Portability Rating: 4.5 stars
Durability: 4.5 stars
Re-use/Replay Value: 5 stars
Overall Rating: 4.5 stars

Seagate’s latest FreeAgent Go for Mac portable hard drive is an staggering from the moment you lay your eyes on the sleek shiny enclosure. Unraveling the amazing clam-shell packaging, you’ll find the drive itself, a lengthy USB cable with 2 USB heads (one is for data transfer, and one is for power), along with a small, shorter wire that is used when traveling.  The FreeAgent Go for Mac also is equipped with a short user manuel to help assist some questions you might have.The FreeAgent Go’s top surface feels metallic while maintaining it’s very light and very portable structure. The chassis is really nicely sealed against any accidental spills, and seems pretty durables enough to withstand the harsh conditions that these hard drives might encounter.  These hard drives can easily last for many years. The top face of the hard drive features a tiny Seagate logo, along with an array of LED’s which lights up white when connected to a computer’s USB port.  The lights glow brighter or dimmer depending on how much you are using the drive.  Once you eject the drive from the computer, the lights slowly dim down until they turn off, reassuring you that it is ok to then pull out the USB port.

Seagate provides multiple variants of the original FreeAgent Go for the PC.  They can be purchased in 250GB, 320GB, and 500GB capacities and a choice of Titanium Silver, Tuxedo Black, Ruby Red, Royal Blue, Sky Blue, Solar Orange, Think Pink, Champagne Gold, Spring Green and Forest Green colors. Unfortunately, with the FreeAgent Go for Mac, you can only buy the drive in silver.  On the bright side, you can order the drive with Firewire compatibility which is great.  The FreeAgent Go for Mac comes in the following models:

The FreeAgent Go comes with printed user guide that is fairly simplistic.  Just one thing I had to point out is that the user guide incorrectly refers to a single USB Type A connector cable instead of the included Y-USB Type A connector cable.

While testing the drive,  I used both the included Y-USB cable and a standard single USB cable on a desktop and laptop, both of which worked perfectly. I have a 17” Intel iMac, and a 13” MacBook Pro, just for those who are wondering.  Unfortunately, if your notebook was manufactured before the year 2000, you might need to plug both ends of the Y-USB cable into your notebook to supply sufficient current to power the hard drive.  You can see the test results here (I used Xbench to conduct my results):

The Seagate FreeAgent Go for Mac 500GB is a remarkably designed piece of USB hardware.  While I would still prefer the Seagate Go for Mac 500 GB with firewire, $150 is hard to complain for this extraordinary hard drive.  I definitely recommend you buy a FreeAgent Go, whether it is the Mac or PC version.  Seagate made them both equally amazing, and the price makes it a must have.

Since the USB versions of the FreeAgent Go for Mac don’t come with a dock, you can buy their FreeAgent Go Dock+ for just $39.  The dock let’s you quickly connect your drive into your computer, but it also doubles as a powered three-port USB hub.  I got a Dock+, and I find it really convenient.  I mean, honestly, who wouldn’t buy an external hard drive that gives you extra USB ports, right?

Pros: Thinner than the Firewire version.  Speed is pretty good, and the overall experience is excellent.  Price is also very affordable.

Cons: Slower than Firewire version.  Doesn’t come with any built-in software like the original FreeAgent Go.  USB version doesn’t come with a dock, and doesn’t come in a variety of colors.

Portability Rating: 5 stars
Durability: 4.5 stars
Re-use Value: 5 stars
Overall Rating: 4.7 stars

With its glossy aluminum finish, chrome trim, and jet black top and bottom cover, the 500 GB Seagate FreeAgent Go Special Edition makes it extremely convenient to carry your photos, music, videos and documents anywhere, without sacrificing good looks. The drive looks spectacular, and comes pre-loaded with easy-to-use software that helps you retain your data with automatic data backup and encryption of your important files, folders, etc. You can even sync content so you’ll always have your most current versions while on the go. In addition to the amazing looking drive, Seagate made things even better by including a piano black desktop dock, making it easier than ever to connect to the computer without having to fumble with wires The FreeAgent Go Special Edition even contains a massive amount of storage, without taking up a massive amount of space, that can hold a lot of your video, photos, music, files, and more.

The FreeAgent Go Special Edition is 5.1 x 3.1 x 0.4 inches and weighs a mere 0.35 lbs (0.16 kg). While the drive may not slide in your pocket, it’s thin enough to fit in almost any pouch. It is of course, tiny and light enough to slide into basically any bag as well. I honestly think that this is the most gorgeous portable drive I have ever seen or used. It even sports a series of white lights on the bottom portion of the top cover that pulsate when the drive is active, and slowly fade down as the drive activity decreases.

The Seagate FreeAgent Go Special Edition comes in two great color combinations; black and silver, and red and silver. You can of course buy the original FreeAgent Go (not special Edition) in blue, red, silver, and black, but I really recommend the black & silver Special Edition Go over all of the other color choices you can chose from.

