Seagate FreeAgent Desk USB Hard Drive Review
A Review of the Seagate Free Agent External 1.5 TB Drive
Nov 9, 2009
External hard drive prices have dropped significantly in the past few months, and the Seagate FreeAgent Desk line of drives are no exception.
With prices now hovering around 12 cents per megabyte the FreeAgent Desk 1.5 terabyte drive is an incredible deal from a financial perspective. Price is not always the deciding factor though in whether or not something is a good deal. Is the Seagate FreeAgent Desk USB hard drive worth the investment?
The Seagate FreeAgent Desk Drive As A Backup Tool
Backing up a computer to an external hard drive is an almost essential part of normal maintenance. Using a drive like the FreeAgent makes it even easier because it can be moved from computer to computer or even shared on the network to allow other computers in the home or business to back up their files to it. The 1.5 terabyte model used in this review was spacious enough to hold the filled hard drives of several different machines so it was thought that it would be perfect for this task.
Like most Seagate external drives, after plugging in the FreeAgent Desk to an Acer PC the drive mounted automatically and ran a piece of software to install the backup software to the host computer. The installation and backup process was very easy to do, but the software itself leaves a bit to be desired (see below).
During the testing process the drive was also set up as a shared drive over the network, allowing two other networked computers to access it as a network drive for storing video files and other data. Those client computers were also set up to back up to the Seagate using other software programs and no significant problems were detected during the process.
Backing Up Is Easy, Setting Up Is More Challenging
There are a few downsides to using the Seagate FreeAgent line of drives. First is that the huge, spacious 1.5 terabyte drive does not come with any partitioning software. With a drive that big one of the first things a user should probably do is subdivide it into smaller partitions to make it easier to find things. Partitioning the drive is easy if the user buys a copy of Partition Magic or uses a free tool such as GParted, but honestly it would be nice if this feature came with the drive.
Another downside to the FreeAgent is the backup software itself. When it first ran on the host system almost all other tasks slowed to a crawl and there was noticible latency between mouse clicks and system events. Granted, most backups will take place during off-hours, but if someone chooses to shut down at night and have the backup run during the day be prepared for occasional slow downs. The drive is also quite noisy, especially at startup.
Still, despite these rather minor annoyances the FreeAgent Desk external USB hard drive is worth the price, especially at the very low sale prices currently being advertised. While it is not as small or quiet as other, more expensive drives, it provides the user with plenty of space for very little money and seems to be a very reliable and easy to use backup device.
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