Aug 10 2012

Seagate GoFlex Desk External Hard Drive Review With Benchmarks

I was in need of a better back-up system. I had an old computer on the LAN and I was writing monthly images to it but its hard drive was beginning to fill. So I went out and bought the Seagate GoFlex Desk USB 3.0 2TB external hard drive. I am very pleased with my purchase. The thing is fast, easy to use, looks great, and is just convenient!

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The Seagate GoFlex Desk external hard drive has some neat features. It has a front indicator showing how full the drive is. It also has a neat docking system allowing for an easy replacement or expansion. I will go over all of this and more below!

Before I go on and go into detail regarding the new drive I have put this pro vs con list to help you quickly get an idea about the drive.

Pros Cons
  • Fullness Indicator
  • Quiet
  • Fast
  • Dock Based System Avalible
  • Stays Cool
  • Looks Nice
  • Ability to turn off front lights
  • Loose USB connector (Don’t bump it…)
  • Must use Seagate Dashboard software for some of the extra features such as the indicator lights.
  • Pre-loaded bloatware on drive. (Can be removed)

Now for the detailed review!

In The Box

Just the standards…

  • GoFlex Desk external drive
  • NTFS driver for Mac pre-loaded on drive
  • GoFlex Desk USB 3.0 adapter base with capacity gauge
  • 4-foot USB 3.0 cable
  • Power supply
  • Quick start guide

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Overall Look

This thing looks nice. It has a nice professional look with a shiny outer finish. The unit operates vertically but you could probably lay it on its side with no problems. Here are some pictures of the unit.

The Seagate GoFlex Desk has a standard power port and a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Port.

The Seagate GoFlex Desk uses a USB 3.0 port and a USB 3.0 SuperSpeed port. It is fully backward compatible with USB 2.0

Features

This external hard drive comes with some neat features that separate it from the rest. I will list them below and talk a bit about them.

Backup Software with Encryption

Although I don’t use it or see a reason to use it I must at least mention it. The hard drive comes with some software pre-loaded on it for a backup solution. I can’t remember what it’s called but it’s not worth wasting time with. It only comes as a trial and there are plenty of free alternatives for backups on the internet like Windows built in backup and Macrium reflect disk clone backup.

Hard Drive Dock System

I found this feature quite interesting. At first I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to happen but after some playing around I found out that it indeed was a SATA hard drive dock.

The top shinny part is the hard drive enclosure and the bottom, where the USB port and power are, is actually a SATA dock. You can gently pull the two apart.

Check out the pictures to get a better understanding about what I am trying to say.

This is the dock portion. Just a simple SATA Data and Power connector.

This is the bottom of the hard drive enclosure. It looks like the hard drive just plugs straight into the dock via standard SATA connectors.

Drive Speed / Benchmarks

This drive is nice. It performs well over USB 3.0 as well as over USB 2.0. Here are the two tests I did with CrystalDiskMark.

USB 3.0 Speed Test. 122MB/s. Not bad!

Here are the speeds for the Seagate GoFlex Desk at USB 2.0 – 30.38MB/s

 

Conclusion

Overall I am glad that I got this drive. I needed a backup solution and I found this great device that would optimize my USB 3.0 connections. Currently I run monthly hard drive clone backups to this drive and its been working wonderfully. I would definitely recommend this product to anyone in need of a large external hard drive.