I gather the idea behind Internet-ready external hard drives (aka RAS drives) is fairly new (at least for most consumers), but it's certainly a good one: if you've got data you need to access from somewhere else in your network or from somewhere else on the Web, you can purchase an external drive with a network connection, plug it in via Ethernet, do some configuration to your router and voila! access from anywhere. However, if the idea of fooling around with ports makes you a little nervous, Seagate has another option: the FreeAgent Pro. The FreeAgent Pro is configured like a normal external hard drive: eSATA, USB 2.0 and Firewire 400 connections, plugs directly into your computer; but it comes with software that allows you to upload the contents of your drive onto Seagate's servers for easy access. It requires a bit more work than the standard RAS drive, but it sounds like a good compromise for the mildly technophobic. ZDNet has a full review.