My laptop has a lot of very important things on it.  I have documents that I created or scanned in.  I have tons of music that I bought from iTunes or invested hours ripping from CDs.  I have hundreds of ebooks.  We switched to digital cameras years ago, so most of the pictures I have of my daughter and all the pictures I have of the last few years of my parents’ lives are digital.  Backups are VERY important to me.  I currently have a Seagate external drive that I use for backup.  That disk works well except for its size.  It’s a big disk with an external power source, and it’s too big to fit on the tiny table I use for my laptop.  I keep the backup drive on my sofa’s end table, and I’ve accidentally pulled it to the floor on more than one occasion while moving my laptop desk around.  I’ve been lucky so far that the disk hasn’t been damaged, but I’m afraid my luck won’t hold out forever.  I was thrilled when Julie asked me to review a 500GB Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-portable USB 2.0 external disk.  I already liked Seagate drives, and I knew that the small form factor of this disk would work better with my cramped workspace.

There are a lot of small external drives out there.  What’s so special about the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex drives?  A clue is found in the GoFlex name.  The beauty of the GoFlex drives is in their flexibility.  GoFlex drives are compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit) operating systems and with Mac OS X 10.4.9 or higher.  You can easily share files between a Mac and a PC because there’s a special driver on the disk that installs itself to your Mac computer to allow you to read/write Windows-based files.  (If you wish to use backup software for Mac or use TimeMachine software, you’ll have to reformat to HFS+ formatting.) 

The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-portable drives are available in a variety of sizes and colors.  You can get the drives in 320GB, 500GB, 750GB, or 1TB capacities.  Colors available are black, red, silver, or blue, but not every color is available in every size.

Connector for interface cable (shown on black 1TB disk)

When you buy a GoFlex Ultra-portable drive kit, you get a USB 2.0 connection cable.  USB 2.0 is capable of speeds up to 480Mbits/second, but you may have a faster interface on your computer that you’d rather use.  You can buy upgrade cables for the GoFlex disk so you can use a FireWire 800 port (800Mbits/sec), USB 3.0 (4.8Gbits/sec), or eSATA (3Gbits/sec).  If you don’t have USB 3.0 on your computer, you can upgrade both your laptop and the Seagate disk to USB 3.0 with the Upgrade Kit, which comes with an ExpressCard adapter, the 3.0 cable, and USB power adapter.  You can even buy a GoFlex disk without a USB 2.0 cable if you wish to use another interface exclusively.  You can access all this data on any computer using any interface at any time.  There is also a GoFlex Net Media sharing dock that connects to your router to make your data available to you on your home network or from outside your home network.  With this dock, you can set up shares to make selected data available to friends and family.

All of these options are available to you simply by buying a new connector or a dock.  With this kind of flexibility, it will be hard to outgrow your Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex disk.

For this review, Seagate had sent a silver 500GB GoFlex Ultra-portable drive.  I had received a black 1TB GoFlex Ultra-portable drive with a Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex TV HD media player I had reviewed earlier.  Since that disk was mentioned only in passing in the GoFlex TV review, I thought I’d throw the 1TB disk into this review, too.  Each of these disks came with a USB 2.0 connector in a matching color with an 18” cable and a Quick Start guide.  Each disk is loaded with backup software with encryption capabilities and an NTFS driver for Mac.

Seagate had also provided The Gadgeteer with a FireWire 800 Upgrade Cable.  My laptop has a 4-pin FireWire port, so I first thought I’d be able to get an adapter to connect the FireWire upgrade cable.  With a little research, I realized the 4-pin connectors aren’t powered, so I couldn’t evaluate the FireWire upgrade cable. 

eSATA cable

My laptop does have a powered eSATA/USB connector, so I decided I’d purchase the FreeAgent GoFlex eSATA Upgrade Cable myself.  I thought I’d switch the 500GB disk over to the GoFlex TV media player and use the 1TB disk with the eSATA upgrade cable for a faster backup drive.  So let’s look at all these pieces and parts.

The 500GB disk is 4.39” X 3.19” X 0.57” and weighs 0.33 pounds.  The 1TB disk is 4.71” X 3.51” X 0.87” and weighs 0.62 pounds.  I decided to start my evaluations with the USB connectors.  There is no external power source, so you have to connect them to a powered port.  The disks are plug-and-play, and they were quickly available to my Dell laptop when I plugged them in.  The USB connector has two white LEDs, arranged to look like an equal sign, that light up to show the disk is connected and available.   These disks are very quiet.  I can hear a hum when I press them to my ear, but nothing otherwise.  The black 1TB disk is sturdy as a rock, but the 500GB disk did squeak a bit when I subjected them to Julie’s patented Gadgeteer squeeze test.  There are no feet on the drives to allow air to flow under them, so I did notice that they get warm during use.  They haven’t gotten hot enough to burn – just warm.  And that’s true even during the 3.5 hour backup I’ll discuss later.

