Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD – Blue USB 3.0 for PC Laptop and Mac, 2 Months Adobe CC Photography (STDR2000102)

The Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB External Hard Drive is a dependable and convenient storage solution for anyone who needs extra space for files, photos, videos, or backups. It's lightweight, compact, and easily fits into a laptop bag or backpack, making it perfect for on-the-go use. ✅ Pros -Large 2TB capacity for documents, photos, videos, and backups -Slim, lightweight design that's highly portable -Fast USB 3.0 transfer speeds -Simple plug-and-play setup -Works well with PCs and laptops -Quiet operation and reliable performance ❌ Cons -Plastic casing can feel less premium than metal alternatives -Requires a USB cable connection (not wireless) -Transfer speeds are slower than modern SSD drives -Can be susceptible to bumps or drops compared to SSDs Overall The Seagate Backup Plus Slim offers an excellent balance of storage capacity, portability, and affordability. It's a great choice for backing up important files, expanding laptop storage, or carrying large media libraries wherever you go. If you need dependable extra storage without spending SSD-level prices, this drive delivers outstanding value and performance.

Reliable external hard drive with plenty of storage for backups, photos, and other files. Easy to use, compact, and works well with USB 3.0. Very satisfied with the performance and 4TB capacity.

I bought an HP Stream 13 so that I would have a way to browse the web, work, and watch movies on my downtime while away from home. If you have a laptop similar to this, you surely understand that you don’t have a lot in the way of internal storage. You can install a micro SD card, but anything above 128GB starts to get too expensive. This leads us to the solution of an external hard drive just like this one. I have been using the hard drive for about a week now and am very pleased with the way that it has been performing. The main features that I like about it is its portability. It is very small, very light, and requires no external power source. This means that it is powered by the USB port on the laptop. It isn’t the fastest external hard drive on the market, but to get 4TB of storage for this price, it is pretty amazing. I have also noticed that this hard drive runs very quiet, in fact, I can’t hear it at all. It doesn’t even vibrate much or produce hardly any heat. It is just a little warm to the touch which is great. I also really like the color options available. I got a blue one because it matches the color of my laptop. The construction of the hard drive seems to be of good quality. The majority of its casing is made of aluminum. I have been able to run full PC programs from this drive to my little netbook which is great. I have noticed that the programs don’t run quite as fast as if they were installed on the internal SSD. But hey, if I can get all of my programs to work on my netbook without compromising the storage on the factory SSD, then I call that a win. Here is how I have been installing programs to my external hard drive and running them on my netbook. 1: Make a folder in your external hard drive. I prefer to name the file "Program Files (x86)" because that is what the file is named where you normally save programs to anyway. 2: Get your program, you need to either have a download code from the internet, or since this laptop has no disk drive, you need an external disc drive to initially install the program you want. Treat it as you are installing anything else you would normally install. 3: When installing the program, it will ask you where you want to install it which is set at Drive (C:) Program Files (x86) by default. All you have to do is change the location of the programs installation which now will be on your external hard drive under the new file you named "Program Files (x86)" 4: Proceed with the rest of the install. 5: Repeat these steps for other programs it is literally that easy. Seagate Hard Drive Reliability: Obviously I have not had this hard drive long enough to say anything about its reliability. However, every hard drive I currently own are made by Seagate. This includes 4 external hard drives, a hybrid SSD, and a 3.5” desktop hard drive. I have yet to have any of them fail. The oldest one I have is 7 years old, but I don’t use it all that often. The 3.5” internal hard drive has been in my custom built gaming PC for about 4 years. It is under use quite often and is still holding up well. The one that is used the most is the External hard drive on my Xbox One. Between my wife and I, it will run for hours every single day. That has been working well for almost 2 years now. As you can see, I have had a great experience when it comes to using Seagate hard drives. This is why I have so many of them. Over the course of 7 years using multiple different hard drives under varying conditions, I have yet to have a failure. Obviously any hard drive will fail, it is an eventuality. It is nice to have them work for a while before they do though, and Seagate has impressed me.

