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)

Ive owned this product since January, 2017. I have intentionally not written a review until now so I could have adequate time to use the product and make a fair assessment. To date the Seagate Backup Plus has performed admirably. It is an excellent product and performs exactly as advertised. I have not used it to back up any mobile devices. Ive owned a Lenovo T410 laptop since 2011 and have been running Windows 10 for a little over a year. Ive used this external hard drive many times to do backups. The process is scary easy. In general I backup File History which is really loaded up since my laptop is so old. In addition, the backups include my 10K song iTunes library, numerous movies, and many videos. I have done a couple of System Images as well. At present I have more than 900 GB (of the 1 TB) of unused space remaining. Im hardly an expert on external hard drives but that seems pretty awesome, particularly for such a reasonably priced unit that also happens to be light as a feather. One of the things I noticed in reading external hard drive reviews prior to my purchase is the large number of reviewers who complain about their drives breaking down. So I guess the final quality assessment may not be possible until Ive owned the drive longer. Hope this helps someone with their decision making process. This was an authentic purchase and I was not part of any promotional program.

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.

For mac users, these drives present a difficulty. While they function on a mac, and can be used for storage or time-machine, they do not power down when ejected from a mac. Instead, after eject, they remain powered up with their light on. This means that unless you power down your computer, you are forced to remove a seagate drive from the mac by pulling out its cable while powered up. This works almost all the time, but I have had a case where the disk stopped working after pulling out the cable.

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.

As a mother I take photos of my son as much as possible. Less more so now that he is a little older but when he was a baby... Oh man, I had that camera in his face all the time! My son is my pride and joy. I am forever thankful to have him. I lost all of his Baby pictures because I had everything on one EHD. Just one. And it dropped. My world shattered at that moment. I had to remind myself that it was just pictures and hes still here, so I can take more. I bought this EHD as another back up for my photos. I like that it has so much space available and is so small. Its truly portable and that I love. I have included photos to compare size to my iPhone 6s. The only thing for me personally, I wish the cable was a bit longer. This however is just a personal preference. I am giving this item 5 stars because it does the job! I have 4TB of space to store the thousands of photos of my son. I can also store my designs and blog photos. I store my photography and my RAW images from my Canon and still have so much space available. The hard drive loads up pretty fast and has a small light on the top to indicate it has connected to the computer. I have no complaints about this product and I plan to purchase another in the future to have just incase I fill this one up. =)

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 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.

Update: After having the drive for a few weeks, Im giving up and returning it. Out of 12 PCs I work with regularly, only 2 consistently worked well with this drive. 10 of them would fail to read or transfers would fail often that making using this drive became a risk/unreliable. Possibly a lemon Original review: This drive is amazing - 4tb in about the space of my previous 1tb external drive, as well as being inexpensive for what youre getting. The price dropped 10.00 two days after I bought it, too, har har Amazon The only issue I had was starting computers up with the drive plugged in. There is a little bit about this issue if you Google, but nothing that really helped me. Here is an outline of what I discovered, I hope this helps. When I first got the drive, I immediately formatted it to exFat, since I intended it to be used with both PCs and Macs. The reasons for and against doing this: - PRO: exFat lets you read/write on both without doing anything special (OS X wont write to NTFS drives without 3rd party intervention) - CON: Windowss built in Backup and Restore wont backup a system image to exFat without some tricks I found I couldnt boot two of my PCs while the drive was plugged in, except randomly on one of them (see below). On one, the PC stops at the BIOS splash screen before even getting to the point where you can press keys to get into the BIOS. After letting it sit for an hour, I had to power it down (keyboard unresponsive, so no ctrl+alt+del). Without the drive plugged in, the computer boots as normal. Once into Windows, I could plug in the drive and use it fine. On the other PC, it does one of two things randomly: It will let you get into the BIOS, but wont detect any other drives (internal or external) after this point, so wont boot; or it will detect other drives and boot, but all other USB devices (keyboard, mouse, wifi adapter) will be disabled while the drive is plugged in. Once Windows was up, if I unplugged the drive, my other USB devices came back. This was with the various USB devices plugged into ports all around my PC - wifi in the front, keyboard/mouse dongle in a USB 2 port on the back, the Seagate in its own USB 3 port on the back, etc. Suspecting some kind of power draw issue, I tried plugging the drive into a separate, powered USB 3 hub, with no effect. After some searching, I examined my UEFI settings in the BIOSes of both machines, but they were already set as the forum posts I found suggested. Solution (found by accident): After giving up, I intended to return it to Amazon. I had put some data on it, so I plugged it back into one PC and proceeded to do a full (not quick) format, using NTFS. Some time after this completed, I needed to restart the computer for something else, and rebooted it, forgetting the Seagate was still plugged in. It booted fine. Wondering what was going on, I tried it in the other PC as well, and this one also booted. I quick formatted back to exFat, and both PCs reacted as before - without booting or acting crazy. Quick formatted back to NTFS, and no issue. >>> I dont have any explanation for the above behavior, but that is the symptom and what resolved it. <<< For me, this isnt much of a resolution, since I really wanted to use exFat on it given the drive will be floating around between platforms. Im still on the fence about whether to return it, but I left 4 stars since it mostly does what it is supposed to, has a ton of space, and a good price.

