Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Seagate Backup Plus FireWire 800/USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive for Mac

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2012

I really enjoy products that make my life simpler, and the Seagate Backup Plus series of hard drives do just that. I have both the 2TB and the 3TB versions, and they have both worked perfectly since plugging them into my new Mac Mini. No setup, just plug them in and start backing up. They are very quiet when in use (to be honest I've never heard anything from either one), and don't seem to put out any heat. I like the rubbery finish, and they feel very well made. I use an excellent backup program called Carbon Copy Cloner, well worth the money.

I will say, however, that there are a few minor issues I will mention (minor enough to not deduct a point).

Fist, it would be nice if they included some kind of a small stand, because these stand up just like a small book, and it's a little to easy to knock them over. It hasn't really been a problem for me because I have them located behind my monitor, out of the way, but I have to be extra careful when I'm hooking something else into the system. But again, that's really only a very minor quibble.

Second, the 2TB model came without the USB 2.0 cable. Not a huge issue, as I am using these with the included Firewire 800 cable, but a little annoying that it wasn't included as specified. The 3 TB model did come with both the Firewire and USB cables. Again, a pretty minor quibble.

Third, because these use an AC/DC transformer (wall wart), they take up an extra space when plugged into my UPS, so it would be nice if they would include a short AC cable from the transformer to the AC outlet, thus taking up only one space instead of two.

So, only very minor issues, and not enough to stand in the way of me highly recommending the Seagate Backup Plus series of hard drives as an excellent and easy to use value for the Mac user.

Edit (September 5, 2013). Almost a year, and no problems. It's nice to have equipment that works quietly in the background, never requiring attention. Good stuff.

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Steve K.

Nice size for the price. Amazon's packing leaves something to be desired, but they work well to replace if damaged in shipping.

Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2013

Verified Purchase

Despite the horrible packing job by the people in Amazon's distribution facility, I finally received a working drive. The first one evidently got banged around quite a bit en route, so it made LOTS of noise when I plugged it in and then every 30 seconds to a minute thereafter. If you order from Amazon, it comes in a cardboard box barely bigger than the drive itself with only one or two of those pillow cushion things shoved on one side of it to absorb the bumps and bangs. It is clearly insufficient. One corner of the drive box itself was crushed in a bit showing it had taken quite a hit at some point.

Despite the shipping, I will say that, so far, this drive does a pretty good job. It spins up a little bit slowly when it wakes back up from sleep, so that can be pretty annoying while you wait on it. It goes to sleep pretty often...after about probably 5 minutes or so...and anything you do in the OS from opening Spotlight, to opening a new Finder window, to opening Dashboard makes it wake back up. There are times it wakes from sleep when I really don't need it to at all. I suspect it is because I have Spotlight indexing it as well, but if I am going to put files on it, then I want it to be indexed. It is the slowdown when trying to do anything after it has gone to sleep that made me take off a star on the device. If it came up quicker, I would put 5 stars no problem.

I have it plugged into a USB 2.0 port on my late 2009 iMac, so I am obviously not seeing the USB 3.0 speeds that it is supposed to be capable of, so I cannot comment on its speed from that standpoint. Otherwise, it appears to run at full 2.0 speeds. I wish the replacement modules for the base weren't $50. I really would like to swap this USB 3.0 one to a Firewire 800, but if it is going to cost $50, then I most definitely will not be doing it. That is just stupid expensive.

There are indicator lights on the base of the drive which shows you how full it is. They can be turned off via the software that comes with the drive. There is no way to adjust how much time passes before the drive spins down for sleep mode. I wish there was.

Anyway, overall, I would say that this drive works pretty well. I would like to see the price drop by quite a bit, but that will take time. You don't have to do anything at all to configure it for a Mac. It just works straight out of the box when you plug it in. I had it out and had Time Machine sync with it within about 5 minutes I would say. The capacity reported by finder is 4TB. Disk Utility says total capacity is 4 TB (4,000,787,025,920 Bytes). I would say it is a good drive. It is very big and, knock on wood, appears to be reliable so far.

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Farmboy34

Using as Time Capsule, So Far, So Good

Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2013

Verified Purchase

I'm just using this as a time capsule for an older macbook. I had a lot of pictures and videos that I wanted to back up and needed a safe place to hold a lot of stuff. I decided to get this one when it was a gold box (or maybe lightning) deal because I've got several older Seagate drives that I use for my iMac that haven't given me one bit of problem.

It was pretty simple to set up and use. Pulled it out of the box, plugged in the power, plugged in the usb, it was recognized and mounted right away. I went through the set up for Time Capsule and it got to work. Of course the first backup took a while but everything since has been just a few minutes. Obviously since I'm using this with a macbook it doesn't stay plugged in and powered on all the time. I jack it in once a week or so when I'm recharging the computer. Easy as pie.