I first checked the capacities of the disks; I wanted to see how much space was taken by the pre-loaded software.  The 500GB disk showed 465GB free out of 465GB available.  The 1TB disk showed 930GB free out of 931GB available.  

I wanted to check the speed of these disks relative to each other, and I wanted to check the speed of the USB 2.0 cable versus the eSATA cable for each disk.  I selected a 1.7GB single file and a folder with 176 subfolders and 2317 total files in 1.2GB to use in my tests.

It seems that both disks have the same write speeds.  However, the eSATA allowed much faster writes with both disks.  The single file required only about 1/3 the time with the eSATA cable for both disks.  The large folder with a lot of files copied in roughly half the time using the eSATA cable.  I think the eSATA upgrade cable is $20 well spent because it should result in faster backups.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m going to use the 1TB disk with the eSATA cable as my backup device.  I’ll pair the 500GB disk with the GoFlex TV.  As I mentioned in its review, the GoFlex TV has an interior slot designed to slide a GoFlex Ultra-portable disk in.  The 1TB GoFlex disk was far too big to fit into that slot, so I used the USB 2.0 connector to add the disk to the GoFlex TV.  I had assumed that a smaller capacity GoFlex disk would fit in perfectly and allow the front cover to be closed, but that turns out not to be the case.  The 500GB disk was the perfect width and depth to fit the slot, but it extended a couple of inches, so the front cover couldn’t be closed.  Since the 500GB disk is the smallest size offered in the GoFlex Ultra-portables, I was obviously mistaken thinking that it fit completely inside.  I can also use its USB 2.0 cable to connect the 500GB drive to the GoFlex TV.

Now, backing up my laptop…  I’ve been using the crappy Microsoft backup/restore utility.  It has limited functionality and it isn’t very customizable, either.  And no matter what I do, it seems to perform a complete backup every time.  Either that, or it’s the slowest incremental backup known to man.  Because it’s so slow, I only backup once a week, with an occasional forced extra backup if I’ve added a lot of photos or made other big changes.  I was hoping the backup software included with the 1TB disk would work better.

Seagate Dashboard

Now that my other tests are out of the way, I connected the 1TB disk to my laptop using the eSATA cable.  It didn’t start automatically, so I ran the setup.exe file.  This executable only registered my disk with Seagate, so I looked around and found the Seagate Dashboard Setup Wizard and ran it.  The wizard allowed me to install the free backup program.  I was also offered (for pay) an upgraded version of the backup program, and I could have chosen to install trial versions of Memeo Sync (sync between multiple computers, USB devices, hard drives, etc.), Memeo Share (auto delivery of photos and videos directly to friend’s computer’s desktop), and Memeo Send (send largest files quickly and easily with encryption and file delivery tracking).  I opted to install only the free Memeo Instant Backup program and the Seagate Dashboard.

As soon as installation was complete, both programs found updated versions, so I installed both updates.  The Dashboard seems to be a launchpad for all the backup and sync programs I could have installed.  I think it would be more useful had I chosen to install more than the backup program.  I can launch the backup program from the Dashboard, or I can launch it from the list of programs on my system tray.

You create an account with Memeo to save your backup plan profile, any registration keys for products you purchased from them, and you can log on to check your backup status from anywhere.

Memeo Instant Backup program

I started up the Memeo Instant Backup program, and it immediately started scanning my C: drive to find files for backup.  It doesn’t backup temporary files, system files, and the like.  If you don’t want to backup all folders, you can use advanced settings to select only the folders you want.  It defaulted to backing up my documents, pictures, music, and videos, and some “other” files, and it was scanning to find how much space backing up the files would require.  If you are sure you have enough space on the backup device, you can start the backup at any time without waiting for the scan to finish.  Since I was backing up to an empty disk, I just started the backup. 

Advanced options

The first backup took a LONG time to complete, but it was backing up about 89GB of files.  It took 3 hours and 26 minutes to complete.  Since the first backup completed, I’ve noticed it does do incremental backups automatically throughout the day.  Every time I’ve opened up the Instant Backup program, I see that an incremental backup has been completed just minutes before.  I’ve kept the GoFlex disk connected to my computer, so the backups are frequently completed.  If you don’t have the backup device connected, the software will track which files have changed or been added and back them up as soon as the Seagate is connected.  And of course, the Memeo Instant Backup program allows for files to be restored to your same computer or to another computer.

