REVIEWS / EXTERNAL DRIVES / SEAGATE

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 3TB external hard drive

13 Sep, 2011, 12:36 pm IST | by Karan Shah | External drives

External drives

The back of the drive

The back of the drive
A simple looking drive with the dock as the base
Seagate's large GoFlex FreeAgent Desk 3TB

PRICE IN INDIA

8,800

TECH2 RATING

7.0

AVERAGE USER RATING

8.5

How we test

CONTACT

Seagate

 Sales@fortune-it.com

 +91 11 2641 4468, 2647 2491

 www.seagate.com

External drives have become more of a necessity for people wanting data backup and transfer on-the-go. Also, with the competitive prices at which most manufacturers offer these, consumers are spoilt for choice. Seagate have recently launched their new FreeAgent GoFlex Desk 3TB external drive. It's upgradeable to USB 3.0 and comes with 3TB of storage. But is it worth your money? Read on to find out.

Seagate's large GoFlex FreeAgent Desk 3TB

Seagate's large GoFlex FreeAgent Desk 3TB

 


Design and Features
The FreeAgent GoFlex Desk has a sleek looking, black exterior and is shaped like a rectangular case. The body is glossy and may attract a lot of fingerprints, but it does look stylish. The drive is made for external desktop use, but you can carry it every now and then if you need to. The GoFlex Desk external drive has a usable space of 2.72TB and runs at a speed of 7200 rpm. The front of the drive consists of status LEDs and the back consists of the power supply slot and the microUSB connectivity slot. As mentioned above, this drive requires an external power supply. The external drive also comes in-built with security and backup software that has become a standard with most hard drives.

A simple looking drive with the dock as the base

A simple looking drive with the dock as the base

 


Test rig configuration:
Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K CPU @ 3.40 GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte P67A-UD3R
Memory: Corsair Dominator GT 6 GB DDR3 (3 x 2 GB)
Hard drive: WD Velociraptor 300 GB
GPU:  AMD Radeon HD6970
PSU: Cooler Master 1000W

Performance
We put the Seagate through a few synthetic and real world tests. In SiSoft Sandra the drive got a drive index of 33.11 MB/s and a random access time of 17ms. HDTach showed a CPU utilization of one percent and an average read speed of 33 MB/s with a burst speed of 34.3 MB/s. CrystalDiskMark scores gave a random 4K read speed of 0.573 MB/s, and a write speed of 1.443 MB/s. The random 4K QD32 read speed was 0.664 MB/s, while the write speed was 1.518 MB/s.

 

 

The back of the drive

The back of the drive

 


The synthetic tests portray only one side of the drive’s performance and it’s the real world tests that really gauge the performance of a hard drive. We took a 4GB single and random file, which is roughly about the size of an HD movie and following are the read, write and inter-partition, copy results we obtained.

 

Performance Chart

Performance Chart

 

 

 

Verdict
The Seagate GoFlex FreeAgent Desk costs Rs. 8,800. It does give a decent performance. Users wanting to buy this drive should more or less use it as a desk-based external drive with partial portability. Overall, we’d love to see a price drop for the 3TB drive - who wouldn’t - but the drive is definitely a good buy.


Tags:

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Would you buy it?




 


How We Test

The Tech2 Labs receives many products every single week and each of them is tested with the utmost care and highest level of objectivity. There’s a constant effort to reduce and totally eliminate subjectivity. Each product is tested according to set test processes so the same test scenario is used.

Verdict
The ratings awarded to a product are derived from a number of tests and calculations, keeping certain important factors in mind. These factors consist of features, performance, quality and value for money. In case of software and some other categories, build quality might be replaced with ease of use or ease of installation. Products are compared with other products in a similar price range or product category.


Features
The features component of the score is rated based on the kind of features present on a particular product. Features are a big part of what people look for when they’re buying a new product such as a phone or a camera.

Performance
The performance score is derived from the benchmarks and tests run on the product. In case of the subjective scores, an average of the scores given by the group of reviewers is considered.

Build Quality
The build quality of a product is important so that it doesn’t fall apart after some use. The build quality scores from the way the product is designed and the kind of materials used in the product.

Value
Value for money comes from the fact that a cheap product is able to provide most of the performance of a higher priced product. Once again, value for money is judged by comparing pricing and performance of products in a particular price range or category. 

There are many other aspects of the product that are looked at such as the bundled software and accessories. All of these scores are aggregated together to form the final score.

What do the ratings mean?

Ratings are simple - higher the score, the better the product. A brief listing of the features and what they mean are given below.

1 - 3

The product is bad in almost every aspect. We strongly advise against purchasing this product.

4 - 6

An average product that isn't the best you can buy, but isn't the worst either.

7 - 8

Product with this rating is highly recommended because it's priced sensibly, has a good set of features and performs well.

9 - 10

Exceptionally excellent product with features and performance unlike any we've seen in the past. A must-have for everyone!

What is the Average User Rating?

We at Tech2 take product reviewing very seriously and every product is tested with the utmost care and level of objectivity. The end user who buys a particular product and uses it over an extended period of time has his own take on a product and there might be nuances that he or she can shed light on. The Average User Rating is present to help readers get the complete picture of how good or bad a product is. The Average User Rating is calculated by averaging the ratings by the thousands of readers visiting Tech2.com every single day. To record your own rating of a product, simply click on the user rating bar. If you disagree with our ratings or our community's product rating, please don't hesitate from voicing your opinion in the comments section below the review.

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