I have been looking for an external hard drive to use for my laptop. My laptop is my main computer and I really wanted to keep it clean. So I wanted this little portable hard drive mainly to store photos. It will also be used for music (itunes) and tv shows (my weeds series).
I decided on a Seagate FreeAgent (TM) Go because it was the best priced at the moment. I got it at Best Buy (actual store, not virtual). It was a black one with a capacity of 500 GB for $119. (April 30. 2009)
It comes with a short little adapter usb cable and plugs right into the back of my laptop. For another $25, I could have gotten the docking station, but as I won’t necessarily be taking this with me, I didn’t feel like it was something I’d need. The Go sits right next to my computer with cute little dotted lights (which can be turned off easily in the preferences of the seagate manager).
When you first plug it in, it installs the manager to your preferred location (I chose the default, simple enough). Only takes a couple minutes, if that long.
Then I went to my Pictures folder, right clicked and chose Send To.. I then “sent it” to the FreeAgent option. It imported all my folders and pictures directly to the device – keeping the organization intact. Clicking on Properties (on Pictures folder) I changed the “location” of the file, so it would direct to the Go device – this way, my pictures are stored only on the device (I hope I don’t have to get back up for my back up, ha! But realistically I probably should since it’s not really being used for back up).
Because I used the Windows Photo Gallery also, I needed to fix it too. When I opened it, it told me the folders for all my pictures couldn’t be found.. so I had to change the path that read found the photos. I did this in the program.
All that running smoothly, I decided to switch my music over. Did that and in the itunes program, I changed the location of the music simply by editing the preference of where it was located. Very simply and all my music (and shows) is there and playing just fine.
I wanted easy access to the Go, so I created a shortcut directly to the folders on it and put it in my systems tray next to the Start button. Works great.
I’m thinking about deleting a few programs and reinstalling them on the Go.. like itunes. This way, no matter what computer I’m on, I can access my music and my player.
In the end, it was a great purchase. Easy to use, very small (maybe the size of two cell phones, but thinner?), sleek and I mentioned easy to use.. yeah, it is.. really.
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I had bought a Maxtor external drive earlier, I got a firewire option and transfers were superb, but I had to provide external power to this drive. This was 4 years ago, fast forward to last month and I bought another transcend portable drive to 1/4th the cost, slightly higher capacity and I can easily carry it in my pocket (though I don’t) :D
Does yours have an ‘extra’ USB cable to draw more power from the laptop? It seems transfers are faster when I put both USBs from the portable drive in my laptop.
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Hello! I found your blog after googling soap recipes with rice bran oil and am thrilled to find your post on an external hard drive for your laptop. This is something I’d been planning to do, but hadn’t gotten around to researching hard drives. I’ve always felt the best advertising is a word-of-mouth recommendation and I thank you for sharing your experience with this purchase.
I was headed to buy the western digital passport.. but the one I got was a little cheaper. If you check them out at amazon.com (I do a lot of shopping and comparing and reading reviews there), they really are all pretty comparable. I think the technology is just pretty even across the board on them. But I am very happy with the one I have. Very simple to use. I even moved all my music and the itunes application to it. So I can plug it into another computer and I’m all good to go.
Jeet – no, mine doesn’t.. but the docking station did. I wondered why… more power.. hmm. Well, honestly, mine went pretty quick, with the exception of transferring my thousands of photos… now that it’s done, I’m all good.
That’s cool. I am glad you liked your drive. I am just waiting for the rates to be halved again (which should happen within next couple of months going by the trend), and I would be ready to buy another one.
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