Last year was a good year for Apple and, Steve Jobs' health issues aside, this year looks promising too. Seagate has responded to the needs of this growing community by adding Mac-centric storage solutions to its FreeAgent GoFlex family. Coming in portable and desktop varieties, and capacities ranging from 500GB to 3TB, the new additions can be used with other GoFlex devices and benefit from cross-platform compatibility.
Whether it's backing up an iTunes library or safeguarding your iLife against accidental deletion, the new FreeAgent GoFlex for Mac drives have been designed to make the backup, transport or sharing of files an easy affair for Mac users. The housing surrounding the new drives has been given a durable soft-touch metallic finish and they can, of course, be used with other devices from the GoFlex range, including the Net media sharing unit and the TV HD Media Player.
They're all supplied HFS+ formatted, making them compatible with Apple's Time Machine backup software while maintaining the ability to work on both PC and Mac without the need to reformat (Windows users will need only download a free driver from Seagate).
Connecting the GoFlex drives to a Mac is catered for by the included FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 adapters and cables, but the storage solution is flexible enough to enable the interface to be changed to USB 3.0 or eSATA for use with PCs.
The GoFlex For Mac range includes a limited edition ultra-portable drive which sports a 1TB, 2.5-inch HDD, and carries a suggested retail of US$199.95. The 4.71 x 3.51 x 0.87-inch (120 x 89 x 22mm), 0.62 pound (280g) GoFlex TM for Mac ultra-portable also has a 2.5-inch portable drive with a spin speed of 5400 RPM and comes in 1TB (US$199.99) and 1.5TB (US$249.99) capacities.
The drive in the 4.14 x 3.23 x 0.55-inch (112 x 82 x 14mm) Pro portable flavor spins at 7200RPM, offering significantly faster data transfer rates than the rest of its family. This version is offered in 500GB (US$149.99) and 750GB (US$179.99) sizes.
The deskbound member of the family sports a 3.5-inch high-capacity drive, making it the chunkiest and heaviest of the drives on offer at 6.22 x 4.88 x 1.73-inches (158 x 124 x 44mm) and 2.38 pounds (1.08kg). The base adapter shows approximate capacity remaining, but there's also optional software available that displays the unit's real-time capacity if required. The Desk for Mac drive has a suggested retail of US$219.99 for the 2TB version and US$279.99 for 3TB.
