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)

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).

This one is Plug and Play, as they say... it just works, and that is great! One thing to know: you cannot use a USB Hub port to connect this - it has to plug directly into your laptop/computers USB port. This was challenging for my USB-limited MacBook Air (only 3 available), but I now use a USB Hub for other things (including my bluetooth keyboard and trackpad, external DVD/CDRoM drive), so its working out fine. The user-interface is fairly intuitive, backing up every hour or so. However, after a few days of backups, it only saves one per day, which is not necessarily the last backup of that day (one is from 3:21pm of that day, next is from 12:02pm the next day, then the following day saved the 1:58pm backup, etc...) So, Im not sure about why it is set up that way, but I havent tried to get Seagates help with it, yet. Restoring from a backup is extremely easy, when coached how to do it the first time by my wonderful AppleCare phone support :-) The metal box (it feels like metal, anyway) seems pretty sturdy, but I am not one to lug it around with me. If I ever do need to take it on the road, its size is beautifully compact and lightweight - well done design! Plus, the one I purchased is a very pretty blue, if colors matter to you. The price point was lower on this than the other color options, so thats what made my decision easy!

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.

Had this drive for over three years. I removed the drive from the casing/shell and installed it in my laptop and worked perfectly in that time. I never did use the shell or the cord. I put that back in the box and stored the box. So three years later I decided to replace the drive before this one would fail so I put it back in the casing and started using it as a back up while my new drive is in the laptop. Within a couple of weeks I discovered that the cord was bad. I could wiggle it just slightly at the neck/cord region of the USB connector side. And then the next time I plug it in, the drive wasnt recognized and said I had to format the drive. So I see why people are having problems. When I plugged it back in windows explorer would freeze for minutes and I had to unplug and plug in a few times to get it be recognized by Disk Management (Vista) and then did a dick check on the partitions on the drive and now its OK again. A bad cord can seriously screw up a drives file system. Drive is A-OK, but the cord is crap. So Im disappointed in the cheap cord, even though its a thick, stiff monstrosity. Seems like it would be sturdy but its definitely not. So if you buy this drive, get another cord for it. Like this one ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L963STD/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A20J3ITGSOMSJG&psc=1 ). And people who think they can throw their drives around like a plastic toy, expect your drive to not work. Treat it like an expensive and super fragile thingamajig.

Let me tell you, the 5TB hard drive I recently purchased is a real game-changer. I can finally store all of my favorite cat videos, memes, and embarrassing childhood photos without having to delete anything. But the best part? This thing is so quiet, Im pretty sure its a ninja in disguise. I couldnt hear a single peep out of it even when I held it up to my ear. Its like its silently storing all of my digital secrets without making a sound. And the transfer speeds? Lightning fast! I was able to transfer an entire season of the Simpson in the time it takes me to make a cup of hot coco. Its like the hard drive is powered by the speed force or something. Plus, its so compact that I can fit it in my pocket and pretend Im a secret agent carrying important intel around. Overall, I would highly recommend the 5TB hard drive to anyone who needs a reliable and stealthy storage solution.

This is a very similar review to the WD My Passport 2TB external drive. Both offer decent capacity for a relatively low-cost but are otherwise unremarkable. ***The good*** As an external hard drive it works just fine. Its pretty slow, but I assume most people use external HDDs for things like backups and/or file transfers. Since Im not running any applications off it, speed isnt as huge concern. I saw sequential read speeds around 54MB/s and write speeds around 78. By comparison, the WD MyPassport, also a 2TB external USB 3.0 drive, saw 74 and 125. That was using the same benchmark and the same port. ***The Neutral*** Build-quality is just so-so. It feels extremely plasticy and doesnt seem like it would take much abuse. That said, it doesnt necessarily feel fragile either. If I were regularly tossing it in a bag or traveling with it I might be concerned. But for in-house backups its fine. Also, Im not a fan of the fact they advertise the enclosure as being aluminum, when its really just plastic painted to look Al. ***The Bad*** Seagates Toolkit, the name for the backup software is seriously deficient in the sync department. They allow you the option to mirror a folder. This is similar to how a Google Drive folder works. What you put in this folder is mirrored on the computers internal drives and on the external backup. The option to simply say sync drive D: doesnt exist. They claim this featured will be rolled out in the Toolkit app for this drive by the end of 2019. So for right now, we only have the ability to mirror a folder or backup a drive. For example, say I create a drive backup on Monday that includes files 1, 2 and 3. Then on Tuesday, on my PC, I delete file 2. When using sync software, file 2 would be deleted on the synced drive. Using backup software, file 2 would remain. Neither method is better than the other, just different. However, I would prefer to sync, and not backup. In order to accomplish this one will need to acquire additional software. I find this very annoying. ***Conclusions*** Its fine, but just consider it a cheap external HDD, not an all-in-one backup and sync tool. ***My Rating Criteria*** Build Quality(47.5%) - 3.5 Stars Efficacy(47.5%) - 3.0 Stars Post-Sale Support(0.0%) - n/a Packaging/Presentation(5.0%) - 5.0 Stars WEIGHTED AVERAGE(100.0%) - 3.3 STARS

