Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD – Black USB 3.0 for PC Laptop and Mac, 2 Months Adobe CC Photography (STDR2000100)

This portable drive is a good replacement for my older 2TB external Toshiba drive that required being plugged into the wall. This one is far more convenient because its smaller and runs off the USB power. The cable it comes with is fairly short, but I like it because it doesnt take up as much space when I pack things into a bag. If you lose the cable you can still use a regular micro-USB cable (presumably at the cost of using USB 2.0 speeds). Some of the reviews here claim that the drive died soon after purchase, or never worked at all, but fortunately mine has not had any issues at all. Ill be sure to reflect any changes in this review. Im not planning in using the internal HDD for a PS4 or any other device, I will use it to make backups of my Dropbox files and storing videos and whatnot. AESTHETICS: I chose the red 2 TB model and I love how it looks and feels. It feels like an Apple product somehow. The Seagate symbol is slightly raised and groove textured. The bottom of the drive is black plastic with grooves cut into it (see pictures) The red aluminum feels strong, light and smooth like it should. SPEED: The speed of the drive is nothing short of impressive for me. Copy speeds reach about 130 Mbps for large contiguous files like videos, and about 60 - 80 Mbps for thousands of small files. SIZE: The drive shows up in windows as 1.86 usable. On my Mac it shows 2TB (Mac uses the other sizing system) I wrapped kept my drive in the plastic bag it came in so I wouldnt scratch the pretty metal. Ive included pictures that show the physical scale and look of the drive. CONTENTS: The box came with the drive enclosed in a plastic clam shell that is easy to open. The drive is also within a plastic bag-type covering (the one in the pictures) Inside the box was the short USB 3.0 cable, about one foot long, maybe a bit less. There was a small instruction booklet in various languages. In the drive itself were files to register the drive with seagate (for Mac and windows)

For the most part, theres really not a lot to say about this drive in comparison to others. Everything one would expect is here: solid transfer speeds, quality build, svelte looks, and reliability (some will disagree with this last but, in my experience, Seagate is just as good as the rest). What makes this drive a go to drive is the size. If you own Seagates 500Gb Slim, you know what Im talking about (this 1Tb version is a bit thicker). if you dont, dig around for whatever 1Tb portable drive you have handy. Now, cut the thickness of that drive into almost half and youve got this drive (the actual dimensions are listed below). What makes this drive worth the price (if you can get it on sale) is that you get the same storage as other 1Tb drives, but at half the thickness. For many, this wont matter, and I can certainly understand that. For those who are packing things tight, though, saving 1/4 on the thickness of a portable drive can be a big difference. I can now easily carry this portable drive in its own pocket my messenger bag, rather than having it rattle around in the larger pocket with all the other doodads that dont have a good spot. Combined with the fact that this drive will run off a standard Micro USB cable (albeit at USB 2.0 speeds), this winds up being a big advantage for road warriors and geeks. Is the drive worth the cost? Thats hard to say. If you can get this on a decent sale, I would say yes. I have all sorts of portable drives, but since getting this one I find many of them are gathering dust. Its just hard to pass over the tinned form factor for this drive. I will, however, point out that the Toshiba Canvio Slim is more or less the same price, but manages to shave 1/2 off the length. Personally, I trust Seagate a bit more, but thats personal preference (I also like the look of this drive more).

Good things do indeed come in small packages. Im mighty pleased with this 2 TB portable drive, which sits pancake-flat on my desk and has a footprint not much larger than a coaster. The drive has a brushed metal top plate melded to a black plastic sides and bottom. I opted for the silver top plate, which turned out to be an attractive but by no means close match with Apple aluminum. When initially connected to a Mac, the user is automatically presented with the option of configuring the drive in NTSC format for dual use with Macintosh and Windows computers, or in HFS+ format for use with Time Machine on the Mac. I chose HFS+ for an additional reason: my desire to encrypt the drive. I accomplished this by choosing Time Machines encrypted backups option, which actually encrypts the entire drive. I bought this drive in preparation for a road trip that my wife and I are planning. Right now, the drive is configured to accept Time Machine backups of the MacBook Air well be taking with us on the trip, and also contains Carbon Copy Cloner backups of our home folders from our respective desktop Macs. I figured that it would be much easier to simply take copies of our home folders with us rather than tunnel in to our desktop Macs from the road, or buy enough cloud storage space to hold everything we might need. If I lose the drive en route Im out $100, but our data will be safe. The drive is available with a USB 3.0 interface only, which is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0. None of the Macs in my household has a USB 3.0 bus, but the drives performance under USB 2.0 is satisfactory for my purposes. An 18-inch USB cable is included, which is more than adequate for connecting the drive to an iMac, Mini or laptop. The drive draws power from the USB cable. No AC cord is necessary--or even available. The drive owes its slim profile to the a lack of a power port or an on/off switch. The Seagate Backup Plus Slim portable hard drive is compact, versatile and stowable--it will fit in my laptop case with nary a bulge. If youre in the market for an inexpensive travelin drive with room enough to hold loads of data, this one definitely merits a close look.