I received this drive 8 months ago and it is still working in an acceptable manner by my standards. For more details, please continue reading. Having recently re-browsed the Amazon reviews for this product, I saw some people complaining that their drive had failed after x months having ordered it around the same time as me. This prompted me to fully check my drive's health so that I could at least be reassured that it is in full working order for the time being. I ran a read test on Windows using HD Tune Pro since that's where my drive was plugged in at the time, and the results (shown in as screenshots attached to this review) show the drive did in fact contain some bad sectors. I ran a non-destructive write test using badblocks on Linux which, for each sector, will first read the sector and store it in memory, then write a random pattern, then read this pattern back and make sure it matches the pattern that was written, and finally restore the original contents of the sector. I had backups just in case, so I wasn't worried and was mainly doing this for science. At the end, SMART output showed 2310 bad sectors existed on the drive. Since I waited 8 months to run this test and used the drive sparingly, it's unclear whether the sectors were always bad or if they developed over time. It also just so happens that none of the data I had stored on the drive were on these bad sectors. Despite the clear indication of potential failure, all sectors were restored to full working order after being written over. This means the sectors were really just held a weak magnetic charge, and were not permanently bad from e.g. physical damage to the platter. As a result, the pending/offline uncorrectable sector counts were dropped to 0 and the reallocated sector count did not increase at all. If interested, I've included the entire SMART output below. MART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10 Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 117 100 006 Pre-fail Always - 154970934 3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 097 096 000 Pre-fail Always - 0 4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 568 5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0 7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 070 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 11738583 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 098 098 000 Old_age Always - 2497 (146 170 0) 10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 020 Old_age Always - 52 184 End-to-End_Error 0x0032 100 100 099 Old_age Always - 0 187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 001 001 000 Old_age Always - 587 188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 099 000 Old_age Always - 4295032834 189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 054 041 045 Old_age Always - 46 (Min/Max 32/49 #8) 191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 9 193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 096 096 000 Old_age Always - 8819 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 046 059 000 Old_age Always - 46 (0 18 0 0 0) 197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 062 000 Old_age Always - 0 198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 062 000 Old_age Offline - 0 199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0 240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 147 (146 13 0) 241 Total_LBAs_Written 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 9955309601 242 Total_LBAs_Read 0x0000 100 253 000 Old_age Offline - 15389131969 You can see there is an error count, but no pending/uncorrectable or reallocated sectors. Although it's clear that the drive is currently working, the history of weak sectors means I will keep a close eye on it in case data ends up being written to the sectors that used to be weak, since if they become weak again, the drive will have trouble reading from them and I could start to lose data as a result. Remember: all drives fail, no matter what make or model you buy, so always keep backups and be prepared for the inevitable.

