Seagate Backup Plus Portable for Mac 4TB External Hard Drive HDD USB 3 0 2 Months Adobe CC

This is a great little backup AND storage drive I am using for my iMac (mid 2011 model). I only have USB 2.0, so the speeds are not lighting fast, but I use my local drive in my Mac for the documents I am currently working on (primarily music projects using Logic Pro X). I am using a 2TB size, and since I only have a 500GB (0.5TB) drive in my Mac, I only need about 1 TB of space to be able to provide plenty of backup space and history (and probably not that much). So if I ONLY had wanted to use it for the Time Capsule application, just the 1TB would have been fine. But on the Mac it is VERY easy to partition the drive into two separate drives. Just Google the topic for detailed instructions, but basically you just plug in the drive (using the included USB cable), go to your Disk Utilities application, add a partition (I just split mine into two 1 TB drives), then go to Time Capsule and pick one of the partitions to use, and you are done - literally took me less than 10 minutes from start to finish, and I'm a relatively new Mac user. So I now have two drives that show up on my desktop: one for backup / Time Capsule, and the other as just a giant 1TB storage area. The drive runs off of the USB power supply, so for performance and power reasons you probably should run this drive directly from a USB port coming from your machine (versus a hub). Overall I am very happy - this is a great piece of mind AND extra storage area for the money. Read more

I read a few unfavorable reviews and was nervous about purchasing. I do a lot of video for youtube and needed a way to store my raw footage, and I had an upcoming trip where I would be filming with two go pro cameras, one handheld 4k video camera, and a Phantom 4 Drone. My trip was seven days in a small private airplane, flying from Portland Oregon to Anchorage Alaska, and packing was tight. I stored my MacBook pro and the External Hard Drive in the Phantom 4 Backpack While we were flying. The Hard drive performed flawlessly, despite receiving a dent in the silver side of it, and falling OUT of a car while attached to the MacBook Pro (Which received a dent as well on the corner.) Car was not moving. I opened the door and everything fell out. The plug going into the hard drive got bent when it impacted the pavement, but the Seagate still performs flawlessly. I filmed so much video on the trip that I almost filled this little hard drive up. Highly recommended, Very tough little unit. Read more

After using a MacBook Pro for years, where I had to manually attach a backup drive from time to time because I moved the laptop from spot to spot, I just got a new iMac that is, obviously, stationary. I needed a new, much larger backup drive for the new computer, and I always start with Seagate drives. I've had very good luck with them over the years. I was delighted to find this one. The price is excellent, it is USB 3.0 (Thunderbolt drives are simply still too expensive for me), and it is so elegant and (physically) small. No setup at all was necessary. I plugged in the drive (it is bus powered). Time Machine immediately recognized the drive and asked me if I wished to use it for backups. The very first backup of 350 GB took about 10 hours, but of course all the following backups are incremental and take no time at all. The aluminum top surface complements the iMac, and there is a tiny blue drive light to show activity. If you want to take his drive with you, it would slip into a very small space. Based on other very helpful reviews I didn't bother installing any of Seagate's software. It seems odd that a drive that that is so compatible with Macs has software included that is only fully functional with Windows computers. If Seagate issues an update that gives Mac users the same function as PC users, I may decide to install it after all. But in the meantime, getting a 1TB drive with USB 3.0 for $69.99 makes me very happy. And it has a 2 year warranty! Read more

Fantastic drive, two year warranty, ultralight and half the height of several other drives with the same capacity. It doesn't just have a silver plastic top like most other drives in this price range, it has and actual metal top that matches my MacBook Pro. It includes backup software if you choose not to use Time Machine for back ups. It has a very thin line that glows on the cover of the drive so you can look down easily and see the status of the drive and don't have to turn the drive around to see the back, where Western Digital drives have their indicator. I have several Western Digital drives that I picked up on Black Friday last year, so they are about eight months old. Out of the three drives purchased, one is dead, one is dying and the third is fine for the moment. I treat my electronic devices with "kid gloves", I admit I have OCD when it comes to my computer equipment. Everything has its own individual storage and travel container and everything is securely stored in my computer backpack when I travel and my family doesn't touch my computer equipment when I'm working at home. I'm an author and this equipment keeps a roof over our head and food on the table. I can confidently say, if something died it was an inferior product and not due to conditions after I purchased it. I've had this drive for two months now and it still looks and operates as it did the first day. The only thing I would change on the drive would be to add rubber feet on the bottom instead of the hard plastic feet that are there. They work, but don't keep it in place as well as rubber feet would so I bought some for less than a dollar and now the drive is perfect in my opinion. I will update this review if it anything significant changes. Read more