Memeo Instant Backup showing date/time of lastest backup

I recommend the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-portable drives.  They’re compact, quiet, and fast – and even faster with the eSATA upgrade cable.  The GoFlex system is so flexible you can easily upgrade your disk to work with USB 3.0, FireWire 800, and eSATA, and even add the disks to your network.  I find them to be a good backup solution for my very precious pictures, and they work great to add files to my Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex TV HD media system.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear, Reviews

Tagged: Backup Drive, External drive

Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-Portable Drive and eSATA Upgrade Cable Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 8, 2010 at 7:30 am.

The Clickfree C2 Portable Automatic Backup drive is the go-to option for those looking for a hardware backup solution with it’s own easy, but option rich software interface that works with both Mac and PC.

As a Mac user, already using Time Machine to securely backup my data, C2 might appear useless and a bit overkill, but this HDD will actually backup both your Mac and PC on the same device, allowing it to go above and beyond the limits of the Time Machine software. Mac users with lingering PCs can use the C2 to make sure all of their computer devices are secure on just one HardDrive instead of investing in multiple drives and headaches.

The C2 is dummy-proof, making directions almost nonsensical. Plug in the drive, open the on desktop application, follow a few prompts, and voila the computer is backing up. My 93GB backup running on USB 2.0 took a little over an hour to complete. Unfortunately, there isn’t a firewire 800/400 option available, so you’ll just have to deal with weak USB 2.0 speeds for now.

The C2 actually finds the files scattered across you computer, organizes them in the appropriate folders and once backed-up, the user can navigate through the drive’s software to either manually retrieve files or export them back to the computer where they will be put in folder appropriate locations. ie… Music back to your iTunes library or photos back in your iPhoto library.

The C2 software allows for unique backup customization, although Clickfree recommends that you do a full backup as to avoid not backing up all of your important information. My only concern is that there isn’t an option to backup applications, giving Time Machine a leg up on the C2.

One feature that will surely help out iPod and iPhone fanatics is that if you hook up your C2 plus an ipod or iPhone to the computer, you will be able to import your music and playlists directly onto that machine. It’s a great option if your iPod was synced to a crashed computer.

For the advanced ‘backer-uppers’, there are plenty of options to smile about. There is an optional 256-bit Hardware-Accelerated Encryption tool, with a guarantee that the encryption will not slow your computer down. And if you were hoping for an easy way to get your backup onto a DVD or CD, then fear not because it is certainly possible and can be done with a click of a button, and the same easy steps are available for scheduling backups and extracting email attachments from Outlook and Outlook Express.

The drive is rectangular and lightweight; a bit thicker than a WD passport drive.  The USB 2.0 integrated design is clever, but by no means practical. The drive connected cable is short, causing it to dangle from a laptop and forcing you to use the docking station (sold separately) to connect t0 a portable computer.

Users receive a manufacturer backed 3-year warranty. The Drive is available NOW @ www. clickfree.com. The prices range from $139-189, depending on which GB drive you choose.

System Requirements: To use the drive on a PC, make sure you’re at least using Windows XP and Mac users have to be using Leopard or later.

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear, Laptops and Gear

Tagged: Backup Drive

Clickfree C2 Portable Backup Drive: Just Click and GO! originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 30, 2009 at 12:16 pm.

Have you ever experienced a hard drive failure, losing critical data such as pictures and music?  As I begin this review, my main desktop computer is currently on life support and my data is in (little) jeopardy.  Fortunately, I have an external hard drive that I utilized for routine backup. So it is only fitting that I have the opportunity to review the Rebit 1 TB multi-PC backup USB hard drive.  Let’s see what it has to offer.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

• XP Service Pack 2 or Vista
• CD-ROM Disk Drive
• Available USB 2.0 port
• 200 MB available hard disk space

FEATURES:

• Plug and play
• Configuration free – no settings or buttons
• Backs up file versions and open files
• Use software (on supplied CD-ROM) to restore an entire PC hard drive
• Never have to worry about Rebit filling up.  Automatically deletes off oldest backup data if and when hard drive gets full.
• Recovers individual files and folders by drag-and-drop
• Ability to back up 6 different PC’s
• Can disconnect and reconnect, drive will pick up where it left off
• Dimensions:  9″ x 6.5″ x 2.25″
• Weight:  4 lbs.   7 oz.