The Seagate FreeAgent Go proved to be pretty fast for a USB drive. It was able to read about 5 GB worth of videos, photos, music, and documents in 4 minutes, a rate of about 22 Mbps. In my tests, the Go achieved a write speed of about 20 Mbps. I still prefer FireWire drives, since they are way faster, and require only one wire to connect, but it has become my favorite external USB drive by far.

The Windows-only Seagate Manager software that is pre installed on the drive, was up and running in less than a minute. I was able to select the files that I wanted to back up for safe keeping swiftly. I was also able to quickly set a day and time that I wanted backups to occur. After that, the software was basically on auto-pilot, and did everything by itself just as it was told. The software was really convenient for the PC; it reminded me of Time Machine, which if you don’t know is the Mac backup program that is built-in to every Mac running Mac OS X 10.5 or higher. Seagate Manager also let us create a password-protected folder that safeguards files with 256-bit AES encryption. Lastly, the Sync option permits users to access our data when we plugged the FreeAgent Go Special Edition into another PC, so I always had the most current versions of my files at my fingertips when moving the drive from PC to PC.

Overall, the 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Go Special Edition is my favorite external hard drive hands down. The design is stunning, the capacity is huge, and the overall experience was just amazing. My only suggestion is for Seagate to bring back FireWire capabilities.

Convenience Rating: 3.8 stars
Video Quality: 4.8 stars
Appearance: 4.5 stars
Re-use/Replay Value: 3 stars

Overall Rating: 4 stars

After you take photos from your digital camera and videos from your camcorder, where does it all go?  Most people dump their photos in iPhoto if they have a Mac, or some folder if they have a pc.  For their videos, it is basically the same.  While you can edit your videos and make it look good, there really isn’t any enjoyment in watching your videos & slideshows if you have to sit in the office like a bunch of geeks to watch your media on a tiny computer screen.  Thankfully, Seagate looks to change all that as smooth as possible with its FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player.  It is basically a high-definition media player that will allow you to play all your media on your Seagate portable hard drives on a monitor or television.

The device alone is $129, but you can buy models that also come with a  250GB or 500GB FreeAgent Go portable hard drive for $229 and $279, respectively. The player is extremely easy to set up and offers a simple way to move content to a big screen. But I found 3 drawbacks: the lack of AAC, WMV, and DRM support.  These 3 formats is what 40-50% of my media is preserved on, which made it a little frustrating for me to get my favorite content up onto the big screen.

Appearance

My unit came with a silver/white 500 GB drive which looked great on the attractive FreeAgent Theater, which sports a glossy, black lid which draws plenty of fingerprints and smudges.  It basically has all the qualities of the black back of the iPhone 3G.  The front face contains power, navigation, and menu buttons, as well as keys for playing, pausing, and stopping content.

The FreeAgent Theater’s front bezel also has an infrared receiver (for use with the included remote control), an eject button to eject the drive, and a USB port for attaching external devices such as a digital cameras, etc. to the unit.

The back of the FreeAgent Theater sports numerous ports for connecting the device to a monitor or TV: composite, S-Video, component, and coaxial. But the weirdest thing is that it lacks an HDMI port, which is a strange since Seagate boasts that the box can output up to 1080i resolution and supports Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. There’s also a reset button, and of course, a port for power.

Setup & User Interface

Setup was easy. I installed the included software onto my PC notebook, connected the portable drive using the included USB dock, and clicked the MediaSync button to copy media from the PC to the drive. After that process was done, I removed the drive from the dock and slid it into the FreeAgent Theater.  The unit is pretty small ( 7.2 x 7.0 x 1.2-inch ), and weights 1.2 pounds (well, 1.6 pounds if the hard drive is in the unit).

I connected the FreeAgent Theater into my friends 32-inch Samsung HDTV using the component and audio cables; composite cables are the only ones included within the package. The FreeAgent Theater’s remote wasn’t as great as I expected; I had to point the device directly at the IR port.  Also, some of the buttons were positioned too closely together, resulting in many accidental button presses.

The menu screen took 5 seconds to appear on the screen after powering up the FreeAgent Theater, and the layout was simple to navigate. You can use the remote to scroll through the different categories (Music, Video, Photo) and then select a file through the list to open it. Kind of reminds me of the Finder of Windows Explorer window.  There wasn’t any lag when moving from file to file, but opening photos or video typically took 3 to 4 seconds. It wasn’t to bad, but still.

Audio/Video Quality

The FreeAgent Theater supports a wide array of file formats and codecs, including MP3, AC3, WMA, WAV, OGG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (AVI/VOB/ISO), MPEG-4 (AVI, DivX, Xvid), and JPEG. The FreeAgent Theater does not support AAC files, which means it can’t play files from the iTunes Store (where most my media is stored) nor WMV video files. In addition, files that are protected by DRM — such as content like iTunes HD Movies & TV shows — aren’t supported.