There are a few things that you should probably know...it only comes with a FireWire 800. Not a 8/6 or some other converting cable to work with the older spec. That sucked for the first backup because I didn't have a spare sitting around and had to use USB which seemed to take forever (only a couple hours for about 120GB backup). Since that first one though the USB has been just fine. As I said, only a couple minutes from jacking it in to unmounting it when it's done its thing.

It is loud. That surprised me because the other seagate drives I have run pretty quietly. Because I use it pretty infrequently it seems like the discs are always spinning and making a bit of noise. Maybe it's fans, I'm not sure, but something is definitely humming. But I tend to notice and get distracted by things like that.

Regardless of those things, it's working perfectly for my application. I recommend if you can get it at a good price.

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Lifesprings

Bought 2, both blew up!

Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2013

Capacity: 2 TBStyle: USB 3.0Verified Purchase

This is a horrible drive. I bought one in early July because it had all the features I wanted at a reasonable price. It sounded so good! Within 15 minutes after it was out of the box and registered, it became a blithering idiot, totally worthless. I thought I had done something wrong, but I followed all directions and checked in with a tech expert. I decided that I just got a dud and that such things just happen sometimes. Seagate has such a good reputation it surely would not happen again. How wrong I was! I got a second one and felt great when it immediately began working quietly and efficiently on my Mac, backing up using the Time Machine, which it said it was especially programmed for. That went on for about 2 1/2 months. This morning I woke up hearing a very loud humming sound in my office. I discovered the drive had ejected itself and would not come up in the finder. I unplugged, rested it, and then replugged and saw my Final Cut projects on the drive, as well as the backups--yeah, that was a bad arrangement, but that's the way it was! I was in danger of losing my entire Final Cut library, which I had been working on for months with a new DVD! I knew I had probably just had a premonition of death for the drive. So I unplugged and went to buy two more drives, both 2TB, both LaCie--no more Seagates for me--ever! I plugged them in and then turned on the Seagate. Now my project files had disappeared, but the backups were still on there. I transferred only the Final Cut files, Events and Projects, which took about an hour. I looked to see that they were safe in Final Cut Pro, and as soon as I confirmed they were all on the new drive, the old Seagate revved up like a plane taking off, ejected itself and died. That's as close as I ever want to come to disarming a ticking time bomb! I attribute the saving of my files to 21st century high tech ANGELS! If you don't have plenty of them around, don't buy this drive!

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skeletonbears

Loved it, bought three

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2014

Verified Purchase

Alright, let's start with addressing those bad reviews: I'm running Mac OSX 10.9 on a new MacBook Pro, and haven't had any problems. If you are having problems, try disabling power-nap in Energy Settings. Problem solved.

Now, let's get to the good stuff. It's unbelievable that 4TB can be this affordable, and this fast: if your computer has USB3, this is crazy fast.

If you're wondering, this drive does require a power outlet to work; I used to think this was a downside, but after running some speed tests, this drive is waaaaaay faster when compared to the USB-powered-only drives, even with USB3. Now I won't buy a Passport-style drive ever again.

These drives have been the only thing to help make working with RED video footage doable. If you're dealing with lots of video or media files, you'll be blown away at how nice this is if you're coming from older drives And yes, it is technically slower than Thunderbolt, but in practice I've found that it's not slower by much. And Thunderbolt is still way too expensive, and not supported by many computers, so this is a clear winner.

I would recommend this drive to anyone; I even bought one for a friend as a Christmas present. I do a lot of work with audio and video, and I burn through space very quickly. I'm finally getting caught up and organized thanks to these hard-drives. And I sleep easier, because backing up a computer now takes hours instead of days. After seeing how excited I was with mine, my roommate (a Windows guy) bought one and has had good luck with his as well.

Seriously, I never expected to be so excited about a hard drive, but it has made my digital life so much more manageable. Do it!

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Oneoff

Both Good and Bad - easy but noisy

Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2012

Capacity: 3 TBStyle: USB 3.0Verified Purchase

I got this about three weeks ago to use as a Time Machine for my iMac and as backup for video files which are also on an external 1.5Tb HD (Western Digital) on my PC. My problem was that I couldn't get to the videos from my Mac to edit them so this Seagate seemed perfect. I could have an external Time Machine, copy the video files from the isolated WD HD so they would be backed up, and I could edit from the Seagate. Brilliant.