Still use it as a backup, works perfectly.

I originally purchased a 2TB driver, which I disassembled and used to upgrade my PS4, and it worked flawlessly. I took the old 500GB PS4 HD and put it back in the Seagate enclosure, an used it to expand my XBox One. Well, I finally decided I wanted to add a 2TB HD to my XBox One, and I read another reviewer who said the 4TB HD actually consists of two 2TB Samsung M9T HDs stacked in one enclosure. Some online teardowns seemed to confirm this. Figured I could put one 2TB in my laptop and use the other HD for my XBox One Well, I decided to go that route, and since they were on sale at my local BestBuy, I decided to pick one up there. I grabbed the 4TB HD, making sure it was the same model number, but when i got home, I discovered Seagate had changed the design. Instead of two stacked Samsung hard drives, it consisted of one very thick SeaGate 4TB hard drive, with a manufacture date of 12/2015. It still had a SATA plug with a USB3.0 adapter, but would not work in my laptop due to the thickness. So now I have 4TB external hard drive on my XBox one. Unfortunately you cant see the manufacture date until you disassemble the drive, so theres no way to search through their shelf inventory to find an older unit. I have no idea if they changed the design for the units sold under the label For MAC, but I can only assume they are now one solid drive as well. So if youre thinking you can get two 2TB Samsung drives on the cheap, dont take the chance. It was an expensive lesson learned for me, since I cant return it to Best Buy, now that Ive disassembled it. :(

I purchased this drive for backup purposes. It was not my first choice, because a Seagate 1TB internal 3.5 hard drive recently failed on me. Both Western Digital and Seagate internal hard drives have failed in my system recently, so I was hesitant to purchase either brand. However, my first choice drive, the 1TB Toshiba Canvio which I purchased in August 2015, failed within a month. The replacement Toshiba Canvio 1TB also failed within two weeks. I will update this review if this drive fails inside the warranty period. Background information for anyone interested. I have been building and upgrading personal computers for 20 years. I have used many hard drives, from 5MB to recent 5TB models from a dozen manufacturers. Over the years, several of these drives have failed. My usual procedure is to destroy the drive or just store it until the information is no longer relevant. Recently, I retired 5 drives which were 5 to 8 years old, but still working. I purchased mostly 1TB replacement drives to increase my storage capacity. However, the newer drives have failed at an alarming rate. I copied my laptop backup files from an older 500GB Toshiba Canvio to a new 1TB Canvio. This drive failed under light use in less than a month. When I attempted to zero the data on the drive to return it for replacement, all attempts with multiple programs failed due to drive errors. I was forced to return the drive with the data intact for replacement. The replacement drive failed within 2 weeks and I returned it also. Now, to keep my data from being compromised if the drive should fail, I use whole drive encryption. While a little inconvenient, it gives me peace of mind to know that my data cannot be retrieved should I have to return the drive under warranty. I also am using a dual backup system for my laptop, with two USB 3.0 1TB hard drives in rotation. These two drives are from different manufacturers, to spread the risk of single drive failures. Periodically, I copy the contents of these portable drives to my main 5TB backup and various other drives, including a NAS server. I have no desire to put all of my data in the cloud, because of security concerns. I insist on keeping physical control of my data, which is why I have adopted these practices. With the cost per terabyte of storage in the $50 range, this system is not expensive for my needs.

