The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Home is unlike
any other NAS that we have ever seen. It comes in two sections, with a docking
station that you connect to your network router with the supplied Ethernet
cable while the power is supplied by a mains plug adapter. The other part of
the equation is the hard drive, which is housed in a black plastic caddy
Seagate
3TB FreeAgent GoFlex Home
The SA TA connection of the drive protrudes
slightly from the caddy and the drive is supported on the docking station with
three plastic pegs that guide the drive into place and then support it in
position. The overall effect is very pleasing on the eye and the Seagate will
look slightly more at home in a corner of your living room than, say, the
Iomega EZ Media & Backup Centre.
We struggle to see why Seagate has opted
for the two part setup, as we doubt many people will wish to transport the
drive caddy from one place to another. In any case, that would require a second
docking station, so despite appearances, you shouldn't think of the FreeAgent
GoFlex Home as a portable hard drive.
We also have to say that we doubt many
people will buy another Seagate drive in its special caddy to upgrade the
capacity of the NAS. If you're buying your NAS with a view to plugging in some
extra terabytes, you'd do well to select a model that accommodates a
conventional 3.5" drive.
Having said that, Seagate is offering a
large amount of storage for quite a low price. The 1TB FreeAgent GoFlex Home is
on sale at $136, the 2TB at $174, and this 3TB can be found for a very
reasonable $223. That's quite a bit cheaper than the Iomega EZ Media, which
also comes in 1TB, 2TB and 3TB capacities.
Seagate has also provided a USB 2.0 port on
the dock, next to the gigabit Ethernet port, which allows you to daisy chain a
flash drive or second hard drive with the minimum of fuss.
Seagate
3TB FreeAgent GoFlex Home
Connecting the FreeAgent GoFlex Home is a
straightforward process, because the Seagate software installer handles the
task with aplomb, once you've connected the dock to your router, plugged in the
drive caddy and turned on the power.
The Seagate Dashboard management utility is
installed, along with Memeo Instant Backup and both applications searched for
updates and managed their installation to bring them up to date. During the
online registration process you also get the chance to download the GoFlex app
for iOS or Android.
With the software installed, the Dashboard
utility ran a couple of firmware updates on the drive and the GoFlex docking
station, and then the NAS was ready for business.
Seagate has a couple of minor annoyances up
its sleeve such as the way that Mac users need to install a utility if they
wish to use Time Machine and the Seagate Share software is limited to five user
names When it comes to performance the Seagate doesn't break any records. The
desktop drive inside the caddy is presumably a Barracuda LP, which should be
plenty fast enough for a NAS. Similarly, we doubt that the external SATA
connection is the bottleneck in performance, so we will make an educated guess
and say that the processor in this NAS is holding back the potential of the
drive.
Still, you get 3TB of storage at a low, low
price and that makes the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Home look rather appealing.
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Details
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Price: $223
·
Manufacturer: Seagate
·
Website: www.seagate.com
·
Required spec: Windows XP or Mac OS X 10.4
onwards
Verdict
·
Quality: 6
·
Value: 8
·
Overall: 7
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