I own several computers including a PC desktop and several laptops all with the Windows 10 OS. I like to have a dedicated portable hard drive for each one for backup purposes. I ordered this Seagate 5 TB drive to backup my desktop computer.
The drive arrives nicely and securely boxed. Included is a short USB 3.0 cable. It is powered off the USB port of your computer, so no separate power source is needed. Installation of the drive is simple and requires no separate drivers. The drive itself is pretty small and compact given its huge storage capacity. After registering the drive online you are offered the opportunity to download a trial version of MylioCreate, software that helps you organize photos, and a trial version of Adobe Creative Cloud, which enables you to use Photoshop and Lightroom to edit digital photos online. Both of these are trials only, and you have to pay a monthly fee after the trial, so I did not bother with either of them. During registration you can download Seagate’s free Toolkit software that enables you to make basic backups with your new drive, which I did download. If you run the Toolkit it will offer the option to reformat the drive for optimal performance with Windows, although you will lose compatibility with the Mac OS if you do so.
I initially used this drive to create a system image of my desktop computer and plan to create separate backups for my documents, photos, and music files. The 5 TB capacity provides ample space to create additional backups over time. After optimizing the drive for Windows it seems to transfer data very quickly. It operates pretty silently. Seagate has a reputation for quality, and I anticipate this Seagate drive will hold up well over time for my intended purpose.
In summary, this Seagate 5 TB external hard drive is a great option for backing up your data. Its huge capacity provides ample room to backup one or even multiple computers and performs well. When compared with other large capacity external hard drives it appears to be price competitive, too. I highly recommend it.
I try to write informative product reviews. If you have found my review to be useful, please let me know by clicking on the “Helpful” link.
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim Hard Drive provides a large amount of storage in a small package, with typical performance for backups.
But while it would be tempting to use a drive this small as something portable or for everyday use - the technology choices Seagate has made make these 2TB drives most suitable either for:
- backups (rather than as a scratch drive or auxiliary portable external drive for daily use); or as
- an archive drive, to store a permanent or off-site backup.
INTERNAL DRIVE: Crystal Disk Info reports the drive inside this case to be a Seagate ST2000LM007, a thin 7mm, 2.5" 5400 RPM drive originally introduced in 2016 in the Mobile HDD line of drives. It's useful to know the drive inside an external drive, as there is often much more information available on the internet about the specific drive model. That's certainly the case with this drive - a search turns up quite a bit of information.
SMR RECORDING METHOD IS BEST USED FOR BACKUP OR ARCHIVE: As with most of Seagate's consumer-oriented drives currently, this drive uses Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) to increase the data density of the disk. While this does create more storage, it can create write speed issues. It's most useful for applications such as backup that don't need frequent re-writes.
TWO PLATTERS IN A 7MM DRIVE MAY MEAN A MORE FRAGILE DRIVE: Seagate has squeezed two spinning disc platters into a very thin 7mm case, and has had to redesign the drive to accommodate that. The specifics of how that was done suggest it may not be a good choice for a drive you plan to carry and use daily.
If you plan to carry an external drive on a regular basis, I'd suggest using a more robust design than this one, even if that means a slightly larger design. For an external drive, there's not much size difference between a 9mm drive, which can more easily accomodate two platters, and a 7mm drive.
BENCHMARKS AND WRITE SPEEDS: I've done some writes to the drive, and haven't found anything surprising. The performance for your use will vary widely depending on the computer it is attached to - the speed of the computer's drives and USB connection.
POWERED VIA USB: The drive is powered from the USB port. There is no external power supply. This is overall a good thing - it makes it much easier to use the drive, and so more likely you'll back up your files often. But keep in mind that it won't work on a non-powered USB hub, or a low-powered standard USB port.
1.8TB of STORAGE: As is typical for hard drive marketing, the 2TB indicated size means this stores 2 trillion bytes, which your system will report as 1.81 TB.
Be sure to use the access applications a few times to be really familiar with what it does.
I like it
I am backing up files from a Toshiba laptop running Windows 10. When I first connected this to my USB 3.0 hub (the ports are all powered by my laptop), I expected a set-up menu to come up, but nothing happened. So I called Tech support and learned that I had to install their Toolkit software before being able to do anything. So I had to go into File Explorer>This PC>Backup Plus (D)>Start Here For Windows, to register the item and download the software.
