Why You Can Trust CNET Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra Portable USB 3.0 (1.5TB) review: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra Portable USB 3.0 (1.5TB)
The GoFlex Ultra Portable USB 3.0 returns a tidy performance for an acceptable price. If you've got the speedy ports to make the most of it, we'd say that this drive will treat you quite well indeed.
Seagate's portable hard drives, with mix-and-match detachable interfaces, have been with us for some time now. The whole idea is that you should only need one hard drive, and then you can change the interface depending on what your need is — USB, Firewire 800, eSATA — but, of course, only once you've shelled out between AU$30 and AU$50 extra for that Seagate-branded attachment in the first place.
Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra Portable USB 3.0 (1.5TB)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
You can pick up the FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra Portable with either the USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 flavour by default, with the USB 2.0 version coming in capacities of 320GB to 1TB, and USB 3.0 wielding 500GB to 1.5TB. If you're particularly fussed about colour, it's available in black, red, grey or blue.
We tested performance under CrystalDiskMark, and, while it's still a mechanical drive, we found the USB 3.0 interface to provide quite a decent boost over its predecessor.
The USB 3.0 benefit allows Seagate's drive to smash through the previous 480 megabit theoretical limit for some tidy performance increases. Western Digital's drives are just odd, often posting faster writes than reads, something that definitely bucks the trend. Still as you can see from the graphs, as far as mechanical drives go higher capacity opens up potential for higher speeds.
The GoFlex Ultra Portable USB 3.0 returns a tidy performance for an acceptable price. If you've got the speedy ports to make the most of it, we'd say that this drive will treat you quite well indeed.