Seagate - Backup Plus Slim 1TB External USB 3.0/2.0 Portable Hard Drive - Black

I rate this product as a NOVICE scenario for the buyer and user. I do not know an extreme amount about this kind of item. I know I use them because I was told they would solve my problem of losing data from computer crashes and whatever else happens to cause you to have your computer stop working for you. This is the second type of Backup Hard Drive I have purchased in the last 3 years. The first, about 1 1/2 yrs ago, had a larger memory, It was a product that was very user friendly, for someone like myself, as it told me what to do when and why, and I was able to save my data and put it in folders and find the specific data I might need again, easily. This unit does not do that. It has a smaller memory than the first, but it is also more reasonably priced than the first. Best Buy carries the same one I bought last time but this time I did not have the funds to buy the same thing again, especially since the only reason I was buying another was because I could not find a (THE) cord for the unit. Buying another cord was as much as buying this unit - so obviously this was the smarter purchase. For me anyway. I am not knowledgeable enough to know if this is better because I can not find the data I put on it. It is there because there is memory missing, but it does not allow me to put, say, John here in this file and Susie here in that file and then leave the rest of the gang in a big folder until I can make smaller folders. (Or maybe it does but I have not figured that out yet.) I bought this because I was afraid my laptop was going to bite the dust and I wanted to put everything I could somewhere so that "someone" could find it to out it on the next one, should this happen to me. This unit has the data on it I hope. I did a back up twice thinking I would have 2 files that were each a "backup". It did not do that. it just (seems) to rewrite over the last save - the new data from the new save. Not sure that is good, but I must make myself be at peace knowing at least there is some of my data out there somewhere for me to get to - hopefully.

I own several Seagate USB external hard drive of different capacities from 500 GB to 2 TB. All of them have worked flawlessly including the 1 TB drive that I am reviewing here. USB 3.0 is about 5 times faster than USB 2.0 and is well worth the small extra cost – 5 hours versus 25 hours to back up my data (with 3.0 I can do a full backup overnight while I sleep; with 2.0 it takes more than a 24-hour day). It's a true "plug and play" device. Virtually no set up is required – just attach the cord, plug it in, and you're ready to go. The drive appears as a new letter on your computer screen. After that, to back up directories and files, it's simply a matter of "dragging and dropping." Alternately, since it's a physical drive, you can save files and directories as you would to any other physical drive. The build quality is excellent. I switched to Seagate after being repeatedly unhappy with various performance and compatibility problems with other brands. It comes with useful software for automatic scheduled back ups, as well. One trick: I keep the 1 TB drive hooked up at all times, have created a directory called "Recent BKUP," and save my work to that directory every few minutes in real time. That way, should my computer crash, I always have a copy of my latest files on a portable file. I also use this as the target drive for a daily automatic scheduled backup.

I picked this hard drive after a lot of searching, scanning through reviews and comparing models. I was torn between picking a 500 GB or a 1 TB hard drive. I was looking at some WD drives and this one. I needed a drive for just routine backups. I have over 100 GB in Dropbox, but using it exclusively for all my backup is not very convenient. It takes very long to upload and not absolutely everything can fit in it. The point is that I didn't need a hard drive to lug around a large media library with me. I mostly stream stuff and I have a rather large drive in my notebook anyways. This is why 500 GB would work for me and I didn't desperately need a terabyte of space. While some other drives had double the space for just a few more dollars, I went with this one because of its size and weight. This thing is slim and looks very decent. Taken out of the rather easy-to-open packaging, this device was not that special looking. It doesn't have cool colors, designs or accents. It's a rather plain device with a silver metal top and a black plastic bottom. The top will match your Mac. The drive overall feels very good when held. The bottom may be plastic, but it doesn't feel like a flimsy thing despite the very light weight. It comes with a very small, but just long enough USB cable. You could put both into a pocket and not notice. It's that slim. It comes with a 2 year warranty, while some drives come with longer warranties, but I don't worry too much about that because I will not be storing sensitive data on it. The USB 3.0 transfer rates are fast enough. I was able to copy my entire iPhoto library file (about 15 GB) in a matter of 10 minutes or so. Same with my 10 GB iTunes folder. It comes with some software that allow you to upload to Facebook and whatnot, but I decided I didn't need it and I was able to wipe it all easily (it's downloadable on the Seagate website). I am very happy with the purchase overall.