I bought this hard drive on january 2016, I take care of it like it was my son... The drive is working fine, just a few times it gave me some problems but nothing i could worry about that time, because i knew the drive was new, i opened crystaldiskinfo to test another drive but the surprise was that the risky drive was my external 4tb seagate hard drive... wait WHAT? it has 4344 hours and has been turned on 474 times, i have others drives with 3 times more usage and they are on good shape i tested it with SeaTools like i noticed in other comment and at 10% of scanning it shows a failure i tested it with hd tune and it showed some problems ------------------------------------------------------- HD Tune Pro: Seagate BUP BK Error Scan Scanned data : 3976 gB Damaged Blocks : 0.6 % Elapsed Time : 11:24:33 1 Error at 3349 MB (LBA 6859096) 2 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171983560) 3 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171983688) 4 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171983816) 5 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171983944) 6 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171984072) 7 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171984200) 8 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171984328) 9 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171984456) 10 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171984584) 11 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171984712) 12 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171984840) 13 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171984968) 14 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171985096) 15 Error at 3501945 MB (LBA 7171985224) --------------------------------------------------------- HD Tune Pro: Seagate BUP BK Health ID Current Worst ThresholdData Status (01) Raw Read Error Rate 100 93 6 555868863 ok (03) Spin Up Time 98 96 0 0 ok (04) Start/Stop Count 94 94 20 6218 ok (05) Reallocated Sector Count 100 99 36 0 ok (07) Seek Error Rate 60 59 30 73033273588 ok (09) Power On Hours Count 96 96 0 246771640963319 ok (0A) Spin Retry Count 100 100 97 0 ok (0C) Power Cycle Count 100 100 20 474 ok (B8) End To End Error Detection 100 100 99 0 ok (BB) Uncorrectable Error Count 66 66 0 34 ok (BC) Command Timeout 99 98 0 12885098526 ok (BD) Unknown Attribute 100 100 0 0 ok (BE) Airflow Temperature 72 57 45 689373212 ok (BF) G-sense Error Rate 100 100 0 0 ok (C0) Unsafe Shutdown Count 98 98 0 5337 ok (C1) Load Cycle Count 93 93 0 14814 ok (C2) Temperature 28 43 0 51539607580 ok (C5) Current Pending Sector 92 92 0 672 warning (C6) Offline Uncorrectable 92 92 0 672 ok (C7) Interface CRC Error Count 200 200 0 0 ok (F0) Head Flying Hours 100 253 0 159618164589082 ok (F1) Unknown Attribute 100 253 0 6729511771 ok (F2) Unknown Attribute 100 253 0 14109218391 ok Health Status : warning ------------------------------------ The thing is that i dont wanna use seatools or hdd regenerator to try to fix the hard drive because there is a chance to lost all my data and i dont have anywhere to backup 4TB of information... (it is almost full) plus my life is on that hard drive... what should i do now... is the warranty still alive or what?

The drive works ok: - partitioned the drive with disk utility on mac, formatted journaled OS volume, no problem - did a full Timemachine (TM) backup and encrypted, worked fine, took a whole day - made two other partions, one for data, one for another TM backup of another device - works ok when directly connected to the mac, does not work when used on the network Problems: -could be the disk, el capitan, or netgear router readyshare but when I connect the seagate drive to the router, my computers can not see the drive nor can TM. - got no help from apple, netgear, searched all over the web, evidently theres some missing driver to bridge the mac and the drive via netgear R2600 thats probably not the drives problem. Worst thing about all this, the so-called free 200 gb cloud storage that comes when you register the drive is OneDrive by that s***ty company known as Microsoft. What a hassle, still does not work. DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION! MAKE A SEPARATE EMAIL, PHONY NAME AND NO PHONE NUMBER. Oh and MS as soon as you visit their site they record your browser fingerprint. Heres the info ms wants: OneDrive Preview needs your permission to: Sign in automatically Signing in with your Microsoft account will automatically sign you in to this app. View your profile info and contact list OneDrive Preview will be able to see your profile info, including your name, gender, display picture, contacts, and friends. Access your email addresses OneDrive Preview will be able to see the email addresses in your profile. View your OneDrive photos and documents OneDrive Preview will be able to see your photos and documents on OneDrive, but cant make changes to them. Add or remove bonus storage OneDrive Preview will be able to add bonus storage to your account. It will also be able to remove this storage (but no other storage), at any point in time. You can change these application permissions at any time in your account settings. Sorry, no can do. Going to just go get Veracrypt and encrypt my data onto the seagate and be done with it.