And all that works great. I had no trouble installing on the Mac and creating two partitions, one for the Time Machine and one for Videos, no trouble downloading the PC driver (just remember to restart to make the new drive visible), no trouble transferring files by plugging the Seagate into the PC and just copying files from the WD to it. It all just works. Excellent and 5 stars so far. Oh, I copied the Dashboard so as not to erase it, but haven't even tried to use it. Not my area of interest.

My problem which perhaps someone can help with is this: While the Time Machine is set to backup every hour, the Seagate HD makes a small squawking sound and revs up every few minutes. I haven't tried to see if there is a fixed interval but my impression is not. The high-pitched sound while it runs is enough to add some ambient stress to my quiet workspace but worse is the startup, with the little squawk and the revving up, sound with the rapidly rising pitch. I actually don't remember the squawk happening when it was brand new. That makes me nervous because new noises in mechanical devices are not usually a good sign.

Perhaps I am spoiled by the WD, which as far as I can tell is absolutely silent. I love it.

The Seagate noise/startup happens even when the computer is in sleep mode. Last night while I was noticing this it happened 3x in about 10 minutes. When I turn it off the HD goes off (well, the light does, so I assume it does) and this behavior does not happen, thank goodness.

Are the startup squawk and the random startups signs of a defective unit? Are there adjustments I can make? How can I get it to be dormant except for hourly backups?

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Neurasthenic

A nice improvement over my Western Digital MyStudio Pro II

Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2012

Capacity: 2 TBStyle: USB 2.0Verified Purchase

I bought this to replace a Western Digital My Book Studio II that had begun to disconnect from my computer randomly. For a backup drive, that's worrying. I was delighted to see that this Seagate Backup Plus takes less than half the space of the My Book Studio II, makes much less noise, costs less, and stores 50% more data. It's not strictly an apples-to-apples comparison, as the My Book Studio II is designed to hold two drives rather than one, but as it is not designed to allow the user to upgrade the storage after purchase, and I do not want to run a redundant array, there is no advantage to the dual-drive design.

The drive comes with a remarkably slick bit of registration software that detects the drive's serial number so you don't have to locate and transcribe the tiny numbers on the drive itself. The drive is totally silent while running; there is no fan or vibration that I can detect. This is a real change from my previous drive.

The marketing material for this drive makes a big deal of the drive being "Time Machine Ready." This is less impressive than they would have you believe; any drive can be used with Time Machine. 30 seconds with Disk Utility may be needed to reformat some drives, but it would be silly to pay extra for that "feature".

I've uploaded a photo comparing the size of this drive to a couple of other external drives, for those who care about aesthetics or portability.

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Optymizer

The drive is fine, the micro-USB connector is faulty

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2013

Capacity: 3 TBStyle: USB 3.0Verified Purchase

I purchased the USB 3.0 version in December of 2012 and I immediately noticed it had a major problem: the micro-USB 3 connector is bad. I should have returned it then, but I didn't, so now I'm stuck with it.

The drive itself appears to be working fine, that's why I gave it 2 stars. The micro-USB 3 issue ruins the entire product though.

The cable has a regular USB 3 connector on one end (where it plugs into the computer) and a micro-USB 3 connector on the other end (where it plugs into the hard drive enclosure). The micro-USB 3 connection is unstable (it wiggles at the slightest movement of the cable), and when the cable is moved even a little bit, the connection is reset and the drive will appear/disappear from Finder or Windows Explorer.

If you keep moving or touching the cable, it will keep mounting/unmounting. Different OS's react differently to this: OS X 10.7 unmounted the drive permanently. Windows 7 re-mounts it in read-only mode.

So far, my only strategy was to make absolutely sure nothing touches or moves that cable after I plug it into the USB port on my laptop. Usually, that means running the cable under the enclosure, so that the weight of the drive lies on the USB cable.

Finally, for those who aren't developers, no software update will solve this issue. This is a physical problem with the connector. They may attempt to mask the issue in software, but the drive's USB connection will always be reset when the cable is moved. This might explain why some people don't see issues with it: if it's plugged into a desktop or a USB hub that doesn't move, then the microUSB connector doesn't wiggle, and it works just fine. For everyone else: DON'T TOUCH THE USB CABLE.

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I know this is a 'for Mac' drive, but I have a FAT32 partition on it to use with Windows. Here's what happens in Windows:

If the cable is moved, Windows 7 will eventually think something's wrong with the drive and will mount it read-only. it's easy to see if it does so, by opening the drive to see its contents, right clicking and checking to see if there's a 'New' menu option. If there's no 'New', it's mounted as read-only.

You can fix this by right clicking on the disk, going to Properties->Tools->Error Checking: Check now... which will launch chkdsk. After the disk is checked, Windows 7 will re-mount it in read/write mode and you can continue to use it normally. Just don't touch the cable.