I played the movie “Get Smart”(converted into AVI), and  play back was smooth on the big screen. I then watched a movie that I recorded with my Pure Digital Flip UltraHD camcorder that was edited & converted into AVI using iMovie, which also played back flawlessly. Music sounded loud and crisp through the speakers of my friends Samsung television, photos looked good on the big screen, too, and we were able to easily create slideshows accompanied by music by selecting a tune and then returning to a photo folder.

Bottom Line

The $279 Seagate FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player is a good device for average consumers who want to view their PC’s content on a big screen. However,  the FreeAgent Theater lacks AAC, WMV, and DRM compatibility. If those drawbacks don’t affect you, the Seagate FreeAgent Theater HD Media Player will be a welcome addition to your entertainment setup, and hey, you can still use the 500 GB hard drive that comes bundled with it just as an ordinary external drive.

Note: The FreeAgent Theater currently only works for PC’s.

Convenience Rating: 4 stars
Durability: 4.5 stars
Re-use/Replay Value: 4.5 stars
Overall Rating: 4.3 stars

If your a real Apple fanboy, you are probably picky about appearance.  Thankfully, Seagate released their new Seagate FreeAgent Desk specially for the Mac!  It looks beautiful in my office because the white stand, and modern silver drive almost mocks my iMac, and you don’t feel like it is clutter.  The stand raises the drive about an inch so it can cool through the vent holes, but I found another benefit, if I spill a glass of water, etc. the stand will only get wet, not the drive.  Overall, the drive is a nice size for an external drive, but the stand is not removable! That means that you can’t stack multiple drives on top of each other, or lay it flat.

Specs:

The FreeAgent Desk for Mac measures 7.28″ in H x 1.48″ in W x 5.98″ in L and it weighs  2.2 pounds (1 kg). It is definitely not travel friendly, and if your looking for a compact portable drive, you should pick up the FreeAgent Go instead. It is certainly one of the more upper-class looking drives since it sports a metal and white enclosure.  My un-tech savvy friends thought that Apple made it.  To make the drive even more Apple-like, Seagate added a series of white LEDs underneath the stand that glow when the drive is active. and slowly fade off when the drive is ready to eject, or when the drive hasn’t been in use for a while.  Even the Seagate logo lights up, just like the Apple logo on the Macbook series.  The drive can connect to your computer via Firewire 400 or 800 and USB.

Performance:

Since the FreeAgent Desk can connect to your computer through firewire, transfer speeds are phenomenal. I have a 3 year  old intel iMac, so it doesn’t have any firewire 800 ports, but I tested it while it was connected via firewire 400.  In my tests, the Seagate Desk took 2 ½ seconds to copy a 51.2 megabyte video file.   So technically, if you were connected via firewire 800, the transfer speed should be doubled, but I don’t have any actual test results with firewire 800 to support that claim.

Verdict:

Overall, the whopping 1 TB Seagate FreeAgent Desk for Mac is one of the nicest and fasted hard drives I’ve tested.  It’s nice appearance and design makes it a perfect companion to my iMac, and for  $189, it is a drive that most people will enjoy. My only wish is that Seagate makes the stand removable.

Portability Rating: 4.5 stars
Durability: 4.5 stars
Re-use/Replay Value: 5 stars
Overall Rating: 4.7 stars

During MacWorld 2009, Apple introduced iLife 09’ and iWork 09’ which gave users significant features to create videos, music,slideshows, presentations, and documents.  With this and other advances in software, OS, etc. people’s hard drives have been feeling scanty.    As a person who loves photography and video, my hard drive fills up fast, too fast, and to share them with my friends is a nightmare!  So I got the Seagate FreeAgent Go for Mac.

Aesthetics

The FreeAgent Go measures 0.69″ in H x 3.15″ in W x 5.40″ in L and it weighs  just 7.76 oz, the 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Go may not be too pocket-friendly ,but it’s thin and light enough to slide into a bag, purse, or backpack with ease. It is certainly one of the more attractive portable drives with its silver and white exterior which looks like Apple made it. Seagate even added a series of white lights underneath the silver layer that pulse when the drive is active, and slowly fade off when the drive is ready to eject. The original FreeAgent Go comes in a spectrum of colors, but the Mac edition only comes in one: Silver. Seagate also offers a free dock that makes it really easy to insert and remove your hard drive, but unfortunately the dock only works for Firewire 800 ports.  If you want to use USB or Firewire 400, you will have to use the included wires.

Performance

The FreeAgent Go is one of the faster portable hard drives I’ve used. Unfortunately, I have a fairly old intel iMac, so it doesn’t have any firewire 800 ports, but I tested it while it was connected via firewire 400.  In my tests, I uploaded a 244.3 MB file to the drive in 24.9 seconds.  So technically, if you were connected via firewire 800, the transfer speed would be doubled.

Verdict

Overall, the 500GB Seagate FreeAgent Go is one of the better portable hard drives we’ve tested.  It’s sleek appearance and size makes it hands down own of the most convenient portable hard drives I’ve tested.  For $159, you’re getting style, very good performance, and a very compact hard drive that anyone will enjoy.