I've used this since April 2016 and carried it several times in my purse while away -- no problems (yet no banging it around, either, of course). It arrives in a proper manufacturer's original, sealed little box with the data transfer cord and a Guide. This is "back up for ordinary people". This is the one to get because it has the user interface: stuff to click upon to make stuff happen. In other words, you don't know how to make a backup happen on your own, so buy this one -- not the cheaper one(s) that is great for the geeks, not so much the busy person or the non-techy-geek. It is the area of 1 1/2 standard sized PostIt Notes, and very slim. Hard to notice beside your computer. This is the Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Portable External Hard Drive with Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0 (Silver) STDR2000101 ---2 terabytes for at the time of this writing, $89. You could watch for a lower price, etc, but in the meantime your hard drive (your computer) could fail, as mine did while out of town, w/o a decent backup saved. Learn from my woes. I've used this one for long enough now to see that it works great and is EASY to use. To unplug it from your computer, first click on that little icon that will appear near the clock at the bottom of the screen, which allows for safe removal -- this shuts it down even further than what you have already done when you x'd it off, so you will retain your data and changes. Also, do not allow anyone to "format" this device, this drive -- this will erase forever the drivers that make it work and the dashboard user interface, along with every byte of your files and stuff. I did not use the OneDrive feature. When you travel, just take the thing with you. Try to have "off site" backup;I use SpiderOak. If you lose the cord or need another, buy the $5.56 connecting cord, it's the proper type, here: Bargains Depot® Products USB 3.0 PC Power Charger Data Transfer Cable/Cord/Lead For Seagate Backup Plus External Hard Drive Disks 1TB / 2TB / 3TB / 4TB, Seagate External Hard Drive Disks Backup Plus Desktop For Mac, Seagate External Hard Drive Disks Expansion Desktop, Seagate Backup Plus Portable External Hard Drive Disks 500GB / 750GB / 1TB, Seagate Slim Portable For Mac 500GB / 750GB / 1TB, Seagate Expansion Portable 500GB / 1TB, Seagate GoFlex Desk Desktop Adaptor and Seagate External / Portable Hard Drive Disks that have a USB 3.0 jack + Free Gift If the thing fails in less than two yrs,and you haven't flung it around and dropped it 4 feet to a hard floor and all that, just communicate w the Seagate people, and read the included Quick Start Guide --all hard drives fail at some point, or no one would ever need a backup, duh, and they state a 2-Year Limited Warranty and the web address to read it. FOR MACINTOSH users: this is a reply from Seagate to a Mac-user customer: (just copy&paste the link into your address bar, unless they're live, then just click on them) "For future reference, here is a link that shows how to reformat the drive for use with a Mac: [...] We also wanted to note that we make a drive that is set up from the box in a Mac format. Please reference the following link: [...] If you have additional questions or concerns, please contact our support staff directly and we will be happy to assist further: [...] Best Regards, Seagate Support "

My "Seagate 2TB Slim Red", as I renamed it, came a day early well packaged & pretty in red. Its 18" USB 3.0 cable fits tightly on both ends. This Dell Inspiron i5 3542, Win 8.1, immediately put a "Safely Remove..." icon on the Taskbar & chirped. I DO use that icon when I want to disconnect it, although I see, in Device Manager, Windows set it for "quick removal". And I leave it set that way. (Aready I've rebooted & let the laptop sleep forgetting to use that icon with no detectable ill effects - but no writing was going on that I know of.) Quick Removal: Disables write caching, but supposedly no need to use icon. Better Performance: Enables write caching, but must use the icon. (Dell Diagnostics says... Cache Size: >= 32.0 MB.) I ran Dell's performance tests: smart status, 2 smart thresholds tests, targeted read, random seek, funnel seek, 2 linear read tests - & it passed each. The optional SMART Extended Self Test ran for 6+ hours, & it passed. I'm extremely pleased the drive got only midling warm (it has no vent holes) & never clinked or clanked the whole time. I could only hear it spinning by getting close. And I lifted & tilted & held it an hour+ during the tests, but never turned it upside down. (Now/then I felt a tiny kick in there; hence, the cesarians some here have performed on theirs. But I'll let mine come to term on its own!) Left plugged in for 10+ hours today - but little/no activity - it isn't even midling warm, though the 2.5" disk is spinning. Pursuant to my main reason for getting the drive, I did a MS System Image Backup. It offered to backup the EFI System partition, C:, & WINRETOOLS to "Seagate 2TB Slim Red" & took just a tad over 7 minutes to do it. I see the WindowsImageBackup folder that was created is 28.5 GB huge & the drive's used space increased accordingly. I did reboot to System Image Recovery & was pleased to see the 2TB Slim listed as a recovery drive with the image shown by date for selection. So, I must say I'm very pleased through four days of ownership. Definitely, I will update this review should anything go wrong. But I fully expect I'm invincible now... (1) Dell recovery image partition (to factory install) (2) MS Recovery USB Flash drive (Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Recovery - Create a recovery drive) This is necessary to boot without engaging partitions you intend to overwrite with the Current System Image during a restore. This also has a copy of my Dell factory image for refresh/reset purposes. (3) Current System Image on my Seagate 2TB Slim Red (Control Panel\System and Security\File History - System Image Backup) So, I'm all signed up to get the Win 10 upgrade! - UPDATE 8/8/15: All continues to work well with my Seagate 2TB Slim RED. In addition to two for Win 8.1, it now holds two full system backups for Win 10. Back in July, I gave it a brother: Seagate 2TB Slim Blue. It too worked well out of the box, w/o installing the Seagate software. I put a clone of Win 8.1 onto it, before taking the upgrade to Win 10. Before that, I did run... PS C:\Windows\system32> chkdsk E: /R The type of the file system is NTFS. Volume label is Seagate 2TB Slim Blue. Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ... 256 file records processed. File verification completed. 0 large file records processed. 0 bad file records processed. Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ... 282 index entries processed. Index verification completed. 0 unindexed files scanned. 0 unindexed files recovered. Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ... Security descriptor verification completed. 13 data files processed. Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data ... 240 files processed. File data verification completed. Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ... 488318496 free clusters processed. Free space verification is complete. Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems. No further action is required. 1953513559 KB total disk space. 113728 KB in 7 files. 20 KB in 15 indexes. 0 KB in bad sectors. 125823 KB in use by the system. 65536 KB occupied by the log file. 1953273988 KB available on disk. 4096 bytes in each allocation unit. 488378389 total allocation units on disk. 488318497 allocation units available on disk. PS C:\Windows\system32> exit So, I remain overjoyed with Seagate.

