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)

Initial impressions after getting the drive the other day. I have had one archive drive fail since the first of the year and another one is showing signs of issues. I also need a larger backup drive which I connect, backup and then disconnect from the system. Each are only 2TB each so I was looking for something bigger. The one I got is the 4TB version. Pros: o Very small, much smaller than I thought, was thinking it was a larger form factor like the older archive drives I have. Nice. o Quiet, literally... I wasnt sure it was actually working until I started moving files to it and saw it moving data. Above the normal noise of the room, I couldnt hear it at while it was reading/writing. o Fairly fast, fast enough for the purposes that intend them for. Cons: o It has a power light but no activity light. Not really a big issue since where it will be located I wouldnt be able to see the activity light anyways. o shorter cable, but not really a big issue. It has one of the special Micro-USB Type B USB3 connectors to the drive and a normal USB Type A USB 3 (blue) connector on the other side. Bonus: It comes with a 200GB 2yr Upgrade for OneDrive. While I use OneDrive for work and have a very large drive, I really dont use OneDrive for my own stuff. I have an account but it was limited to 5GB.. I added this to that account and now have 205GB for the next two years. If you use it, not bad. Right now I am using this for the manual backup drive so when done I disconnect it from the computer and store it. When ejecting the drive the computer says it is in use but the drive is setup for quick removal so that is not an issue, just unplug it. Will update as time goes by. I plan on getting 2 more of these in about a week if this one doesnt present any issues.

I have had this HDD unit since 2019 to back up my computers, USBs, backups, etc. No problems at all, no loss in data, and pretty okay transfer speeds! Way better than the Toshiba crap, that legit starts internally clicking 10 minutes into a transfer! HOWEVER, I do suggest you buy the Samsung SSD 2 TB, it is more expensive, but you will never have to worry about the internal disk of an HDD failing!! Overall, super cute, durable, and holds everything!

First thing people should know is that these so called portable drives are just normal harddrives they are not meant to be jolted and tossed around like you would a flash drive. The parts inside spin and are extremely sensitive to shock. With that being said they these seagate, wd, toshiba or whatever brand you get are way cheaper than LaCie and other ruggedized drive and as such they do not have the ability to protect from drops. I have have these segate drives for years now and have only had one actually fail and even then the drive was fine inside. The problem was the tiny usb to sata pcb had burnt out. If you plan on buying a portable harddrive you need to first think about what kind of abuse you will be putting it through. These drives from seagate specifically work great and my oldest one at almost 10 years old still works like new because i have treated it the way a spinning harddrive is supposed to be treated and that is gently. Avoid dropping these or moving to quickly after powering down and they will last a long time. The portable in the name just means it isnt bolted inside your computer and can be transported or stored safely with proper care, it doesnt mean you can toss it or drop it and just expect it to work after. For that you might as well go with a ruggedized or even better just get an SSD based drive. 1tb SSDare like 100ish dollars now and way faster than spinning harddrives.

