I bought this to use as a network drive connected to my home router. It's by far the best value in terms of capacity vs. cost in a drive that's USB powered. 4TB in a drive this size and with no external power supply is something that would have been unfathomable just a couple years ago, and at this price too! Generally I've been very happy with it - it's been working perfectly for the role. I mean it's just there whenever my wife or I need it - I click my network share on any of my machines and there it is. Not much more you can ask - in this role, network speed is really the limiting factor so while it might not be the fastest drive out there, nothing else is going to feel any faster. The one caveat is, surprisingly, noise! It's a noisy little drive. I don't hear anything unless it's in use, but reading and writing causes noticeable "seek" noises, which can be pretty annoying. My router (and drive) are in my living room on a shelf below my TV, and even though the drive is also behind a closed glass door, the seek noises are clearly audible from across the room. This isn't really a huge problem for me because most of the time the drive is either idle or in use when I'm *not* in the living room. If I am using it in the living room to stream a video on the TV or something, it's usually doing a sequential read so seek noises aren't that noticeable. But when I'm doing a backup or something from my laptop on the couch, it can be a little annoying. It's a surprisingly loud drive for what it is - I actually haven't heard a drive that sounds like this in years. I guess that could be part of the reason why it's so cheap. One other thing - Seagate's included backup software doesn't recognize it as a network drive. (It does if it's directly connected, but no reason why it shouldn't see it when mapped as a network drive.) No big deal for me as I use FreeFileSync anyway and that does work fine over the network, but again just something to mention if you were planning to use this drive that way. Still recommended for most uses. If you plan to use it really heavily in a quiet environment, just be aware that you will likely notice the noises it makes.

I was looking for a USB Portable Drive with enough storage space to back up my iPad Air 2, my Laptops 2 HD's, Smartphone, and my Desktops 3 HD's. Well this Seagate lets me plug it into my Linksys WRT1900ACS Router and forget about it. I can back up from any Mobile or Stationary Device, Mac or PC, connected to my Wi-Fi system, using the Seagate Dashboard. This little drive works flawlessly, and, has a ton of space. What's also COOL, is I can unplug it and take it with me at any time I want. NO EXTRA POWER CORD NEEDED. It runs off the 5 volts through the USB cable. I like this little drive because it fits in my shirt pocket. The only thing I can nit pick is, the ON LED light doesn't blink during data transfer like my Toshiba does, but again, no one makes a 4 TB Totally Portable USB Drive except Seagate right now. Being involved with programs in ATM Machines for 30 years and computers for over 40 years I have never had a Seagate HD I did not like. I recommend this little drive, if you are looking for a TON of space, and is TOTALLY PORTABLE. And remember Seagate has been in the Hard Drive Storage Devices Business FOREVER !

I bought two of these (one for me, one for my husband) a great price to transfer critical files and store for offsite backup. I first tried copying from another external backup drive, both hooked up to the same machine, but kept getting I/O errors, which I attributed to the older original backup drive -- not the new one. Big mistake. After I finally transferred the ~3tb of files to it (which took several days trying to do it in a piecemeal fashion), now it locks up Windows Explorer half the time, and produces I/O errors all over the place when trying to work with any of the files the rest of the time. Tried to scan and repair it in Windows and that fails too. I've used it on two separate Windows 10 computers with the same results. And since I already transferred a bunch of sensitive personal files to it, and the drive won't let me delete them (because it can't seem to find them, I/O errors again), I can't return it without overwriting the drive somehow. So I'm trying to DBAN the thing, but the DoDshort wipe will take longer than the return window, if the DBAN is even successful in the end. Now I'm out $100, and learned an expensive lesson about never buying another Seagate small form-factor drive again. Very frustrating. My husband has had good luck with Seagate drives in the past, but I'm not taking any chances in the future; I'll go back to Western Digital from now on even if I'm paying more for it.

With my MacBook Pro (2011) I decided time was not on my side,..so a back up was in order and the reviews, price, company name (Seagate) led me to order from Best Buy. As a moderate user and little tech knowledge, I hoped it would work right out of the box...as I had never used the Disk Utility app on my Mac...it started asking for something called journaled something and I was afraid that I was about to wipe my Mac drives clean...not a good idea. I went to Best Buy Geek in Boynton Beach, Fl as a reservation via phone worked well...but the lady tech person acted confident and said she needed to just take the Mac behind the curtain and check something( seemed odd) and returned and said everything would work perfectly now...and somehow manipulated a single document to appear as saved on my Seagateq device which was connected to the Mac...I wondered but drove home and could not duplicate her success. I then phoned the Seagate contact as I had done the registration the day before when it arrived..gave him my phone number and he addressed me by name (it actually all worked within 24 hours of registering) The rep took me through a 10 step process that introduced me to my Time Machine and the drop down about 'journaled' and connected so that in 3 hours all my laptop files were copied over to this 4 TB device! The device is shipped for Windows and needs to be cleaned and formatted for a Mac...so be ready for some intervention..if you are not accustomed to use Disk Utility on your Mac. Not a good Geek Squad report but with perseverance..a good Seagate review! Confirms that it is good to buy from a recognized source..Best Buy and a recognized manufacturer with phone support..thank you Seagate Company.