P.S. I'm going to see if I can find a different SATA -> USB cable. Maybe I'll purchase a SATA -> Thunderbolt cable. I'm not sure what to do about the power supply. Hopefully, I'll update this review when I find a solution.

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J. Parkes

Updated review after nearly two years of constant use.

Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2012

Capacity: 2 TBStyle: USB 2.0Verified Purchase

This is just a preliminary review after the first 24 hours.
The enclosure is smaller than i expected, it has a super nice silicone like feel to the case though it is not made from silicone or rubber.
The design is a lot better than the pictures show, it's a handsome piece. The LED for power and working status is not intrusive at all, in fact while working it actually dims and returns to normal instead of flashing like a police car, and that's a welcome relief...when the drive is not being accessed or used the power status LED goes to sleep.
It's about the size of a standard paperback book, the intake vents are on the botton, while exhaust is out through the top in a nice looking metal grill. It doesn't get warm...not even to the touch, you can feel a temperature rise just enough to know it's working. The power cord is nothing special, the plug end has a small case similar to a cell phone, i've seen smaller, but it isn't a burden in your power strip.

The speed is great through the Firewire 800 port on my iMac, i use a SSD in my computer for the OS and all my software programs, the external drive is for mass data storage...everything but the OS and programs i use. So far the 128 gig SSD is roomy enough...but i can add another if needs be.
I let the Imac use the drive as the Time Machine storage drive to see the speed...it's not my backup drive, just a test...the timer for the time machine backup rose to about five hours...i had some worry there...but the backup completed in under forty minutes for the first run, i triggered a second backup and it completed in about ten minutes...perfect.
I question the use of drives exceeding 1TB as data loss from drive failure would just be that much more of a problem, if this model came with 1TB i would have chosen it instead. I would rather have multiple 1TB drives than 1~3TB drive for safety...daisy chaining 1TB drives through Firewire800 is simple and safer. It's the reason i did not give five stars. Adding a 1TB option would have been simple.

So far so good, i'll update failures immediately, otherwise an update prior to about three months seems premature...

UPDATE June 9, 2014
After heavy use every day since i purchased it in sept of 2012 my drive developed a glitch that required i reformat to repair...until a few days ago it was perfect. I ordered the same drive although updated to current tech standards, it too was a 2 tb drive. I installed the new drive and used it to backup the contents of the original...after reformatting the original it is working perfectly again and i now have two of these reliable drives running on my system.
Was i disappointed in the drive? No...it's been a stellar performer. Are there better drives out there? perhaps, but this one works so well and for so long without trouble i went with the same product again...no regrets with either purchase.

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G. Chase

Software -YUCK, Drive OK

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2012

Capacity: 2 TBStyle: USB 2.0Verified Purchase

I purchased this Seagate STCB2000100 last week, and installed it Friday. Whoops, big mistake if there is a problem, no support after 4PM CT until Monday. As soon as I installed the software my MAC w/OSX 10.8 (Mountain Lion) crashed, and it has only opened 2 times since, otherwise I get a frozen mouse and keyboard. I did write Seagate asking how to uninstall the software, prepared to wait til Monday by now. Yesterday, Saturday, I get a response telling me that I can use the drive w/o software, but no instructions how to get it uninstalled. Instead a diatribe on using Time Machine, which I said I didn't want to use, and link to chat, on Monday. In the meantime I am able to use my clone/backup of 10.7.4 (Lion) while I try to get 10.8 stable again. It has come alive 2 times and whenI restart, it is gone again! I am not only disappointed, but totally angry that someone responded with the wrong answer and won't write back. If this isn't resolved Monday AM, Amazon gets it back. (With a Chick fil A sandwich) Seagate Backup Plus 2 TB FireWire 800/USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive for Mac STCB2000100

This is an update to the previous review. There was a problem with the software, and it should not have taken from Friday until Tuesday to find out how to uninstall it properly. I was told by someone at Seagate that all I had to do is drag the app to the trash. WRONG! There are preferences too, like most OS X Software. I could have saved days had I been told that. Most OS X software has little files all over. The final culprit was my HP PSC 2210 All-in-One printer. There was an update, however, it made it worse. I know better understand why Apple is approving all software and requiring it to be listed through the App Store. At the same time I installed the Seagate, an app update for HP came through via Apple. IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!!!!

I have upgraded my review to 3 stars mainly because of he long time to get a response from Seagate. From all indications the drive itself seems to be fine, a 2TB ext HD, Firewire 800. If not for the software and that dummy over the weekend it would be a 4 or 5.

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