I bought a 2TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive (Model STDR2000100 2TB) from Amazon last Friday. It arrived with Monday’s mail to my SW Ohio home. It’s about the size of a pack of cigarettes (volume-wise) and very nicely finished. I plugged it into my new iMac, booted it up, and the drive icon immediately appeared on screen. When I opened it, I found three files visible: Warranty.pdf Seagate Dashboard for Windows.exe Seagate Dashboard for Mac.dmg Since I have no PCs and since I hope to add a boot system to the drive, I chose to reformat the drive with a GUID partition table with the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) file system. The formatting took less than a minute using Apples “Disk Utility” application. [See Seagate article 207851 here: http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/207851en?NewLang=es&language=en_US . See also Apple Support article HT202380 here: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202380 .] However, before I did that, I called Seagate Support: I asked, “If, at some later date, I want to format my drive back to NTFS, could I do that, and would the software that was on the disk when I bought it be available to me online?” I was assured that I could, though I would need to do it from a PC, and the software is available online free. [For the software downloads, go here: http://www.seagate.com/search/?keyword=dashboard%20download .] I also took the precaution of copying “Warranty.pdf” to my main drive before reformatting, and copying it back to the Seagate after reformatting. I then asked what the difference was between the drive I bought and the more expensive Seagate Model STDS 2000100. Well! The hardware is identical. The only difference is software, and that software is available online free. Wow! Wish I’d started asking that that question ten drives ago! [See, Seagate Dashboard 3.0 How to Setup Mobile Backup Using the Backup Plus as the Destination Drive, and the other Seagate Dashboard videos on YouTube.] Some have asked how hot this drive gets. Mine just now finished copying a 250 GB Time Machine backup file from a Firewire drive (plugged into the iMac’s Thunderbolt port via Apple’s Firewire-to-Thunderbolt converter cable) to my new Seagate drive. The transfer took about 20 hours. My fingertips can barely perceive that the drive is warmer than the room. I’m impressed! Several have reported reliability nightmares with this drive. It’s far too soon for me to have any experience on that, but it does concern me. To protect myself for the next two years, I purchased the, Seagate Rescue - 2 Year Data Recovery Plan for External Hard Drives, for another $10. So far, I love this drive!

I purchased this for my PS4 so I cant speak for anything other than that. I have been burned by Seagate HDs more than a few times in the past so I was at first a little reluctant to go forward with this purchase. But after reading the reviews and comparing my options for upgrading my PS4 system storage to something more substantial, I bit the bullet because this drive seemed like good value for my money. I was originally going to get the Seagate 2TB standalone drive but someone posted that the drive in this was the same thing for less money but more steps. I like saving money as much as the next guy so I went with the more steps option. The drive fits perfectly inside the system once you remove it from the original case. It was easy to remove and do the swap. Just be careful when removing the USB adapter plug and realize that your warranty is null and void once you open the case. I just used a small flat edge screwdriver to get it started and pulled it off the rest of the way with my fingers. I actually reversed the process with the original 500GB HD from the PS4 and put that one into the Seagate case, so now I still have a spare 500GB external drive laying around. I just formatted it and it works great. Make sure you backup everything on your PS4 before you do the switch because it will wipe everything when you replace the HD. I have two profiles on my system but only one is PS Plus(auto cloud backup availability). I just assumed that everything would be backed up universally on my system since I had the Plus service, but the non-plus profile stuff was not backed up online. So have a flash drive or something to backup your stuff before you remove the original HD. Steps to get your PS4 up and running can be found on the Playstation web site (google PS4 HD upgrade) but it can be summed up into the following: 1. Backup your data to the cloud or flash drive 2. Swap drives 3. Download new (current) PS4 full system file from Sony website and copy to flash drive per the instructions on their site 4. Plug in the flash drive with the software on it to the PS4, power on the PS4, hold power for 7 secs until system beeps a second time(safe mode) 5. Choose to Initialize PS4 (Reinstall System Software) 6. Choose your USB drive or disc if using a disc and let the system update and activate 7. Download your digital games from the PS Network/Restore your backups from the cloud or flash drive 8. Enjoy your spacious new HD!

BOTTOM LINE: I own and regularly use multiple Seagate external hard drives (mostly 2TB units). This larger 4TB seems equally sturdy and idiot-proof; chugging without a hiccup - loading/deleting & re-loading. Other reviewers may have had issues with Seagate products but in over 5 years use and seven different drives of various sizes, Ive had zero problems with any of them. And ALL of them are still in active use! Therefore... 5 STARS! THOUGHTS: I have several 2TB Seagate drives I use to store my library of movies & TV shows --- which Ive been slowly converting to MP4 format. I plug one into any USB port on the back of my HDTV and have hundreds of hours worth of movies & TV shows at my fingertips, with just the push of a few buttons on the TV remote. (No buffering on the internet and no rummaging through my piles of Blu-rays & DVDs to find something to watch.) And in all these 5+ years I have NEVER had ANY problems with any of these various units. In fact, one of my 2TB drives recently took an accidental 4ft drop from the back of my TV onto our hardwood floor ...and it still works like nothing ever happened!! (I also have a couple of 2TB units from Toshiba that work fine but seem to a little power hungry, compared to the Seagate drives. I have a multi-port USB hub and if I run anything else while the Toshiba is plugged in it just clicks and will not work. I dont have this issue with any of the Seagate drives. Not saying Toshiba sucks, just thought it should be mentioned. I also have a Western Digital 2Tb drive that works fine on my computers but for some reason my TV will not read/recognize it, so thats become my wifes back-up drive for her desktop now.) Anyhow, this 4TB Seagate is my primary movie back-up/odds & ends storage unit and I have had no problems whether Im dumping huge files or small ones; it just works and works. Consider me a happy Seagate user. :-)