I purchased this 4TB external drive to backup photo, music and document files. I needed this drive to transport between a desktop (running Windows XP) and a laptop (running Windows 10). The Seagate drive runs quietly and is about the size of a deck of cards. The drive came with a short USB cable. The transfer rate was acceptable for my application. The Windows 10 laptop worked flawlessly. When connected to the Windows XP system the drive did not work. I believe I saw on the Best Buy 'Questions and Answers' that the drive was compatible with Windows XP. I contacted Seagate for this problem. Seagate's support was great with a quick and to the point explanation This is how Seagate explained the problem wo me. Windows XP was designed long back by Microsoft when 2TB drives were the maximum capacity, but now there are drives upto 10 TB and even more. Windows XP is equipped with driver software that supports upto 2TB drives. Also, the drive has to be specifically formatted in MBR (old partition scheme) to use it with XP, whereas, newer drives are formatted in the GPT partition scheme, which is not supported by Windows XP Operating System. Seagate offered a partial solution that would allow me to use 2TB of the 4TB. I found a workaround instead. I attached the 4TB drive via a USB port to my Belkin Wireless Router. I am now able to access all 4TB with Windows XP. Additionally I can access all files wirelessly with the Windows 10 laptop.

I had the Seagate 1TB product before, and really liked it. I had the opportunity to increase to 4TB with this Seagate product, so I did it. I then gave my mom my 1TB product, since her needs are less than mine when it comes to file storage. One issue I noticed with this 4TB product (which I didn't experience with the 1TB product) is that I can't easily do a software "Eject" before physically disconnecting the USB cable from the Seagate drive. Maybe it's something with my computer and not the drive, but I'm not sure. The other issue I had was when I first connected my 4TB Seagate via USB 3.0 to my computer, and then it basically only offered me the option to format the drive. Instructions for the drive are not helpful, as they give the impression that this product is plug-and-play. I performed the format, but probably wiped out any software that may have already come with the drive itself. I don't know if it was a defect of this drive product versus if I exchanged it for another of the same product, but since I'm using the drive with a 3rd-party software anyway, the lack of Seagate's Dashboard software doesn't affect me. In any case, the Seagate Dashboard software is available for free from the Seagate website, so I can get it any time if I ever choose to go this route.

I always buy Seagate external hard drives. They are very reliable. This 4 tb hard drive is surprisingly small, so easy to store and I love having the red color. I tape notes of contents to all my hard drives, but this one is used as the primary back up of my most recent files and I think the color is a great way to identify it quickly! Best Buy shipped the hard drive to me packed in a small heavy carton with air packets inside. Absolutely great packing job so that the hard drive was very well protected while in transit. This did not happen with another VERY large online company that sent me a similar hard drive in a paper envelope! After I called and explained to them that the item should be protected while in transit, they did a return and replace and sent another one in a paper envelope!! I returned that one for a refund. Best Buy's care in packing shows me that they are thinking and caring about the items I buy! I am very pleased with this purchase and recommend that if you buy items like this, you buy them from Best Buy! And no need to worry about price because Best Buy will price match prices from other retailers!

I have a 9 computer home network, my wife has a system with her files, we have a file server that provides common storage, my laptop has work related files then there are the phones, tablets etc. with their photos and data. I needed something large enough to store the files from all these devices, something that could connect easily, not takes days for transfers and when done I could store in a fire proof safe location (in other words a backup like you should have). This drive fits all the specs I needed or wanted for this important mission, so now I am not worried about loosing my TAX or Bookkeeping information, or those family pictures downloaded from various sites that you can never find again if you go looking. Last note I did not use any backup software, I did all this dragging and dropping then I ran a program Allway Sync to verify I had exact copies. I hate that a lot of backup programs use their own formats which can hinder restoring or access or even searching the files all of which I can do easily just plug this drive into a PC and search or drag and drop to recover.