Data, something we hold dear, and would miss only when we lose it. Could be photos, videos or even files from work. Being a Youtuber I have tons of media of shots/ videos taken for clients. So how do we protect our priceless data, watch on to find out.
Choosing a good portable drive is a daunting task with multiple types, models and technologies. SSD’s are super-fast, but the price to storage space is quite high. Mechanical hard drives don’t have SSD speeds but do provide more space.
Here I have today the Seagate Backup Plus portable, and I have with me the 5-terabyte model. I picked one as I needed somewhere to backup my ever-increasing data. There seems to be an offer for mylio where you can store your photos online, have never tried that service.
The drive is compatible with both Windows and mac as it uses the exFAT file system. It can be formatted to NTFS if that’s what you need. But it comes with exFAT out of the box. exFAT is also supported by some smart tv’s to playback media off the drive directly. And 5tb is a lot of movies and music.
Price on the box is 16,999 but I purchased it for Rs 8,349 using some bank discounts and of course the Amazon republic day sale. 9,499 is the actual price of the device.
Opening it up we have manual, 1 year of mylio and 2 months of adobe creative cloud subscription.
Inside the protective plastic case we have the hard drive and the usb cable.
The cable provided is USB-B to USB-A.
And here’s the drive, in red, the coloured section is metal and the white sections are made of plastic. It does look sturdy.
There is the Seagate logo branding on the top and this lone led indicator on the top left which lights up in white when the drive is active and pulses slowly when files are being copied.
The back of the drive has the USB-B connector, which theoretically supports upto 5gbps via USB 3.0. But we are currently held back by the drives read/write speeds. The drive is backward compatible with USB 2.0 too but you will lose on speed.
Bottom, we have the serial number, storage capacity and other regulatory certifications.
The red metal colour looks quite nice. There are more colours available such as light blue, silver and black.
The look is quite nice and is quite small. Not very heavy and can be carried around maybe in a backpack, but not really pocketable. Being the 5Tb version it is a bit taller than other drives.
The drive inside is the Seagate barracuda which has 5 2.5-inch platters which hold one terabyte each.
Let’s connect the drive to the PC, hmm, this is disappointing we have only 4.5 Tb out of 5.
Manufacturers should stop using the 1tb = 1000GB conversion as it’s actually 1024Gb which is still higher than the 4.5 Tb we are provided. Where’s the remaining 300 GB I paid for Seagate?
After that shock, let’s test out the performance of the drive using Crystal disk mark. Speeds are good, not phenomenal but good. Similar to other brands at this price point.
Testing out the drive using Blackmagic’s disk speed test for creators who would like to use this drive for editing. Nothing phenomenal again.
Another point to note is that the drive uses Shingled Magnetic recording (SMR) which is used to increase the storage density. But here lies an inherent problem, the reading speeds are great but when writing to the drive it tends to slow down as the disk starts to fill up. 5Tb will take some time to fill up, but just a point to keep in mind.
Not happy with the negative comments on the exFat file system I formatted the drive to our trusty NTFS, this could make it incompatible with smart tv’s and mac’s the data integrity is supposed to be much better. Mac’s and Linux can read off NTFS but writing needs you to jump through some hoops. If you are on a MAC or using Linux, stick to exFat.
There is a limited warranty with Data recovery services included for three years.
When I first received the drive, I was quite disappointed with the speed. I almost returned it but a little bit of research on google I found a setting when changed to performance mode the drive performed much better. Not SSD speeds. But still tolerable.
When copying over big files the speeds were quite good, around 100-120mbps. As I was backing up some code, and the folder has thousands of smaller files the speeds dropped considerably. If you have folders with multiple small files to backup, then I would suggest creating a zip file before copying it over to the drive.
Copying photos and videos didn’t slow down the drive much and copied considerably quick.
The drive does get noticeably warm when used for long periods of time, especially during the marathon copying when first connected. Normal use, it shouldn’t heat up much.
Segate has included its backup software which you can use to schedule backups to the drive. It is a nice addition.
What I liked:
A 5Tb drive at a great price,
Good read speeds,
Not bulky and easy to carry around,
No need of an external power supply,
Well-built and sturdy,
Looks great.
The Bad:
Slow writing speed when writing multiple small files,
The connector could have been USB-C instead of USB-B,
Only 4.5 Tb available out of the total 5 Tb.
Storage space is the primary reason I purchased this drive specifically for backup. SSD’s at the same price have less than half the storage space. The subscriptions from Mylio and Adobe are great additions, but I may not use Mylio, as I will have to pay for the service once the year is done. I already have an Adobe subscription, so I will try to get a few added months if i can. The drive is similarly priced and performs the same as the models available from other brands.
If you need speed get a SSD instead, but if you are looking for more storage this drive won’t disappoint.
So that was the video, if you have any questions do write in to us at tech@talkingstuff.net or WhatsApp us at 9652578833.
