said about Seagate's family of FreeAgent GoFlexhard drives. Instead of including support for a handful of interfaces that someone may or may not use, Seagate has given users the ability to upgrade their hard drive to meet their performance needs. The GoFlex Desk takes full advantage of this new technology. This desktop hard drive ships with a USB 2.0 adapter but can easily be upgraded to USB 3.0 or FireWire 800. As you'd expect, the GoFlex Desk is not especially fast when connected using USB 2.0. However, the optional USB 3.0 adapter boosts the drive's transfer speeds by as much as 3x. If all this isn't enough, the GoFlex Desk also features an illuminated capacity gauge and comes pre-loaded with backup software with encryption.
Aside from the two year warranty, my only real complaint is the software that Seagate has included with the GoFlex Desk. While Memeo Instant Backup does a pretty good job of backing up and protecting the data on your computer, the other applications are either 30 day trials or freely available for download from Memeo's website.
The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk is available now in 1TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities with suggested retail prices ranging from $130 up to $250. The USB 3.0 and FireWire 800 desktop adapters are sold separately and are priced at $40 and $50, respectively. If your computer doesn't support USB 3.0, Seagate also offers a kit which contains the desktop adapter as well as a PCI Express add-on card for about $80.
Highs:
- 2TB capacity
- Upgradable to USB 3.0 or FireWire 800
- Fast transfer rates with optional USB 3.0 adapter
- Good looking design
- Illuminated capacity gauge
- Includes backup software with encryption
- Includes NTFS driver for Mac
Lows:
- Bundled Memeo AutoSync software is 30 day trial
- Only a 2 year warranty
