Product Review: Seagate FreeAgent Pro 1TB

Arrived two days ago from Amazon is the Seagate FreeAgent Pro 1TB desktop hard drive.  Definitely need to secure my files as my laptop's space is always near a 5 GB and left to delete it after I transfer it to my Western Digital World Edition II 500 GB network hard drive (later found out that transfering files wirelessly is not just slow, but sometimes unsafe since I have lost some files... it's somewhere in the air.)

Packaging from Seagate is done really well: the contents are secured and protected by cardboard molds inside that remind of an egg carton... and everything is individually wrapped in anti-static bags--the hard drive itself, the power adapter, the usb cord, and firewire cord.

This will be my current set up: the drive itself using the firewire cable.
The hard drive enclosure is really nice itself. It's brushed aluminim and not that heavy to move it to other places if needed. The base, while looks like it can be attached, cannot. So it's to stay on your table top standing upright.

The back of the base contains the connections needed to hook it up to your computer: firewire port, usb port, eSATA port, and power supply.
The FreeAgent Pro compared to my Palm Treo 680. It definitely has a small footprint.

The drive itself is not that much thicker as you can see with my Treo. The drive itself is fanless so it's very quiet.

None of the photos show when it is on but on the top and front has a yellow light indicator to show that it's on and in use. It's not too bright but is definitely cool to bring some color into the drive.

One caveat I have is that there's no real button to turn it on/off. Instead, in front of the base is a touch-sensitive button [that happens to be dark as the drive and in my opinion, a bad design]. I wished it would light up as well so you can see it if it's powered on.

Other than that, a nice looking hard drive with plenty of space for all my files and will definitely work alongside my file back up workflow.

Current file backup workflow:

- New images are downloaded to my laptop's space

- Image files are named with the date and short description. (i.e. 20080906 - Seagate_001)

- Files are backed up to my portable external hard drive (Seagate FreeAgent Passport 160 GB)

- Files are backed up to my network hard drive (Western Digital World Edition II 500GB)

- Files will now be backed up as well to this new hard drive

- Once the images are edited and finalized, the same process applies to secure the files.

Reasons for multiple place file locations:

Alot is basically due to the "What If" scenarious or "Just In Case" thinking...

- Portable hard drive [usb powered] is a must when you want to transport files easily and quickly to another computer without the hassle of plugging in a power source

- Network hard drive is used to centralize my files so it contains not just the new image files but also the old ones

- Because the portable hard drive is not big enough to hold all the newer image files (160 GB), the new 1TB will hold everything [including the ones from the network drive] just in case my network fails or disconnected.

I've learned the hard way after completing my book Nonage that all my final files weren't save because they weren't backed up correctly and methodically. =( All I have is the .PDF document that's ready for print... but no JPEGs, PSDs, or TIFFs of anything for the final revision of the book. Gah!