Seagate Backup Plus External Hard Drive Review

The Seagate Backup Plus 2TB external hard drive is Seagate’s latest external hard drive which is also part of the new Seagate Backup Plus family. Our latest 2tb external hard drive review is for the desktop member of the family which comes in two different versions – One for Mac and one for Windows.

Jump to:

– Design and Build
– Inside the Box
– Pre-installed Software
– Performance and Connectivity
– Size and Weight
– What other buyers are saying
– Price
– Conclusion

Design and Build

Both Mac and PC versions of the Seagate Backup Plus drive are very attractive, but they are slightly different, so we will review each one separately.

 

Mac version

In the Mac version you will never see any of your fingerprints on the drive as it has a lovely smooth rubber finish on most of the casing. Rubber is well-known to maintain heat and fortunately you will find that on the front face there is an exposed strip of metal with the Seagate logo at the bottom and there are also ventilation holes on the top, bottom and back faces, which help keep the drive nice and cool. The drive comes mounted on the flexible adapter, which allows you to easily swap drives (if you have multiple drives) without the need to unplug and plug any cables. The adapter also has several LED lights on the front that indicate the amount of space remaining on the drive, which is a fantastic little detail.

 

Windows version

The Windows version of the Seagate Backup Plus has a shiny black plastic casing protecting the hard drive itself with ventilation holes on the top, bottom and back faces to keep the drive at a cool temperature. It is an attractive piece of hardware and, similarly to the Mac version, cleverly designed so that you can easily un-mount the drive by detaching it from the adapter system and then swap it with another drive.

Inside the box

Inside the neat packaging of every Seagate Backup Plus drive (Mac version) you will find:

  • 1x Seagate Backup Plus desktop drive with preloaded Seagate Dashboard
  • 1x Quick start guide
  • 1x Firewire cable
  • 1x USB 2.0/Firewire800 adapter with capacity gauge
  • 1x 5-foot / 150 cm USB 2.0 cable
  • 1x Power supply
  • 2 Year warranty

And inside the Windows version box you will find:

  • 1x Seagate Backup Plus desktop drive with preloaded Seagate Dashboard
  • 1x Quick start guide
  • 1x USB 3.0 adapter with capacity gauge
  • 1x 5-foot / 150 cm USB 3.0 cable
  • 1x Power supply
  • 2 Year warranty

Included software

Seagate have included some nifty pre-installed software called the Seagate Dashboard, which comes with all the versions of this external hard drive, and this software will allow you to save and backup all your data from all your social media accounts, as we are all aware, Facebook contains hundreds of our pictures, many of which are not backed up anywhere but Facebook. Seagate has shown to be paying attention to this and their easy-to-use software is a great addition to the drive by making it very straightforward to back up and share all your online photos and movies. The Seagate Dashboard software also allows you to easily customize and schedule your backups or simply set-up a one-click backup plan.

Performance and Connectivity

The main difference between the Mac and Windows versions of the drive is that the Mac version comes with USB 2.0 and Firewire 800, while the Windows version uses USB 3.0.
For maximum performance you should ensure you use either USB 3.0 or Firewire800 and you can expect to be transferring around 5 Gigabytes per minute, which is truly impressive. Another nice feature the drive has is that it comes with a flexible adapter system that allows you to cost-effectively and quickly upgrade the drive’s interface with faster connections that come out in the future. The adapter included with the drive has a power port, 2x Firewire ports and one USB 2.0 port on the Mac Version and a power port and 1x USB 3.0 port on the Windows version.

Note: Please remember that you can use the Mac version of the hard drive on a Windows operating system by simply setting it up, similarly a Windows drive on a Mac operating system. The only annoying thing about using the wrong hard drive is that the Mac version only uses Firewire800 and USB2.0, while the Windows version only uses USB 3.0, which is backwards compatible to USB2.0.

Size and weight

The drive is approximately – (LxWxH) 6.2″ x 4.8″ x 1.7″ / 15.7 cm x 12.1 cm x 4.3 cm and weighs 2.3 lbs / 1kg, which is all relatively standard in the external hard drive world.

Price

The Seagate Backup Plus is one of the cheapest hard drives with 2TB of storage on the market right now. It is cheaper on Amazon than on any other retailer, therefore, click below to have a look at the current price.

Conclusion

Pros

  • Fantastic Recommend Retail Price (Amazon still gives big discount!)
  • Attractive up-right design
  • Flexible adapter system to make drive future-proof
  • Cheetah like transfer speeds (Particularly with USB 3.0)
  • Stays cool even after continuous use
  • Plug-and-play setting up

Cons

  • However attractive, the drive was designed to stay upright
  • Having two versions of the same that are almost identical (Mac/Windows) can confuse customers
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