I purchased this specifically because I wanted to use it on two separate computers , both running Windows 10. On December 25, I copied my files from my last external hard drive to the Seagate, and then began using it as my storage drive for all my working files. For two weeks, it worked great except for one problem - I could never get it to eject. Every time I tried to eject it, I was told that the drive was still in use, even though all my programs were off and the light on the hard drive was off. After two weeks, I decided to work on my Surface Pro 4 so I removed the USB connection from my other computer, which was off. My Surface Pro did not recognize the hard drive and I could not access anything. I powered down the Surface Pro and tried to open my files on my original computer. That computer suddenly said that access to the external hard drive was denied, and it also switched port names from H to I - meaning that somehow it no longer recognized H as being an available/active port. Now I could not access my files on either computer. I was very upset as I had my last two weeks of graphic design work on the hard drive. My husband tried to access the files on his computer, which runs Windows 7. We were able to see the files, but could not access them. Unfortunately, it was the weekend and, guess what? SEAGATE SUPPORT IS NOT OPEN ON WEEKENDS - which is totally ridiculous because people should not have to wait two days to get help accessing their files. On Monday, I called Seagate support and for the next two hours, a support tech took over my computer. He finally was able to re-establish connection to my files, but he told me to copy them to another hard drive somewhere and then to re-format the Seagate hard drive, thereby wiping it clean, and re-using it. He said that the problem with the drive not ejecting was probably that back ground programs were still running. He had me shut down the "move files to the recycle bin" and instead have deleted files automatically permanently be deleted (so no chance to save them if you mistakenly delete). He said that the recycle bin working in the background could be why the drive could not be ejected and why I had to wait until the entire computer was turned off to remove the drive. While in my computer - via remote link - he checked all the permissions. I had full permissions to access the drive, so that wasn't the problem. He checked the ports and all were fine. The problem was with the Seagate. He told me that the hard drive was corrupt but that re-formatting it would fix it. He assured me that could use the hard drive on different computers. So, for the past week, I have been working using the drive, which seemed to be fine. Until I tried to eject it on Friday night to use on my Surface Pro. No go. Even after waiting an hour, it would not eject. So, I shut down the computer and waited. Later, I turned on the Surface Pro wtih the Seagate attached and, guess what? Access was denied. Not only that, but I could not even find reference to 90% of the files I had copied to it - nor to the new files I had created over the past week. Because we could see the files on my husband's Windows 7 computer, I took the Seagate to it. Unfortunately, it did not show any of the files either. AND BECAUSE SEAGATE SUPPORT IS CLOSED ON THE WEEKENDS, I had to resolve myself to wait until Monday morning to get help. I did write to Seagate - and got a very nice email back from their overseas support that said I should probably send the drive in for an exchange as obviously something is wrong with it. The email then went on to explain that I could ask Seagate to recover my lost files for me - FOR $550.00 plus a $40.00 access fee!!!! So I waited until Monday morning and called Seagate Support - and listened to a message that said basically, "Sorry, we're closed for the holiday (MLK Day). Call back tomorrow." Click. Absolutely the WORST customer support for any computer related company, IMO. Meanwhile, I went to Staples and spoke with their techs. They reassured me that Seagate makes good products (which I had believed) and agreed with the first Seagate tech support person I spoke with the first time the thing broke down that I had probably received a bad drive (a lemon). It is now Monday afternoon and I not only have not been able to work because I need the files I created last week, but I am afraid to install the new personal cloud storage on my home network I purchased because I don't want to change anything that might affect the Seagate - which I am hoping a service tech will be able to access tomorrow (3 days later) and save my work for me before I wipe the thing clean and send it back for a re-fund.

