GoFlex Upgrade Cables And Auto Backup
Upgrade Cables: FireWire 800, eSATA, USB 3.0
These three adapter cables, as well as a USB 2.0 model, are available as Upgrade Cable products for the FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-portable product line. The drive connectors always look the same, as these connect via Serial ATA. Inside the connectors, you’ll find different controller types, depending on which interface you choose.
The FireWire 800 option is probably most relevant for Mac users.
eSATA is still the fastest solution, but USB 3.0 will be taking over the performance mainstream soon.
USB 3.0 will be the predominant interface standard by the beginning of 2011.
Auto Backup
The Auto Backup kit is another Upgrade Cable option. This one is based on USB 2.0, but you might notice that the connector is larger than the ones for USB 2.0/3.0 or eSATA. This is because the Auto Backup connector includes flash memory containing Seagate’s consumer-friendly Rebit software, which we reviewed roughly a year ago. Using Replica means that you cannot use the drive for your regular storage needs. It will function only as a backup repository.
Rebit is not ideal for enthusiasts, as it has had issues with RAID setups. The software creates a disaster recovery image of your system drive and stores it onto the Auto Backup-enabled FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-portable unit. In addition, Rebit constantly backs up your files and handles versioning.
In practice, this means that you cannot lose data in a system drive failure anymore. The backup unit will always have an up-to-date version of all your latest files. The beauty here is that you get read access to all files, which makes recovering individual files really easy. All you have to do is look for them in the directory where you’d expect them to be on your system drive and copy the data.
In order for the backup function to work properly, you first have to attach the cable adapter to your host system without the FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-portable drive attached. This way, the product can deploy the software, which then manages operation.
We like that Seagate sells the Auto Backup for $29.99, a very reasonable cost given that you get a high level of data safety. However, professional users should be sure to enable Seagate’s included encryption feature or encrypt their important files through other means. Additionally, you’ll lose the storage capacity of your existing drive in exchange for the new backup and disaster recovery capabilities.
Good article, but I think next time you should use some kind of abbreviation or acronym system. There was barely enough room for the bars!
I think this is an overall pretty good review. My problem is that now I have a bunch of external storage "solutions" and its getting out of control. I have several 2.5" drives, eSata 3.5", and a WD World Book 1TB network drive. Quite a bit of data exists on more than one drive, but its starting to get annoying. I need one kind of drive that can do everything. I need storage for storage.
good review but there are many pretty obvious mistakes in the graphs (particularly, in the section on read/write throughput)
ugh, you couldn't give me a Seagate product
It's a very interesting proposition by Seagate to allow us to change adapters and have a great deal of uses for a drive, but it feels like you'd be investing quite a bit in a set of drives that could be outdated quickly, as capacity vs price is continuing to get cheaper.
I'll second the thought that I feel like I have a lot of external drives already, so it'd be a tough sell to someone like myself who already has drives with USB and eSATA, or a NAS.
I would be more impressed with hi speed interface that allows expansion or daisy chaining. Then some software to allow migration/backup/cloning and well as redundancy or duplication elimination.
"The TV HD Media Player is a complementary product in the GoFlex line that requires a hard drive to operate."
Are you sure it requires a hard drive? I use mine with a USB memory stick, and it runs fine without anything plugged in to it if you are streaming media as far as I was aware (I haven't run my cable yet to be sure). It works like any small media player device, but also has the option to stick a hard drive in the front. Since it's generally the same price as most other media players this added feature was enough to get my purchase over others with built in space or pre-installed drives that are not easily removable.
Desk 1TB USB3
Desk 1TB Firewire 800
Desk 1TB USB2
Ultra-portable 500GB USB3
.. etc. There, you can have room for the graph now.
whats the point of having usb 2.0 at all on these drives? isn't usb 3.0 backwards compatible?
Why would someone buy a Seagate Hard Drive ?
To lose it's data after a few months
Seagate should concentrate more on their hardware reliability not the looks, I have lots of problems with their drives.
Good article, but I think next time you should use some kind of abbreviation or acronym system. There was barely enough room for the bars!
Yeah or just write out the product over 2 lines.
Any idea what could be slowing down writes on eSATA drives?
whats the point of having usb 2.0 at all on these drives? isn't usb 3.0 backwards compatible?
USB 3.0 isn't mainstream as of yet. Dell, HP, and Gateway, the big three OEM's in major retail stores, do not have a system with USB 3.0 ports. That's why all of them are defaulted to USB 2.0.
USB 3.0 isn't mainstream as of yet. Dell, HP, and Gateway, the big three OEM's in major retail stores, do not have a system with USB 3.0 ports. That's why all of them are defaulted to USB 2.0.
What Scione meant is that a USB3.0 device is supposed to work on a USB2.0 port so yes, USB2.0 is probably a waste.
Moreover I think it would have been nice to sell only the base unit because people interested in just Firewire 800, USB 3.0, eSATA or the "Net" thing, are actually paying for the USB 2.0 base station even if they don't want it at all.
Two words: Light Peak
Coming after the new year.
The SATA connector is guaranteed for 50 insertions and GoFlex uses it directly. Doesn't this make GoFlex useless?