I rate the Seagate Backup Plus Drive 4/5, but am writing a 1/5 review due to the condition of the specific item that I received from Amazon: I received this Seagate Backup Plus drive -- which I intended to use to back up files on my personal laptop -- on time. It was delivered in a plain mailing envelope, however, loosely packaged with a loose (untied) cable and no paperwork, which I found to be suspicious. (I would have expected the drive to be packaged in a Seagate box with at least the standard warranty card). Looked like a used drive, not a new item. Anyway, I attached Backup Plus drive to my laptop, expecting the installation software to start up. NOTHING happened. I checked out the drive, and it was EMPTY -- zero files. No installation software. Fortunately, I was able to find and download the Seagate Backup Plus Toolkit software from Seagates website, and after installation, got the drive to work. Good experience with this drive on my first try. My previous Seagate drive would take over 24 hrs to download my files and had a funky/difficult to use file management menu. This new drive accomplished about the same backup file load in about 3 hours and has a better menu and features for managing files. Also, Seagate has a downloadable .pdf users manual for this drive. I was tempted to return the drive to Amazon, but now that it works and has accomplished what I wanted/needed, I guess that Ill (reluctantly) keep it. So, 4/5 for Seagate Backup Plus, 1/5 for Amazon experience.

I purchased four of these (5TB) in 2019—two for auto backups, two as external drives. They all sit undisturbed on a desk and are not carried around. In 2022 the external drives seem to be functioning as required. One backup drive failed at about 18 months, the other failed about a month ago. Neither was even near capacity. Seagate was accommodating about the first failure even though for reasons I cant recall now the drive wasnt eligible for free data retrieval, but they retrieved data and replaced the drive at no cost to me. (It was during the pandemic, maybe they felt the need to be kind.) I havent even tried to do anything about the second failure. Like a lot of people, I just want something that works without me having to think too much about it or investigate or troubleshoot. So Ill be looking at other brands when I replace that second failed Seagate backup drive. Three stars because 2 of the 4 original drives continue to work, the replacement backup drive is good so far, and good customer service.

This drive has been reliable and plays nice with both my PC and my Mac. I toss it into my laptop bag and it survives the jostling just fine. The light isnt too bright (not annoying), and the hum is almost imperceptible. It feels well-built. I decided to get this Seagate drive rather than a Western Digital drive because Id heard that WD drives frequently burn out on Macs. I didnt want to take the chance. For the price, Im overall pleased with this purchase. I took one star off. Sometimes the light goes off and the drive stops spinning when connected to my computer but not accessed for a while. I want it to stay on because I use Backblaze online backup to also backup this drive. Sometimes I have to force quit and restart Finder in my Mac so that my Mac will mount the drive. It mounts just fine and is quickly recognized by my PC, however. Compared to the relatively loud external drives from a few years ago that required an additional power source, this one is smaller and a nice upgrade. It doesnt heat up significantly. I often forget it is there! My old Seagate

Nothing is worse than that sickening feeling of running out of storage space on your notebook or desktop PC. The 2 terabyte Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB portable external drive is a bargain for the peace of mind it provides. I paid a small amount more for 2TB versus the 1TB unit and Im happy I did. I backed up my 250GB drive on my notebook PC, then also offloaded another 219GB to clear space on my notebook and several other external drives. During the transfer process, I experienced speeds of 11.6MB/second over a USB 3 port in the background while going about my normal work routine in the foreground. The unit produces very little heat during operation at 5,400 RPM. It is also extremely quiet and virtually undetectable against typical office background noise. A single led aperture indicator is the only external evidence of operation and can be turned off it it bothers you. The provided USB cable is about 18 and relatively short compared to some other drives, but I find this to be an advantage. I pack it up in my notebook brief case and I hardly know its there (it is VERY compact and about 3/4 the size of my iPhone 6 Plus). I used the included Seagate Dashboard to schedule and manage my initial and subsequent backups and feel comfortable that my important documents will still be available if my notebook suffers an unrecoverable tragedy. Ill amend this review in the event that I have to restore my system for any reason. Hopefully this doesnt happen, but in the mean time, I have seamless access to data, a complete backup of my primary PC, and a ton of room back. Next, Im going to back up both the PC and my new Seagate 2TB drive using BackBlaze. Yes, its a bit of a belt AND suspenders approach, but losing data is not an attractive alternative. I highly recommend this product to anyone who needs a bunch of space for a great price. By the way, my much older 250GB Seagate Free Agent Go drive is still working perfectly after nearly 6 years so I have great expectations for quality and reliability.