| Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB External Hard Drive
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Conclusion:
While the eSATA performance should be better, the 750GB FreeAgent Pro performed reasonably well via USB 2.0 and Firewire. Considering that you have a massive amount of storage available, faster transfer rates would be desirable. If you actually want to use every last GB of space available, you are going to have to wait quite a while for each backup operation to complete. Taking the 12.5 MB/s transfer rate achieved while writing to the drive means it will take close to 16 hours to completely fill the 698GB of disk space available on this drive! If you have a complete backup set to overwrite the contents of the drive every 24 hours, the drive won't be seeing much down time.
The software provided with the drive makes it extremely easy to configure the drive for your needs, and can allow for multiple backup plans to be executed automatically. Given the data above on how long it would take to fill the drive, it is a very good thing that backups are executed incrementally, so only new/changed files are written to the FreeAgent Pro after the initial backup. While the included software provides just about everything you need, it does seem to promote the purchase of other software and services a bit too heavily.
Other issues with the FreeAgent Pro include the peculiar power switch and the lack of an eSATA cable. With eSATA really becoming more popular, many people might not have the accessories on hand necessary to make it work. Including a cable and perhaps a PCI bracket to adapt internal SATA to eSATA would be a welcome addition. I initially thought a power switch was missing too, but eventually figured it out. It doesn't always work as reliably/immediately as a more traditional switch, and with no mention in the manual, it wasn't particularly obvious that it did anything at all.
A search of PriceGrabber finds the Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB External Hard Drive with USB, eSATA, and Firewire connections for as little as $268.15 (US) on the date this review was published. Taking a look at this page shows that the price for the unit as tested works out to 36 cents per GB, while the version without Firewire is 35 cents per GB, and just the 750GB Seagate drive with no enclosure or software is 30 cents per GB. The price is definitely a key feature for this device, and returns some points lost for poor eSATA performance and the lack of an eSATA cable.
The five year warranty is another key selling point on the FreeAgent Pro. While you could easily add a Seagate drive (with its own 5 year warranty) to any old enclosure, Seagate has bundled the whole thing together for you, thrown in some useful software, and then applied their industry leading warranty to the whole thing. Considering the price, it sure makes things easy!
Balancing the performance with the features, useful software, and competitive price per GB, the Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB External Hard Drive earns the Bigbruin.com "Good Value" award.
Pros:
» Reasonable USB 2.0 and Firewire speeds
» Software is functional, attractive, and intuitive
» Price per GB is competitive, even with bare internal drives of this size
» 5 year warranty
Cons:
» Slow eSATA transfer rates
» No eSATA cable included
» Peculiar power switch
» Software works hard to promote the purchase of more software/services
» Enclosure shell gets very warm to the touch
Special thanks to Seagate for providing the Seagate FreeAgent Pro 750GB External Hard Drive to Bigbruin.com for review!
Please drop by the Bigbruin.com Forum and feel free to post any comments or questions.
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