I bought two of these drives a little more than 1.5 yrs ago. They both work GREAT. I carry them in my computer bag everywhere I go. As with anything electronic, you have to practice care. Mine have a few dents from slightly rough handling, but overall they have worked wonderfully. I have one 5TB that functions as my primary storage/backup of my photography (set my Lightroom to keep catalog and all images on this drive). The second I have partitioned into 2x 2.5 TB drives, one for my TimeMachine Backup and the other for additional Document and Website backups. My only complaint is that since these are spindle HDD, when trying to tether from Camera to Lightroom, the drive performance via the USB 3.0 is slow. Also at times, Caching seems to get bogged down when doing major edits (this could also be because of RAM limitations on MacBook). Overall Im happy and I think other Mac users/ Photographers would be happy with these drives as a portable system. (NOTE:: always perform you backups of your stored data - I use Backblaze as an additional layer of backup. These are portable HDDs... that means they get jostled, dropped, bumped, etc. - you have to use a little common sense and realize that there is the possibility that one minor bump may be the bump that renders your HDD non-readable)

So just like the headline says. I bought this in 2017, and Im about to buy another with more space when I came across this one again and saw the reviews. I use the one I have to store MANY videos, pictures, and recipes. I have almost filled up this drive with many episodes of anime and have brought it with me on vacations over the years. Its still perfectly fine and running without any issue. I still also frequently add new episodes to it to this day. Theres no lag, and barely any large amount of waiting time even when Im literally putting in an entire series into the device. (I put all the bleach episodes on it recently and it didnt even take that long. Mind you thats 366 eps. including extra OVAs.) Unless your banging it about and expecting the speed of sound with every little upload, youre not going to be disappointed with this little guy.

UPDATE 2/26/2017: While the original review remains true for Windows XP 32-bit, shame on me for not researching the 2 TB limit with XP. I dont know what happened with OS X and GParted before, but today I tried again and I was able to delete that problem partition (on both drives) using GParted by: - booting from the GParted disc (which I had done previously) - selecting the (tiny) partition and going to Partition/Manage Flags - de-selecting LVM (if any other type was there, I would have deselected it too/instead) and selecting FAT 32 - I dont remember if I needed to Apply the changes or if it automatically did it but if it did require it, I did do it - then the partition became unlocked and I was able to delete it - at this point, there was one 3.64 TB of unallocated space (the ENTIRE usable space) I will be testing one drive in Linux and the other in the NAS, but I do not anticipate any problems. While it was my fault for not knowing that XP couldnt use them as one full-capacity drive, there was still the problem of running the Windows/OS X programs (from that tiny partition) requiring the internet to continue. I am NOT taking a star off, the reason being that I was finally able to remove the partition and use the entire drive. NOTE: As I am updating this review, I decided that before I test them as mentioned above, I will try to use GParted to create a 2 TB partition (actually 2 TB -1 MiB (2097151 MiB total) because of MBR limitations) to see if it then becomes usable in XP 32-bit. With a GPT partition table (for spits and grins)- as expected, nothing. With an MBR partition table, however it was NOT what I expected/hoped - nothing. Im probably doing something wrong so dont go blindly on my tests. I cant test every possibility because I am not going to use it in XP- I was only doing it to try and help others. The bottom line is that as long as you understand that Windows XP 32-bit (not sure about XP 64-bit) cannot use all 3.64 TB as one drive (i.e., one partition, if it can even be used at all), then this is a very well-priced and sturdy drive. Im sure that it will perform up to its specs and will be reliable. If not, I will update this review again. Original Review: I attached this drive to Windows XP. It was only recognized as a mass storage device. Disk Manager did not show anything. OK, plug it into OS X. I saw three files: an executable for Windows, an executable for OS X, and a pdf. I ran the OS X app and it wanted to connect to the internet but my firewall blocks it. It had a message box for Retry or OK (maybe it was Quit). It then proceeded to close. WHAT??? It wont run unless it can get to the internet? BS* OK, so Disk Utility showed two partitions- one very small and grayed out and the other was the space that I wanted but could not get to. Disk Utility said it was deleting that small partition (as per my actions) and it just tried and tried and tried. I then booted GParted and it, too, could not delete that partition thats holding my drive hostage. I bought two of them and all of them are going back tomorrow. I was considering this drive and the WD but for some unknown reason, I went for the Seagate. I am ordering four of the WDs. I have 12 WD drives in my NAS and the only corruption Ive experienced was due to a bug in the NAS. I guess all of the success stories are from people who dont care that one of the primary partitions is unusable to them. And Im assuming that newer versions of Windows can read the drives because OS X, GParted and Mint can all see it. *And because of the necessity of calling out on the internet I will never, ever, ever, and then some, buy ANY Seagate products from now on.

