The front of the dock features the drive’s power and activity light, pulsing ever so subtly whenever data is being transferred. The USB 3.0 GoFlex dock itself is very plain, lacking a power switch such that it’s always powered on unless sleeping. Throughout my testing, I didn’t see temperature negatively impacting drive performance. The internal 4TB drive still runs fairly warm at up to 62C under heavy use according to HD Tune Pro, but thankfully the enclosure remains cool to the touch. Lastly, the passively cooled enclosure seems to be better ventilated than before, with an array of slats on the rear for air intake and ample vent holes on the topside that expose the 3.5″ drive within. The second major difference in favor of the 2011 models is that all of them seem to be shipping the USB 3.0 GoFlex dock as a standard feature, meaning that we’re treated breakneck speeds without having to buy a $40 adapter on the side. Provided you can keep your oily fingers restricted to the edges of the drive, minimalist glossy black never looked so good. As a matter of fact, the 2011 models are much more refined slabs of black plastic, doing away with the contoured edges, oversized logos, and cheese-grater side paneling. The 2011 GoFlex models in particular share some key advantages over their 2010 predecessors, despite the overwhelming impression that both appear to be modeled after a vertical slab of black plastic.

I, for one, happen to like monoliths and rather dislike the numerous flawed implementations of eSATA, so hooray for progress. Over the years we’ve seen many changes to the FreeAgent including the addition of USB 3.0 and FireWire 800, the loss of eSATA, and a handful of redesigns that gradually dropped the edged weapon aesthetic in favor of Space Odyssey monoliths. It was almost five years ago that Seagate introduced their FreeAgent line of external hard drives, and with it, the concept of modular interfaces.

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