I received this drive 8 months ago and it is still working in an acceptable manner by my standards. For more details, please continue reading. Having recently re-browsed the Amazon reviews for this product, I saw some people complaining that their drive had failed after x months having ordered it around the same time as me. This prompted me to fully check my drives health so that I could at least be reassured that it is in full working order for the time being. I ran a read test on Windows using HD Tune Pro since thats where my drive was plugged in at the time, and the results (shown in as screenshots attached to this review) show the drive did in fact contain some bad sectors. I ran a non-destructive write test using badblocks on Linux which, for each sector, will first read the sector and store it in memory, then write a random pattern, then read this pattern back and make sure it matches the pattern that was written, and finally restore the original contents of the sector. I had backups just in case, so I wasnt worried and was mainly doing this for science. At the end, SMART output showed 2310 bad sectors existed on the drive. Since I waited 8 months to run this test and used the drive sparingly, its unclear whether the sectors were always bad or if they developed over time. It also just so happens that none of the data I had stored on the drive were on these bad sectors. Despite the clear indication of potential failure, all sectors were restored to full working order after being written over. This means the sectors were really just held a weak magnetic charge, and were not permanently bad from e.g. physical damage to the platter. As a result, the pending/offline uncorrectable sector counts were dropped to 0 and the reallocated sector count did not increase at all. If interested, Ive included the entire SMART output below. MART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 117 100 006 Pre-fail Always - 154970934 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 097 096 000 Pre-fail Always - 0 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 568 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 070 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 11738583 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2497 (146 170 0) 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 52 184 End-to-End_Error 0x0032 100 100 099 Old_age Always - 0 187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 587 188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 099 000 Old_age Always - 4295032834 189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 054 041 045 Old_age Always - 46 (Min/Max 32/49 #8) 191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 9 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 096 096 000 Old_age Always - 8819 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 046 059 000 Old_age Always - 46 (0 18 0 0 0) 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 062 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 062 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 147 (146 13 0) 241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 9955309601 242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 15389131969 You can see there is an error count, but no pending/uncorrectable or reallocated sectors. Although its clear that the drive is currently working, the history of weak sectors means I will keep a close eye on it in case data ends up being written to the sectors that used to be weak, since if they become weak again, the drive will have trouble reading from them and I could start to lose data as a result. Remember: all drives fail, no matter what make or model you buy, so always keep backups and be prepared for the inevitable.

I purchased two drives, a 2TB in Black and a 2TB in Red. They will each take the place of two desktop bound external 2TB drives that have been dutifully serving as my Media and Time Machine drives that, until bad sector errors have reached critical mass, have performed quite well for a few years. Its fortunate that they should choose to die now, as Im also moving overseas and would have hated for them to go a month or two from now while Im over there. Portable was definitely the way to go for me. I dont need 7200 or 10800rpm drives and I dont want to be adapting bulky wall warts overseas, either. Now, theres a bunch of options out there from Toshiba, Western Digital, Seagate and many other lesser-known brands for external, portable drives in the 2TB range. Ive been mainly a Seagate customer for the past 5 years or so because theyve proven to me that their products have a long life and perform well. This was for desktop models only, however, and design never played a part because they are all, pretty much, big and clunky boxes that sit and do nothing. A portable drive is a different story, and I think Seagate has outdone itself with this drive. Design. Before I bought the two Seagate models, I had bought a WD My Passport 2TB drive at Staples. It was alright, but it was very thick. Nearly twice the thickness of my MacBook Air at the hinge end. The chassis was metal surrounded in plastic and it looked alright. It certainly wasnt going to vie with the MacBook Air for looks and I think it suffered because it tries. The performance was fine, just what Id expect from a portable USB 3.0 drive. The real problem with the design, though, was not the thickness but the shape. There was virtually no flat surface on the drive at all. Every edge was tapered and the flat surfaces had some convexing going on. Mine would rock side to side on a desk and wouldnt stay in position in my lap. I looked on Amazon for alternatives and found this. Im happy to report that, with the sides leading to the bottom are tapered, the bottom of these drives are flat and are made of a nicely textured plastic that feels good and grips well on a desk or a leg. The top is even better, being a piece of aluminium that is completely flat and very good looking. Despite the colour scheme not being derived from Apple, the slimness and choice of materials certainly make this feel as though it belongs in a bag with my MacBook or on my desk next to my Magic Trackpad. Its the best looking external drive Ive seen. The light on it, however, feels distinctly Apple. Overall, the design is excellent and, without going to the lengths of moulding a piece of metal over a bare drive (see the Seagate Seven), this is probably as slim as you can expect these drives to get. Its nice to see products that design around the user and still manage to keep it looking good rather than just make it pretty. Performance and Heat. As said, these replace my other drives that serve other purposes and that are just about full. So, first order of business was to copy over the old Media and backups to the new drives. First, I formatted them for Mac. For those who dont know, you can buy just about any drive and use it for Mac, even if it says Windows or PC. This can save you a lot of money. Just open Disk Utility, click the drive, select Format and click Mac OS Extended (Journaled) or whatever filesystem youd like to use. After that, I just dragged and dropped. From a USB 3.0 drive to another USB 3.0 drive with my Retina MBP, two terabytes copied in a little over five hours. This puts the total transfer speed around 100MB/s. Pretty damn fast. While the files were transferring, I made sure to keep an eye on the heat coming from the Seagate Slims (well, I kept the back of my hand on it) and was pleased to report that neither the metal top nor the plastic bottom got any hotter than my MacBook Air runs on my lap. That is to say, they didnt get hot at all, merely warm, and I dont think theres a hazard here. Packaging. Who cares? Its a cardboard box around a plastic shell. The tape holding the box shut was annoying like the tape on new DVDs and Blurays that never comes off in one pull, no matter how much you use your nail to free it. Included is the drive, a fact sheet and a USB cable. Who needs more? This is a great buy. At (if I remember what should be the numerator and what the denominator) $0.05/GB this isnt the best you can do for 2TB, but its really close. Im happy with the performance, the design is stellar and user-centric and I suspect the lifetime of this product will be far longer than the time it will take me to fill these drives and need bigger ones.

