Hands on: Seagate FreeAgent Go

Seagate FreeAgent Go

Anyone who travels knows all too well how inconvenient is to carry along a heavy laptop. If you are thinking of an hand-held device such as the Blackberry consider that many people can’t survive just on an e-mail diet when on the road.

I belong to that group, which is why I was eager to try out FreeAgent Go, a recent offering from Seagate that bundles a sleek portable USB drive and, to quote the vendors’ hype:

..software that let’s you take your desktop environment and all your files to go.

.

The FreeAgent Go I tested has a nominal capacity of 160GB but the drive comes also in 80GB and 120GB capacity. In addition Seagate offers a Small version with only 12 GB and just a notch over 2 inches long.

The FreeAgent Go is slightly bigger than the Small version, about 5″ x 4″, or the size of a man’s wallet. The drive has a large orange front window that pulses during data transfers or when there is an error but you can turn that feature completely off if needed.

The opposite side of the drive hosts the USB 2.0 port and is covered by a clear Plexiglas screen through which, with the proper light, you can see the 2.5″, 5,400 RPM drive inside.

Setting up the Ceedo software on my Windows XP laptop was a no brainer. Ceedo Personal is an application that makes possible installing your most needed programs on the FreeAgent Go drive.

Those programs run directly from the drive, so when on the road you only need to borrow a PC or laptop with 2 USB ports, plug in your FreeAgent Go and you’ll have your files and applications with you.

When connecting the drive back to your home machine Ceedo will automatically sync your files with the portable version.

For my test I installed Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox plus a graphic editor on the FreeAgent Go. After choosing the directories to take with me I let FreeAgent complete the copy.

Then I moved my drive to another machine to simulate being on the road on a borrowed computer.

After connecting my drive to the foreign PC, I saw the main menuof FreeAgent appear on my screen. I was able to launch my applications from the drive without problems, and without installing anything on that machine. My files were there and easy to access as expected

Moreover I had all my bookmarks and IE favorites, but I found out with a bit of disappointment that all browser’s add-ons need to be reinstalled manually.

To bring with you more applications, simply repeat the same process but it’s important to understand that Ceedo can install only a limited number of programs.

If you use other programs not included in that list, you can download Argo, an add-on to Ceedo that makes possible installing programs from a regular setup file. Argo is not free but you can purchase it online for $20.

After installing Argo the list of supported programs grew quite a bit longer. However, Microsoft Word, probably the application that I use the most was not in that list.

Seagate FreeAgent Go

Availability: Shipping

Pricing: around $200 for the 160GB model

Verdict:

After playing with FreeAgent Go for a few days I still like the drive and its 5 years warranty, but have serious doubts about being able to take my desktop environment with me, unless I can work around not having the Office suite and other unsupported apps I use.

Another concern I have is that whatever files I change or create anew while traveling would be my only copy.

If that thought doesn’t make you uncomfortable and the applications that Ceedo and perhaps Argo support fit you well, you can probably leave your laptop behind. For now I’ll pass.