Seagate Free Agent Pro Review

Seagate is well known for its innovation in technology around storage devices and its often said as the leader in the industry of data storage and security. Now they again strike back with their FREE AGENT series of hardisks which is according to me one of the best to choose if you are looking for an external storage monster. The various series available under FREE AGENT are...

• FreeAgent | Desk™
• FreeAgent | Desk™ for Mac
• FreeAgent | Go™
• FreeAgent | Go™ for Mac
• FreeAgent | XTreme™
• FreeAgent | Theater™
• FreeAgent | Pro™

But now we are going to focus on FREEAGENT PRO which is not a portable solution but an powerful "External" solution which can easily store your multimedia data and also as an backup drive for you personal files. First why do you need an External solution,there are various reason but the most common are..

1. Unavailable internal IDE/SATA connectors.
2. Ability to keep your data separate and safe from internal disk corruption.
3. Flexibility to move the drive to various location without much risk or hassle.

Free Agent Pro disks are available at 500GB, 640GB, 1TB according to your requirement. At first look we can see the disk is very sleek and looks great also its design is brand new it comes with an inbuilt light which glow when connected of course you have the option to turn it off but you wont since its very nice, lot of R&D has been done by seagate.The disk has a well stable flat base in which the disk is rested upon but you can also use it in sleeping position.

Specification :

• Dimensions: 6.89 in H x 1.33 in W x 6.77 in L (175.0 mm x 33.7 mm x 172 mm)
• Weight: 3.06 lb (1.39 kg)
  
• Interface : USB 2.0: up to 480 Mb/s
• FireWire 400: up to 400 Mb/s (Module Not Included)
  
• eSATA: up to 3Gb/s (Module Not Included)
• Rotational Speed: 7200 RPM

Inside the Box :

• FreeAgent Pro drive.
• FreeAgent software pre-loaded on drive (Windows only).
• Quickstart guide.
• Base stand.
• USB cable.
• Power supply adapter.
• FireWire 400 cable and module.
  

*eSATA cable not included
**FireWire 400 cable and FireWire module not included in all drive.

The disk comes preloaded with software exclusively developed by seagate for their Free Agent drive you can also download the latest from their site, the utility has number of features like...

1. Backup And Restore (The AutoBackup software included with your FreeAgent drive allows you to back up folders on your network, Flash Drives, and iPods; back up over the Internet; and use Shutterfly to share photos over the Internet. )
2. System Rollback (You can use FreeAgent Tools System Rollback to return your computer to an earlier state, called a Restore Point)
   
3. Internet Drive (The Internet Drive lets you access your files from any computer and share them with anyone.The Internet Drive provides password-protected space on Seagate servers so you can store data that you want to access remotely or share with others.)
   
4. Utility (Running Drive Diagnostics,Adjusting Drive Sleep Intervals,Adjusting the Drive Lights)

For this review we tested with USB interface When writing a 15GB folder of mixed file types, it took the Seagate FreeAgent Pro 14 minutes, 16 seconds for a rate of 18 MBps~. Reading back the same file took 11 minutes, 32 seconds for a rate of 21.5 MBps ~. This makes the disk one of the front runner for the spot of RYU's Best Buy due to their price per performance ratio.