The FreeAgent GoFlex Desk is a breed of external drives that are meant to sit on your desk as a backup or extended drive unlike the usual portable FreeAgent external drives that you probably know. It typically has a bigger capacity (ours is 1TB) and requires a separate power source to use.
Out of the box the GoFlex Desk has two components, the disk drive itself and a docking base where you connect your power and USB. The docking base also has 4 LED lights to indicate the free space left on your drive. One LED bar corresponds to 25% disk space used.
If you’re wondering why the need for a separate docking adapter, it’s quite clever actually. GoFlex Desk uses USB 2.0 port but Seagate also allows you to purchase adapters for faster transfers in the event you decide to upgrade your rig in the future. There are docking adapters for USB 3.0 as well as for a Firewire 800 interface.
One thing I wish they did was to make the docking adapter wider to provide a sturdy base for the GoFlex Desk when positioned upright. I had it accidentally tipped over quite a few times already.
The GoFlex Desk comes with an NTFS driver in the disk itself which will automatically install itself on your Mac system so you don’t have to worry about reformatting it to HFS+. Although if you wish to use your Mac’s backup software or Time Capsule then you do need to reformat it.
This 7200rpm 1TB external drive is one of the quietest disk I’ve used. It’s extremely quiet even when transferring large files that you wouldn’t know when it’s complete if your monitor’s turned off. It relies on passive cooling so don’t store it in a stuffy place although I didn’t experience it getting alarmingly hot during my tests.
If you’re picky with the speed, then there’s nothing special with the GoFlex Desk. It’s average (which is not bad at all) at best for a 7200rpm disk transferring on USB 2.0. Reading files from the GoFlex Desk got a decent speed of 36.1 MBps while writing scored a respectable 27.8 MBps.
What you’ll get from the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk is an affordable external drive from a trusted brand. This 1TB only costs Php3,999 while the 2TB version is priced at Php7,488 and they come with a 2-year limited warranty.
This article originally appeared at - pinoytechblog
