My previous review was for an older model 2TB Seagate Backup Plus External Hard Drive I bought and returned in June, 2014. Don't know why Amazon is lumping this New 4TB Drive review in with the old.
This review is for the Seagate 4TB USB 3.0 Backup Plus External HD for Mac I bought 12/30/2015 at Amazon and received 01/03/2016:
I love it! Pure and simple.
It works perfectly with my new iMac's Time Machine backup. Just plug it into a USB 3.0 port, there's a power transformer/plug as well, then click on the prompts to use Time Machine Backup, how often to backup and what to backup, and you are good to go. It works silently in the background as it goes about its business. Unlike earlier models from Seagate, this one comes on and shuts off when it's supposed to: for scheduled backups every hour, or when you tell it to backup now. Very unobtrusive. And, 4TB for less than I paid for 2TB two years ago! Outstanding!
The USB 3.0 port, the HD's only connector
Seagate Backup Plus 4TB Desktop External Hard Drive for Mac with 200GB of Cloud Storage & Mobile Device Backup USB 3.0 (STDU4000100)
, is as fast or faster than the old Firewire 800 or Ethernet connections between my old iMac & Seagate backup HD. It's also comparable in speed to my Seagate 1TB portable Lightning External Backup HD I use with my MacBook Pro laptop.
You can also drag or move files to the drive as well. They go onto the drive's desktop or into a folder you create and move them to.
You can use it as an additional storage hard drive by clicking that prompt, but why? Just get an expansion hard drive with as much as 8TB instead. There ARE instructions on how to format and use this drive with a Windows PC, but again, why? Buy the Windows backup drive. It also has models with more memory.
I've been using the HD for a week now as I load new software and update it all to work with El Capitan. (My old iMac is still running 10.7, so everything had to be updated. PITA!) It seamlessly backs everything up using Time Machine and I couldn't be more pleased with it.
I am not going to use the 200GB of "free" OneDrive Cloud Storage for 2 years. So I can't review that. You have to pay for the space after the 2 years. Seagate says it's a $95 value. So I'm guessing $45 - $50 a year after that? I wonder how difficult it is to transfer what you have stored in the cloud with one vendor to cloud storage with a different vendor?
I highly recommend this Hard Drive. It's much improved and a joy to use.
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Old Review for Seagate 2TB External Backup Drive:
This is a good Seagate drive, at least I think so. I have two older Macs, an iMac and a MacBook Pro. Neither has USB 3.0. I tried to back up my laptop from scratch. Using USB 2.0 Time Machine said it would take 4 days! So, I asked Seagate what I could use besides USB. I was told there was an adapter with which I could use either Thunderbolt or Firewire 800. Wrong!
There are no Seagate adapters that fit this drive. The only port the drive has is a Micro B port. The cable is a Micro B to USB 3.0.
There are no work-arounds. If you don't have a Mac with a USB 3.0 port, you are screwed.
LIke my other Seagate external drive that I use on my iMac, it starts and stops at totally unpredictable moments. I have to unplug it so it doesn't run for hours. It will spool up and run continuously for hours even after it backs up the computer. It gets very hot that way. This drive seems to behave the same way.
PS: the Mac Time Machine software was corrupted the second time I used it. First Aid wouldn't fix it, so I sent the hard drive back and bought a 1Tb portable Seagate drive with Thunderbolt adapter. Hopefully it will work.
| Hard Drive | 3 TB Desktop |
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