Seagate GoFlex Slim review

Seagate makes bold claims for its latest external hard disk, claiming it’s the world’s slimmest external drive. The 320GB driv's waistline of just 9.2mm is certainly thinner than any other we’ve come across.

It makes for a sleek and stylish unit, and the finish is luxurious. Coated in smooth black anodized casing, the whole thing looks expensive.

Looks and size aren’t the only trick up the GoFlex’s sleeve, though. As with its desktop counterpart, the A-listed GoFlex Desk 2TB, the Slim’s USB 3 port can be removed, revealing a SATA connection underneath.

This allows you to temporarily connect the drive directly to your motherboard for even faster speeds, though note there are no mounting holes for more permanent installation. This also allows it to be used with Seagate’s range of GoFlex hard disk docks and adapters.

Inside, the Slim boasts a 7,200rpm disk and combined with the USB 3 this makes for quick transfer times. Its read and write speeds of 102MB/sec and 100MB/sec for large file transfers eclipsed our A-listed Iomega eGo with ease. Performance in the small file write test was slow, with a rate of just 18MB/sec, but the eGo was no better in this test either.

The problem for the Seagate GoFlex Slim 320GB isn’t its speed, however. At 23.1p inc VAT for each of its 320GB it’s almost twice as expensive as the the price of the A-Listed 500GB eGo. The Slim may be stylish and flexible, but it doesn’t offer quite enough to justify such a huge premium.

Author: Luke Sampson