Once that was done, I asked some more questions about back-ups. The main purpose of this device is to be able to run back-ups that mirror the files and file architecture on your PC or Laptop. What this means is that whatever is on your PC or laptop is what you will get, nothing more and nothing less. So be forewarned, you can also drag and drop files from another source (like from another external hard drive) directly onto the device as well, but these will be deleted the next time you run a back-up. This might be obvious to more seasoned techies, but it wasn't obvious to me. I have had external hard drives that were only drag and drop, so I am used to those.
Otherwise, you can set your parameters up in the Toolkit software to run a one-time back-up, or a continuous back-up, or hourly, weekly, or monthly. You can select all files or exclude some. But the next time you run the back-up, if your files have changed, so will the content of the back-up. There is a Toolkit user manual in the Toolkit app which explains how to customize a back-up plan, edit it, pause/resume a back-up, delete a back-up plan, or do a full data restore.
The device is very light, and easy to use once you understand it's basic function and how to access the controls in case you want to change or pause things. They offer Customer support through e-mail or phone provided you give them a serial number. You are issued a service ticket and they get back to you very quickly by phone. My customer servive rep was not the most patient guy around however, but overall, I got my basic questions answered.
Feature Product
- Store and access 2TB of photos and files on the go with Seagate Backup Plus Slim, an external hard drive for Mac and Windows
- This portable external hard drive features a minimalist brushed metal enclosure, and is a stylish USB drive
- Simply plug this USB external hard drive into a Mac or Windows computer via the included USB 3.0 cable to back up files with a single click or schedule automatic daily, weekly, or monthly backups
- Edit, manage, and share photos with a one-year complimentary subscription to Mylio Create and a two-month membership to Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan
- Enjoy long-term peace of mind with the included two-year limited warranty
Description
Small enough for a loaded laptop bag, spacious enough for loads of content—Backup Plus Slim is the perfect marriage of easy portability and truly useful file storage. Easily plug into Windows and Mac computers via USB 3.0 and enjoy helpful tools like customizable backup and folder mirroring.
● Portable external hard drive for file backup
● Compatible with USB 3.0/2.0
● Works with Windows and Mac without needing to reformat
● Offers customized backup and file mirroring
● Powered by USB connection
System_requirement:Windows 7 or higher, or Mac OS X 10.11 or higher operating system. Available SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port (required for USB 3.0 transfer speeds or backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports at USB 2.0 transfer speed)I have to confess, I have bought these small backup drives for years and never used the pre-programmed software that came with it. I just want to back up my files. This time I was determined to use it to see how it worked.
First: this is physically about the size of my hand (with fingers; I have small hands) and heavier than the 1TB drives I have bought previously. Nice and solid. The connecting cord is short as usual. It was immediately plug-and-play, and I registered it. Then I started the backup software. This worked okay, except it took forever. I usually back up my hard drive once a month, and via USB it takes two hours. This one went on for hours, to the point I had to stop it by shutting off the computer at bedtime; it continued backing up for an hour. It did back up my files on my separate D: drive, and also my entire e-mail folder. But it also backed up my C: drive with my Windows setup on it--what's with that? Anyone knows that if your computer crashes, it is better to just reformat and reload. That way you get junk and possible malicious software off as well. So maybe that's why it took so long to back up, it was copying all those Windows files.
Not interested in using the other software, but a small 5TB backup for this price is good bang for your buck! I remember years ago (late 90s) when hubby and I bought a 300MB hard drive for $300 and we thought that was a bargain!
The best thing about this drive is that it works easily out of the box with both my Windows and MacOS computers. I can easily switch back and forth between machines, so I can work at the office on my Mac, save my work to the external drive, and retrieve the files when I get home on my Windows laptop. A lot of other drives boast this capability, but this is the first one I've used that actually does it flawlessly.
Data transfers speeds are not mind bending, but they are acceptable. The drive is silent in operation. It can get a bit warm when transferring large files! It is compact enough to fit almost anywhere - a shirt pocket, the small concealed compartment on the dash of my car, or any of the small stow pockets in my backpack and messenger bags.