++++++++++++++++Updated 02/11/2014 ++++++++++++++++ Seagate got back to me almost immediately and solved this issue of backing up my email. Seems the Appdata folder was hidden....so the backup could not get to those files... here is a copy of my response to Seagate support Thanks for your response and I stand corrected.... You are absolutely correct. The problem was that the top level AppData folder was hidden, but not any folder under it ......Once I changed the property of that folder to unhidden, I was able to drill down and see that Dashboard did check each of the subfolders..... The method I used was as follows: Home > Protect >Edit >Select Files...where you can see the file structure.....and I had to look in Local > Microsoft >Window Live Mail where all the email files where located in separate folders like inbox, send, draft, etc. all where checked...than I simply ran a another backup.... I will be happy to correct my rating and note a 5 star rating....and very happy you found and communicated the solution so thoroughly and accurately -- and Quickly. I have to and will take back all the negative things I reported... Thank You very much ===============================================Original Comment================================================== The hardware is fine and a good value. But the built-in software called the Dashboard has some serious flaws. First the in-the-box setup literature shows the Dashboard as Version 3.0, yet what gets installed in version 2.2.42. Version 3.0 is delayed at least another month, said the Seagate rep I spoke with. V 3.0 is the one that would do the Mobile backups too, so this feature is not in V 2.2.42 - Strike one (Therefore the product description is incorrect, since it does not do Mobile B/U thru the interface-YET). 2.) E-mails are NOT backed-up. This s/w doesnt support your client e-mail database(s) -- thats crazy. Perhaps V3.0 will...I certainly hope so. Dashboard gives you the navigation tool (select files - to be backed-up), but it doesnt allow you to drill down to the file structure where your email data is located (contacts, emails, calendar, etc). For example, I want to B/U my Windows Live Mail structure -- yes I know I can export this stuff, but what I want is for Dashboard to allow navigation to these folders(and select them for B/U)....they are not hidden, but Dashboard wont let you go there to select them...In this case, the navigation would be something like this C;>Users>name>APPDATA>local>Microsoft>Windows Live Mail I dont understand why Dashboard is so restrictive -- sure the default B/U folders are good, but APPDATA items are inaccessible....not only for WLM, but for any MS appdata program files/data. I sure hope Version 3.00 will fix this shortcoming. Im happy I have Carbonite B/U running that does backup all MS(and other) program data files. IMHO, this really needs to be addressed and fixed. There really should be no reason that Seagate restricts what gets backup - for experts, this kind of advance function(visibility to the entire computer files structure) is needed and for novice, email b/u should be a minimum requirement(for those with client based email configurations).