IN THE BOX:

• Rebit 1 TB Multi-PC Backup USB Hard Drive
• PC Disk Recovery CD-ROM
• USB 2.0 Cable
• Power supply
• Quick Start Instructions
• 1 Year Limited Warranty

Opening the shipping container, I immediately notice the brightly green colored product box.  Rebit’s logo is a frog and the packaging plays nicely off that theme with the eye-catching color choice.  The product packaging provides a great amount of protection with form-fitting material in which the drive and accessories sit snug.  I would have very little concern with the Rebit drive being shipped.

At first glance, I am surprised by the size and the weight of the device.  It is much larger and heavier then the Toshiba and Western Digital portable hard drives that I utilize regularly.  Although I was initially disappointed, this drive is never described as “portable”.  In fact, Rebit markets this as a desktop backup solution and they do have a separate line of portable backup options.  All that said, the size, which is slightly smaller than a standard hardcover book, of the drive should not restrict easy transportation.

The product has a unique shape, with some rounded corners and recessed sections, and is black in color.  The recessed sections work nicely as handle when grabbing the drive.  The exterior shell of the drive provides a robust and sturdy feel, which is always nice when you are depending on the product.  The size and weight also contributes to the feel of dependability.

In terms of external features, there is not much to it.  One end has a power switch, a power adapter connector and a USB port.  That is it.

Speaking of that is it, the user manual is less like a manual and more of a pamphlet or over-sized postcard.  It nicely describes the 3 simple steps (Connect Your Rebit, Click Ok, That’s it) to use the device with easy to understand graphics.  I have honestly never encountered a more simplistic user guide.

So after my initial inspection of the contents in the product’s packaging, I am starting to believe that Rebit’s tag line of “Ridiculously Simple Backup” might actually be more then a clever way to hook potential buyers.  Could this be the backup drive that my mother could utilize?  It is time to check it out.

I connected the power adapter, the USB cable, and turn it on, my computer immediately recognized the device.  A pop-up dialog box presented me the option to “Start Rebit”.

Installation of the pre-loaded software completes and a simple welcome message pops up notifying you that you are ready to go, being protected by Rebit.  Pretty simple installation, just the way I like it.

There is no required step to set-up a backup job or select which directories you want to protect.  Rebit backs everything up.

The drive is recognized and appears under the Hard Disk Drives section of My Computer in Windows Explorer and an icon is placed on the desktop and the taskbar.

Again, notice the use of the frog icon to represent the Rebit drive.

The thing that sets this backup drive apart from others that I have utilized is the ability to use it on multiple computers.  Six being the maximum.  You just disconnect the USB cable from one and plug it into another.  Rebit recognizes the new computer and stores the information from each computer in separate locations accessible under the “My Rebit” menu.

You can also remove a PC from the drive through the “My Rebit” shortcut.

I was concerned with connecting and disconnecting the device from multiple units.  Would the device get confused?  Would I be able to find and restore files from a specific PC?  The Rebit drive’s software is  intelligent enough to know where it left off when it was last connected to a certain computer.

Another example of a benefit of this software is that you never have to worry about the Rebit drive filling up.  If you do have enough data to fill a drive, it will recognize the lack of space and remove the oldest version to make room for the newest version of the data.  No worries, just trust the Rebit drive to do it’s job.

In terms of retrieving data, users have the option to retrieve individual files or complete file folders.  Once the desired file or folder is located on the backup drive, it just a simple drag and drop from the Rebitdrive to the location on your computer.  Rebit does include a software CD that is designed to assist if a complete system restoration is required.

In conclusion, the Rebit 1 TB multi-PC backup USB hard drive is an impressive option to protect the valuable pictures, music and data on your computer.  The ability to use the single drive on multiple computers and for the built-in software to recognize the different computers and segment the data accordingly is nice.  The fact that the drive will delete off old file versions when space is necessary is another feature I have not found in other units.

The price tag is my biggest complaint against this gadget.  At $319.95, it is $150-$200 more than other units with a capacity of 1 TB.  That combined with the fact that the unit requires two connections, USB and an additional power supply, are the only things I can hold against the product.

Even though  the price would initially concern me if I was evaluating the Rebit against others in the market, after many weeks of use I am confident that device is worth the extra money.  It is far and away the easiest backup utility I have ever used.  I found the Rebit 1 TB multi-PC backup USB hard drive lived up to it’s tag line of a “Ridiculously Simple Backup”.  Yes, I even think my mom could set-up this product to use on her computer.  Although I might have to convince my dad to have faith in her and the simplicity of the product.

I now trust the Rebit hard drive to back up all five computers in my house.  Even my brand new desktop (Yes, my old desktop finally died).

Filed in categories: Desktop Computer Gear

Tagged: Backup Drive, Hard Drive, PC, USB

Rebit 1 TB Multi-PC Backup USB Hard Drive Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on July 6, 2009 at 8:27 am.