Overall this is a great product: I give it an A for portability and efficiency, a B for data transfer speed. The unit comes with a USB cord, but it is very short.
The first hard drive I ever owned was the Commodore A590 hard drive unit for the Commodore Amiga. It was a very large piece of kit that plugged into the side of the computer and came with a whopping 20MB (yes Megabyte, not Gigabyte).
Seagate have just released this small Backup Plus portable external hard which clocks in at a fairly amazing 5Tb. This compact little unit is the same length and width as normal external 2.5 inch drives however it is about double the thickness probably meaning that the drive has multiple platters. It doesn't require any external power and you just simply plug it into any spare USB port you have.
Now two things to take note here. The first is size. Although the drive is being marketed as a 5Tb drive, the reality is that you only get 4.5Tb of available/useable space. So think of this really as a 4.5Tb drive and not a 5Tb drive. The second thing to note is speed. The drive is most likely 5400rpm, connected to your computer using USB 3.0 and not the faster USB C/3.1 means that you are only getting around 240Mb/s transfer speeds. This is not the fastest drive out there by any stretch of the imagination.
However the above problems are certainly offset by the convenience factor. Having a portable 5Tb drive that you can put in your camera bag/computer bag to backup your photo/video shoot is amazing. I regularly shoot 4K video on my Canon 1DX Mk2 and also 120fps 1080p slow motion video, which given the codec that Canon uses takes up vast amounts of space and having the ability to back this up just in case, this drive is worth the cost in peace of mind alone. The 5Tb size means that I can easily backup a whole weekends worth of shooting and have space to spare.
The cost/size ratio for this drive is hard to ignore also. Even just a few years ago it was hard to imagine the amount of space you get on this drive for the cost. It is small, reliable and does exactly what it is supposed to. You also get the added benefit of having 2 months free Adobe CC Photography trial if you aren't already an adobe user (photoshop and lightroom).
Definitely recommended.
I own 2 other 5 TB drives (both from Western Digital) that I've had for 2-3 years, and they're nearly as large as a hardback book and require external power. They are definitely not portable, and sit on the edge of my desk, 1 for my primary photo storage, and 1 as a backup. Technically, I should move the backup and store it elsewhere, but I haven't bothered to do that because it means crawling under the desk to unplug it, and I'm sort of lazy about it...
This new 5 TB drive from Seagate is incredibly small, fitting easily on the palm of my hand, and requires no external power. A short USB cord is included, and there are no external indicators on the drive to indicate whether it is working. I loaded the included software, but decided to backup my usual way - by opening two windows of File Explorer and dragging the folders I want to back up from the primary drive to the backup drive. I tested the Seagate drive by backing up 2 folders of images, totaling about 55GB, and it took just over an hour. I'm not sure how this compares to the backup speed of my other drives, but it's not really a concern, as I was able to continue working in Lightroom and browsing the internet via several other tabs while the backup was running.
I won't use the included trial version of Mylio since I use Lightroom for all my photo organization and most of my editing. I do appreciate the two free months of Adobe Creative Cloud since I'm already a committed user of Lightroom and Photoshop. The included activation code extended my existing CC license by 2 months.
The Seagate drive is definitely a handy form factor, and the small size means I'll be able to bring it along on trips when I take a lot of photos and need a portable storage solution to backup my laptop. I've always had good service from my Seagate drives; in fact I probably have several 500GB drives that I no longer use because I've moved on to larger versions...
This is a no-frills external USB 3.0 drive. It is well suited mostly for backup operations but can also be useable for moving large files around. It won't be as quick or as durable as more expensive solid state disk, but you can get a lot of capacity for a reasonable price. The 2TB model appears to be the sweet spot. The drive is powered by the PC that it is plugged into and will work with slower USB 2.0 ports too.
I tested the drive on both a Mac and Windows PC. Transfer rates coming in at about 100 megabytes per second in both directions, competitive with other mechanical drives I have tested. You'll see about 3-5x that performance on solid state, but you won't be able to buy 2TB of solid state media for $70 :).
0 comments:
Post a Comment