Seagate Free Agent Go Portable Hard Drive: Removable Computer Storage in Stylish USB HD

Portable hard drives are now an almost ubiquitous part of personal computing. There are dozens of brands and models on the market that all do the same basic thing, store computer data and make it easy to move it from place to place.

The new Seagate Free Agent Go portable external hard drive is a slightly new take on traditional external drive designs in that it provides the user with the ability to dock the drive or connect it via a standard USB cable. In advertisements Seagate touts the convenience and ease of use of the drive but does the device live up to its billing?

Features Of The Seagate Free Agent Go

Inside the thin (.5" deep) case the Free Agent Go portable USB hard drive is essentially a standard portable hard drive in the same vein as previous models of the Free Agent line. The newest versions sport larger capacities and respectable specifications:

What Do The Reviews Say About The Seagate Free Agent Go?

In general the reviews of Seagate's Free Agent line of portable hard drives have been generally positive. In the most complete online review of the Free Agent Go available, done by Jason Kohrs of BigBruin, the drive was put through its paces and benchmarked against another comparably equipped drive. The Free Agent Go performs as well or better than other drives of its class but in the end there is very little to separate it from other similar drives aside from the optional docking station.

In the Seagate television advertisements the Go drive is shown being used with a docking station that obviously adds convenience and reduces desktop clutter. The negative is that this docking station is not included with the Free Agent Go drive and is available only as an optional $25 accessory unless bundled in by the seller as an incentive. Included with the drive is a fairly short USB cable that may be a problem for some users if the computer and monitor/keyboard/mouse are spaced far apart.

Conclusion- To Buy or Not To Buy?

Overall the Free Agent Go line of portable hard drives continue to be solid, useful accessories for computer users that need to transport large files and move them between machines with reasonably fast data transfer rates. In general however, the drives are roughly the same as almost any other portable hard drive and buyers should consider how much of a premium they are willing to pay for the convenience and eye candy of a stylish colored case and dock.