Below please find the response from Seagate Support re: a backup Seagate product I purchased from Best Buy: Dear Rick XXX Thank you for contacting Seagate Support. I understand that you are having an issue with the Seagate Dashboard with Memeo Instant Backup software after upgrading to Windows 10. Unfortunately, the Seagate Dashboard is not compatible with Windows 10 and there will not be a software update. The steps to uninstall the software are: 1. Open the Control Panel and select Programs and Features and then Uninstall a Program. 2. Select Seagate Dashboard and Memeo from the list of programs and click on Uninstall. 3. Please reboot the computer after the software has uninstalled. You will be able to access all of the data on the external drive through Windows Explorer and use copy and paste to transfer the data to the computer. To run a backup to the external drive, I would recommend using Windows backup utility called File History. Here is a link from Microsoft on how to set up File History with the external drive: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/set-drive-file-history Please reply to this email if you require further assistance or give us a call at 1-800-SEAGATE. We are available Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, Central Time. Regards, Scott Seagate Support 1st Class Email Support

When I first purchased the drive, it was to supplement a WD 3TB drive that had backup software that didn't work very well. The Seagate drive seemed to work much better...until now. I had configured the backup process according to the instructions, and all seemed to work fine. Knowing that 3TB was much more than I needed for all my documents, I had also created a photo back up folder that I manually used to save copies of my pictures. All that seemed to work fine until I checked today. The software had apparently stopped backing things up because the drive was FULL! No notification, no warning, no indication that there was a problem THREE WEEKS ago. If I hadn't gone in to look at it, I still wouldn't know that my recent files weren't being backed up. :-( So I looked into deleting the older duplicate files, but I can't find any way to reduce the size of the back up folders. All the directories the software created are labeled as incremental, so I can't just delete the older ones. The documentation says that multiple copies of any changed files are kept, but I can't find where they are. The only files that seem to be backed up are new ones, but there are a lot of folders created where SOME files could be saved, but they are empty by the time I get to the bottom of the chain. Sorry, but I now can't recommend this product. It appears that I will have to delete the backup plan, along with all the files that it saved for me, and recreate a new plan that will start the same process all over again.

I decided to go with this portable drive because it was slim, portable, and the newest drive out which now included mobile backup as clearly listed on the box and on Seagate's website. However, I've had the drive for about a week and I still can't figure out how to backup my iOS device. The website clearly states that iOS devices are supported and that all there is to do is download the "Seagate Mobile Backup" app which doesn't even exist in the Apple store. This drive comes with a very convenient dashboard software which is great and easy to backup PC files, but it doesn't give any instructions or options for mobile backup. Overall, I'm very satisfied with the drive's performance. In the meanwhile, I'll backup my iPhone's photos manually which is not a big deal. Maybe Seagate will update its dashboard soon to include the mobile capabilities. Highly recommended drive to store your social network photos and personal files. Hopefully "Instagram" becomes a supported social network backup. If anybody figures it out, please respond to the review. Thank you, -Diana

I bought this drive 2 months ago and it's already dead. I bought it to back up all of my photos, documents, videos and music. I think I used about 45 gigs of the terabyte and it died. My PC (and the 3 other PC's I've tried) no longer recognizes the drive when I plug it in. The last 11 years of my digital life is being held hostage on this broken machine. If you have any data that you care about, I would put it on another product. I'm trying to recovery what information I can from the internet and friends right now. There is nothing I know of that can either restore my lost data or my faith in this product. The product is under warranty but they require the old drive before they give me a new one. I am not willing to let the sensitive information trapped on the drive fall into any one else's hands. Besides, I don't want another drive so that I can worry about the day that it too fails.

I bought this drive to use as a work drive. I teach Photography at two different schools and work off of my own laptop. My personal laptop is a PC, both schools use Mac. This drive is advertised as being cross compatible for both platforms so I bought it. When I tried to use it on a Mac I couldn't access anything on it or add anything to it. I called Seagate and they told me the only way to use it on Mac is to download a software that will read the drive. This is not feasible for me as I work at two schools and could be accessing anywhere from 10-20 different computer stations not to mention neither IT department is going to let me download this software to any machines. Basically, I would have returned the drive but it was past the return date of 15 days and the package was opened. I took the drive to the IT department at one of the schools and they formatted the drive to XFAT and it's been fine ever since. Why can't the drives just be sold this way in the first place??? I have referred all my students with similar to do the same thing.