My Seagate 2TB Slim Red, as I renamed it, came a day early well packaged & pretty in red. Its 18 USB 3.0 cable fits tightly on both ends. This Dell Inspiron i5 3542, Win 8.1, immediately put a Safely Remove... icon on the Taskbar & chirped. I DO use that icon when I want to disconnect it, although I see, in Device Manager, Windows set it for quick removal. And I leave it set that way. (Aready Ive rebooted & let the laptop sleep forgetting to use that icon with no detectable ill effects - but no writing was going on that I know of.) Quick Removal: Disables write caching, but supposedly no need to use icon. Better Performance: Enables write caching, but must use the icon. (Dell Diagnostics says... Cache Size: >= 32.0 MB.) I ran Dells performance tests: smart status, 2 smart thresholds tests, targeted read, random seek, funnel seek, 2 linear read tests - & it passed each. The optional SMART Extended Self Test ran for 6+ hours, & it passed. Im extremely pleased the drive got only midling warm (it has no vent holes) & never clinked or clanked the whole time. I could only hear it spinning by getting close. And I lifted & tilted & held it an hour+ during the tests, but never turned it upside down. (Now/then I felt a tiny kick in there; hence, the cesarians some here have performed on theirs. But Ill let mine come to term on its own!) Left plugged in for 10+ hours today - but little/no activity - it isnt even midling warm, though the 2.5 disk is spinning. Pursuant to my main reason for getting the drive, I did a MS System Image Backup. It offered to backup the EFI System partition, C:, & WINRETOOLS to Seagate 2TB Slim Red & took just a tad over 7 minutes to do it. I see the WindowsImageBackup folder that was created is 28.5 GB huge & the drives used space increased accordingly. I did reboot to System Image Recovery & was pleased to see the 2TB Slim listed as a recovery drive with the image shown by date for selection. So, I must say Im very pleased through four days of ownership. Definitely, I will update this review should anything go wrong. But I fully expect Im invincible now... (1) Dell recovery image partition (to factory install) (2) MS Recovery USB Flash drive (Control PanelAll Control Panel ItemsRecovery - Create a recovery drive) This is necessary to boot without engaging partitions you intend to overwrite with the Current System Image during a restore. This also has a copy of my Dell factory image for refresh/reset purposes. (3) Current System Image on my Seagate 2TB Slim Red (Control PanelSystem and SecurityFile History - System Image Backup) So, Im all signed up to get the Win 10 upgrade! - UPDATE 8/8/15: All continues to work well with my Seagate 2TB Slim RED. In addition to two for Win 8.1, it now holds two full system backups for Win 10. Back in July, I gave it a brother: Seagate 2TB Slim Blue. It too worked well out of the box, w/o installing the Seagate software. I put a clone of Win 8.1 onto it, before taking the upgrade to Win 10. Before that, I did run... PS C:Windowssystem32> chkdsk E: /R The type of the file system is NTFS. Volume label is Seagate 2TB Slim Blue. Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ... 256 file records processed. File verification completed. 0 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ... 282 index entries processed. Index verification completed. 0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ... Security descriptor verification completed. 13 data files processed. Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data ... 240 files processed. File data verification completed. Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ... 488318496 free clusters processed. Free space verification is complete. Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems. No further action is required. 1953513559 KB total disk space. 113728 KB in 7 files. 20 KB in 15 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 125823 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 1953273988 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 488378389 total allocation units on disk. 488318497 allocation units available on disk. PS C:Windowssystem32> exit So, I remain overjoyed with Seagate.

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