The approach should work well if you want to connect one drive to both Windows PCs and Macs, but for use with Apple’s Time Machine backup system you’ll need to reformat the drive as HFS+, a file system which Windows doesn’t support.)
![seagate goflex windows 8 seagate goflex windows 8](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/D88AAOxyQ45Q9pAk/s-l300.jpg)
Instead, it’s shipping drives formatted in Windows’ NTFS format, with a driver that lets Macs read from and write to them. (With the GoFlex line’s introduction, Seagate is giving up on its separate line of Mac drives. Ot if you’ve got a Windows PC and a Mac, you can use a GoFlex as a USB 2.0 drive with the Windows system, then switch to the faster FireWire 800 for the Mac. For instance, you can use a GoFlex with a USB 2.0 cable now, then upgrade to a much USB 3.0 one when you get a PC with 3.0 ports. And by swapping the cable, you can give one drive different interfaces as needed. What’s the benefit? Because GoFlex drives have no built-in interface, they’re not USB 2.0 drives or USB 3.0 drives or FireWire drives or eSATA drives–they’re just drives. Connect the cable and lump to the drive, and the whole thing looks like a standard external drive with a cable attached. With FreeAgent Go, it’s in a lump connected to the drive end of the cable. With standard external drives, the interface–be it USB, FireWire, or something else–is built into the drive.
#Seagate goflex windows 8 update
But Seagate has come up with an interesting twist for FreeAgent GoFlex, a new update to all the products in its FreeAgent Go line of portable external drives–it’s making the interface part of the cable, rather than part of the drive. And they’re all pretty similar: For the most part, differences involve the quantity of gigabytes you get for your money, the industrial design of the case, and maybe the software the manufacturer bundles.
![seagate goflex windows 8 seagate goflex windows 8](https://primospire.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/6/6/126623869/624160694.jpg)
Our sponsor is Seagate, who will be demoing the products I discuss here.)Įxternal hard disks are one of the most universally useful gadgets known to techkind. ( Full disclosure: As I blogged last week, Technologizer is throwing a party called SpringThing tonight in San Francisco.