One of the great things that comes with Apple steadily biting off and swallowing little mouthfuls of the PC market is that we get our very own gadgets. Like the regular stuff, but better — Apple-ized for our computing pleasure. Take the The FreeAgent Go Pro for Mac: a portable hard drive that looks as though it was designed by Apple’s own Jonny Ive.
Full review after the jump.
Seagate’s FreeAgent Go Pro for Mac is just about the most Apple-looking gadget I’ve ever used that doesn’t actually come from One Infinite Loop. Seagate covered all the bases with the drive’s styling by combining the ivory of the Macbook with the silver of Apple’s newer laptops. Actually, it fits perfectly with any Mac. Even the power indicator is a pulsing white light — sound familiar?
The FreeAgent Go Pro is fast. Portable laptop drives like the ‘Go that run at 7200 rpm are still somewhat uncommon, but the speed boost makes them well worth bagging. I ran two tests comparing the FreeAgent to my USB 2.0-equipped Western Digital Passport running at 5400 rpm.
In the first test, I transferred my 2.2 GB copy of “Pirates of The Caribbean” (because more pirates=more fun) from my Macbook to each drive; the pirates docked a merciless 20 percent earlier at the FreeAgent (via FireWire 400) over their arrival at the Western Digital Passport. The second test, duplicating the movie on each drive to test read/write speeds, suggested about a 10 percent advantage in the FreeAgent’s speed over the Passport.
Couple the drive’s raw speed with its FireWire 800 port and the result is a powerful piece of kit for tasks like photo editing or anything that requires constant drive access.
The drive’s interior seems to match its well-designed exterior: it runs fairly quietly, and doesn’t seem to get as hot as some other 7200 rpm drives do.
The one real downside is the hassle of having to use an auxiliary power cable in some instances when using the USB port, like on a Macbook — not only clogging up two USB ports for one peripheral, but adding the hassle of carrying around another cable.
Bundled with the FreeAgent Go Pro for Mac is a FireWire 800 dock (that feels more solid than than Seagate’s DockStar), a chic, faux-leather case and more cables than the Golden Gate Bridge.
Bottom Line: Stylish, supercharged drive that’s practically a must-add to the power-user’s quiver.
