Seagate FreeAgent Go 160GB external hard drive

To test the drive, we copied over a folder containing 100 10MB files to the Go, duplicated the folder on the drive and then copied them back, running each test a handful of times and averaging the speed. Respectively, these operations yielded data transfer rates of 12.56MBps, 11.75MBps and 14.05MBps. As you can see from the chart, that's slower than Seagate's 750GB FreeAgent Pro's USB 2.0 bandwidth figures in all but the duplication operation. But then the bigger drive's result was surprisingly, perhaps anomalously poor.

Seagate FreeAgent Go performance results

Data throughput figures in MBps
Longer bars are better

The Pro spins at 7200rpm, the Go at 5400rpm, so it's no wonder the bigger drive is faster, but the figures show the portable unit is faster than the 33.33 per cent speed reduction you'd get from the slower-spinning storage. Its performance is on a par for similar, bus-powered 5400rpm portable hard drives we've looked at in the past.

Speed aside, we could quite easily use a Go to keep our laptop's 80GB hard drive backed up and have it double-up as a handy package for carrying documents around.

Ceedo Personal: all your apps, data on any PC

Stressing the latter role, Seagate bundles Creedo's Ceedo Personal application, a tool that lets the drive become a portable My Documents folder, allowing you to run your apps and access documents on different systems without having to install anything on those machines. Even preferences files are automatically stored on the external drive - compatible apps show a Ceedo icon in the title bar to indicate they're working with the drive.