Basic summary: the first 2 TB drive suitable for laptops -- eminently so. It's fast and all but dead silent. I bought this to scavenge for the internal drive (oddly enough, this sells for less than the bare Seagate M9T drive it contains). The fact that I got a compact USB 3.0 enclosure is a plus. I simply copied my data onto it, opened up the case (opens easily enough with a small slot screwdriver to pry the aluminum top away from the plastic bottom, peel back a few pieces of aluminum tape, carefully pull the drive out, pull the USB adapter off the standard SATA connector), put the new drive in my laptop, and put the old one in the enclosure. I replaced the aluminum tape as carefully as I could. The adhesive holding the case together's shot, but it snaps together solidly enough. The only potential problem is whether the aluminum tape is part of the thermal management, and if it will overheat. Worst comes to worst, I roach an old 500 GB disk that I don't care too much about and still come out ahead in the bargain. But at least initially the repurposed enclosure works fine. It's considerably more convenient doing the drive swap without a USB enclosure. While my laptop has two drive slots plus an mSATA, it would have been a multi-step process involving opening the laptop three times to shuffle disks around. The disk itself is all but silent. Even when copying lots of small files onto it and doing a diff (both of which tend to make the drive seek), I had difficulty hearing it even when I tried hard (the drive it replaces is louder). Performance-wise, looks fine. As a SATA drive, the sequential read is a bit faster (128 vs. 106 MB/sec) and sequential write quite a lot faster (98 vs. 57 MB/sec). It's possible that that difference is due to the operating system (mounting USB disks as fully synchronous for safety), though. It's a little faster than the 1 TB drive it replaced, perhaps less so than might be expected, but I'm not seeing any evidence that the firmware was crippled on it or anything.

Silenzioso, velocità nella norma per un disco meccanico usb 3.0, cavo lungo una trentina di centimetri. Ho trasferito un tera di dati e non ho sentito nessun "click" strano (che non è indicativo ma è un suono che evoca brutti ricordi)

It's very nice working. easee to carry.

Good product

Estupenda compra.

I got this on special when it was advertised on OzBargain website in Australia. It has 5TB of space and great speed with USB 3.0 interface. This is a portable drive, so no power brick is needed. It's thicker than my old drives and the USB 3.0 cable is a bit short, but it functions perfectly for what I bought it, which is storing large video files!