There is no such thing as too much, especially when it comes to the available space you have for data storage. Seagate has taken the latest step in their portable hard drive lines with the release of the 4TB Backup Plus drive. No wall adapters needed, just a single USB 3.0 connection (backward compatible) and you are ready to go. Imagine the number of games and music you can travel with. Even the hungriest of iTunes shoppers won’t have any trouble taking their entire collection with them on the road.
I remember 10 years ago that I was happy to carry around a 40GB portable drive that same physical size as this one. Able to fit right into your pocket or any small compartment in your laptop bag, this drive blends right in and offers more than enough space (that’s right, I made the notorious “this is more than enough space, who could ask for more” statement that will be looked back on 5 years from now as a joke) for just about anyone’s needs.
Just as important as the amount of space available to you, is the speed. These aren’t SSD’s so you won’t be getting 500MBps read and write from these, but they do climb as high as 125MBps on both ends which make a difference when you’re looking to transfer large amounts of files back and forth from the drive. Keeping in mind these numbers are obtained by connecting the drive to a USB 3.0 port. Opting to connect the drive via USB 2.0 or less will result in much lower speeds (an average of less than 30MBps). Once we give the drive a try on a 3.1 port, we may update the article with additional findings.
It is slightly thicker than the other drives in its line (additional size options are 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB), but nothing that affects the portable convenience it has to offer. The outer casing is aluminum which allows it to better spread the heat around while providing a solid look and feel to it, as well as a low weight of just less than 9 ounces. Heavier than some of the slim drives on the market, but much lighter than a desktop external.
The drive also comes with software available on the drive itself, that offers backup solutions for your computer and mobile devices. Since it comes with software on the drive, the drive comes pre-formatted in NTFS format. Mac users may need this driver before it will display as available, or format it to the Mac HFS+ format.
They have a 2-year warranty, which isn’t much, but we haven’t been too impressed by hard drive warranties as of late. So not that justifies anything, but it does seem to be within the current norm. You also receive 2 years of 200GB storage through Microsoft’s OneDrive service, available by registering the drive with Seagate.
Currently, the drive is running for around $199 and can be found on Amazon or a number of other retail outlets. There is also a faster model, the Seagate Backup Plus Fast, which doubles your read/write speeds by packing 2 drives inside the case in Raid-0 configuration. The sacrifice is a heavier and yet again, slightly thicker design. We haven’t tested that model since we don’t have one in front of us at the moment, but it’s safe to assume speeds of 150% or more.
At the moment, both the versions of the 4TB drives are only available in black.
Our Conclusion
The new drive is fast, small, light, and offers tons of space. So much space, you can take your entire home computer with you and then some (of course that relates to the average home user and not the power users that build their own data motherloads when putting together a system). The price feels right compared to previous generation launches. We decided to give the Seagate Backup Plus 4TB a 9 out of 10 rating. An excellent, near-perfect score. The only thing left is to see what their lifespan lives out to be.
Additional Images:
Specifications:
Interface: USB 3.0 |
Capacity: 4TB |
Warranty: 2 years |
Length: 114.50mm |
Width: 78.00mm |
Typical Weight: 541g |
Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.
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