Go-flex lives on in the form of USM

It seemed as if the Seagate line of portable Go-Flex have been discontinued. You can often find 1TB Go-Flex drives in the bargain bins of Target for as low as $39.99. At first, I was very disappointed. I invested in a few Go-Flex docks and adapters; including the Thunderbolt Adapter.

To my surprise, my fears were misplaced. Go-Flex lives on but in a different name and different format. It is thinner, smaller and more compact. It is called USM (Universal Storage Module). In fact, there is a newer Thunderbolt Adapter (STAE128 instead of the STAE121). Seagate didn't do a good job of informing the consumer about this.

Well today, I picked up a USM drive and I didn't even know about it. The Go-Flex drives have been replaced by the new line of Backup Plus drives. They're thinner and more compact as seen below.

Compared to an original Go-Flex drive.

Here it is attached with older Go-Flex attachments like the Thunderbolt STAE121 adapter.

Old Go-Flex Firewire adapter works just as fine.

As I wrote earlier, Seagate didn't do a good job of informing consumers about USM.  After a few googling, a few other companies are implementing the USM format. Here are some examples of other USM products in the market place. There are Pogo plugged devices, desktop computers with slide-able docking bays, media players and NAS servers that now employ USM.

(image from Anandtech)

USM is basically a small format enclosure for 2.5" drives. They have interchangeable dock connections via standard SATA. The key thing is the standardized size.

When you look for an enclosure or portable drive, give USM a consideration. The ability to switch between USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, direct SATA and future connectors is pretty compelling.

Some reading links on USM:

http://www.sata-io.org/technology/usm.asp

FAQ: http://www.sata-io.org/documents/SATA-USM-FAQ_FINAL.pdf

http://www.seagate.com/solutions/usm/partners/

http://www.seagate.com/solutions/usm/products/

Syba 5.25 Dual Bay Rack w/ USB 3.0

Here is another geek short review of another handy gadgets for those who build their own computers.

The Syba 5.25" Dual Bay mobile rack for both 2.5" (ssd/laptop) and 3.5" drives plus USB 3.0 headers. It sells for around $30-40 which tends to be a bit more expensive compared to $20 single bay units. Unlike the $20 single bay units, you get USB front ports and a second bay which justifies the price differential.

My computer case has 5 front 5.25" drive bays unused so I try to fill them with useful stuff. This is very handy. I've installed many dockable drive bay enclosures but this is the first one to neatly provide two drives along with USB. Hence my recommendation.

As you can see from the press shots, you can pack quite a bit. The USB 3.0 front connectors connect directly to an available 19/20 pin USB 3.0 connector on your motherboard. The bay requires only one SATA power connector (it also comes with a MOLEX adapter) to power both drives.

You will also need two available free SATA ports.

The nice thing I like about it is the power switch that you can turn off and leave the drives off. You simply flip the switch to make the drives available when you need them.

Not all products are perfect so here are the cons I can think of:

There is no locking mechanism in the front.

There are no fan or cooling.  The lack of fan may be an issue in the future for higher rpm drives and cases with inadequate air flow.

Here it is in my case:

And most importantly, it supports SATA 6.0 Gb/s. I've found other docks I've used in the past only support SATA II/ 3.0 Gb/s so this is a nice. Connecting directly to the SATA bus of the motherboard will always give better speed than USB 3.0 or eSATA.

Product Link on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Syba-5-25-Inch-2-5-Inch-3-25-Inch-SY-MRA55006