Seagate Backup Slim 2TB
Seagate remains one of the biggest names in storage and, even with the rise of cloud storage, there’s still a call for a reliable portable hard drive. As with many hard drives, the Backup Slim is available in a range of capacities so you can choose from 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and a rather large 4TB. We tested the 2TB model.
An obvious advantage is that the Backup Plus Slim is a very portable drive that will happily travel around with you in a bag or even your pocket. It’s 12.1mm thick, weighs 140g, and is available in blue, red, black or silver. We like the stylish metal cover on the top, with its brushed finish and the slightly raised logo in the corner. There’s also a thin slit that houses an LED, though there are no physical buttons for backup, so you’ll need to use the provided software. Our only real gripes with the design and build are that the drive could do with some feet on the bottom to stop it sliding around, and the supplied cable is short at 45cm.
Software
The Backup Plus Slim is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS X computers. You can just plug it in and leave it since the NTFS driver is preloaded on the drive.
Also preloaded on the drive is the Seagate Dashboard software, and it’s here that you can back up the files on your computer. You can use the predefined ‘Protect Now’ button or set up your own plan to select which folders are backed up and when.
You can also back up content from your mobile device to the drive (and the cloud if you wish), provided you use the available Seagate Backup app for iOS or Android. Using the app, you can select the content you want to back up, including media, messages and contacts.
Interestingly, you can also automatically save your social photos and videos from either Facebook or Flickr. Once you’ve approved access, it puts everything in a folder on the drive called ‘My Online Documents’.
Performance
The Backup Plus Slim isn’t just a good-looking drive, with the 2.5in SATA hard disk inside providing decent speeds, while staying silent.
In our headline sequential speed tests of the near-empty disk, it could read and write at more than 142MB/s, which is faster than the impressive Transcend StoreJet 25M3. That easily surpasses the 100- to 110MB/s we usually find with 5400rpm drives.
That’s all well and good for simple file transfers, but what about smaller files involved with backup? The Seagate provided a common read speed of 0.45MB/s with an impressive 1.2MB/s write.
These tests were all carried out using USB 3.0 and when you look at how much the speeds drop if you switch to USB 2.0, you’ll know why you’ll want this drive plugged into a blue port. Sequential read and write speeds of just over 30MB/s are significantly slower.
Verdict
The Backup Plus Slim is a wellrounded portable hard drive that offers good value for money, design and speed. PC and Mac compatibility out-of-the-box is a handy feature and the Seagate Dashboard software is easy to use. There’s very little to dislike here.