Features:

  • Store and access 2TB of photos and files on the go with Seagate Backup Plus Slim, an external hard drive for Mac and Windows
  • This portable external hard drive features a minimalist brushed metal enclosure, and is a stylish USB drive
  • Simply plug this USB external hard drive into a Mac or Windows computer via the included USB 3.0 cable to back up files with a single click or schedule automatic daily, weekly, or monthly backups
  • Edit, manage, and share photos with a one-year complimentary subscription to Mylio Create and a two-month membership to Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan
  • Enjoy long-term peace of mind with the included two-year limited warranty
easy to set up; huge capacity for backups; very quiet

I own several computers including a PC desktop and several laptops all with the Windows 10 OS. I like to have a dedicated portable hard drive for each one for backup purposes. I ordered this Seagate 5 TB drive to backup my desktop computer. The drive arrives nicely and securely boxed. Included is a short USB 3.0 cable. It is powered off the USB port of your computer, so no separate power source is needed. Installation of the drive is simple and requires no separate drivers. The drive itself is pretty small and compact given its huge storage capacity. After registering the drive online you are offered the opportunity to download a trial version of MylioCreate, software that helps you organize photos, and a trial version of Adobe Creative Cloud, which enables you to use Photoshop and Lightroom to edit digital photos online. Both of these are trials only, and you have to pay a monthly fee after the trial, so I did not bother with either of them. During registration you can download Seagate’s free Toolkit software that enables you to make basic backups with your new drive, which I did download. If you run the Toolkit it will offer the option to reformat the drive for optimal performance with Windows, although you will lose compatibility with the Mac OS if you do so. I initially used this drive to create a system image of my desktop computer and plan to create separate backups for my documents, photos, and music files. The 5 TB capacity provides ample space to create additional backups over time. After optimizing the drive for Windows it seems to transfer data very quickly. It operates pretty silently. Seagate has a reputation for quality, and I anticipate this Seagate drive will hold up well over time for my intended purpose. In summary, this Seagate 5 TB external hard drive is a great option for backing up your data. Its huge capacity provides ample room to backup one or even multiple computers and performs well. When compared with other large capacity external hard drives it appears to be price competitive, too. I highly recommend it. I try to write informative product reviews. If you have found my review to be useful, please let me know by clicking on the “Helpful” link.

Adequate for backup

This is a no-frills external USB 3.0 drive. It is well suited mostly for backup operations but can also be useable for moving large files around. It won't be as quick or as durable as more expensive solid state disk, but you can get a lot of capacity for a reasonable price. The 2TB model appears to be the sweet spot. The drive is powered by the PC that it is plugged into and will work with slower USB 2.0 ports too. I tested the drive on both a Mac and Windows PC. Transfer rates coming in at about 100 megabytes per second in both directions, competitive with other mechanical drives I have tested. You'll see about 3-5x that performance on solid state, but you won't be able to buy 2TB of solid state media for $70 :).

Great USB external storage drive at a bargain price, great for storing movies videos, other files.

Great Price for an external hard drive with 2 TB of storage. That is twice what is on my laptop secondary storage drive, and that is getting too full. I can off load the files I want to keep and have access to them when traveling and such. In the past my old laptops had a Blu ray or other drive, but the software to play was always buggy. Having downloads which are available to use off the streaming services work well if you travel and end up with weak WIFI signals that discourage streaming at some hotels. Additionally, this is a high quality drive and runs on USB format 3.0/2.0 for decent speed and even my older laptops support without needing an exotic Thunderbolt type of high speed port which only one of my PC's laptop or desktop has. Only a few years ago this drive may have cost three to four times as much had this size even been available. Recommended.

Large capacity storage and easy to use.

Large capacity storage and easy to use. Had not had to contact tech support (yet). Just started using it, but seems to be well built and should last a long time.

support apps

Be sure to use the access applications a few times to be really familiar with what it does.

A good fast, compact and very useful storage drive.

The best thing about this drive is that it works easily out of the box with both my Windows and MacOS computers. I can easily switch back and forth between machines, so I can work at the office on my Mac, save my work to the external drive, and retrieve the files when I get home on my Windows laptop. A lot of other drives boast this capability, but this is the first one I've used that actually does it flawlessly. Data transfers speeds are not mind bending, but they are acceptable. The drive is silent in operation. It can get a bit warm when transferring large files! It is compact enough to fit almost anywhere - a shirt pocket, the small concealed compartment on the dash of my car, or any of the small stow pockets in my backpack and messenger bags. Overall this is a great product: I give it an A for portability and efficiency, a B for data transfer speed. The unit comes with a USB cord, but it is very short.

Amazingly Small Drive

I own 2 other 5 TB drives (both from Western Digital) that I've had for 2-3 years, and they're nearly as large as a hardback book and require external power. They are definitely not portable, and sit on the edge of my desk, 1 for my primary photo storage, and 1 as a backup. Technically, I should move the backup and store it elsewhere, but I haven't bothered to do that because it means crawling under the desk to unplug it, and I'm sort of lazy about it... This new 5 TB drive from Seagate is incredibly small, fitting easily on the palm of my hand, and requires no external power. A short USB cord is included, and there are no external indicators on the drive to indicate whether it is working. I loaded the included software, but decided to backup my usual way - by opening two windows of File Explorer and dragging the folders I want to back up from the primary drive to the backup drive. I tested the Seagate drive by backing up 2 folders of images, totaling about 55GB, and it took just over an hour. I'm not sure how this compares to the backup speed of my other drives, but it's not really a concern, as I was able to continue working in Lightroom and browsing the internet via several other tabs while the backup was running. I won't use the included trial version of Mylio since I use Lightroom for all my photo organization and most of my editing. I do appreciate the two free months of Adobe Creative Cloud since I'm already a committed user of Lightroom and Photoshop. The included activation code extended my existing CC license by 2 months. The Seagate drive is definitely a handy form factor, and the small size means I'll be able to bring it along on trips when I take a lot of photos and need a portable storage solution to backup my laptop. I've always had good service from my Seagate drives; in fact I probably have several 500GB drives that I no longer use because I've moved on to larger versions...

Small Footprint, Large Capacity

I have to confess, I have bought these small backup drives for years and never used the pre-programmed software that came with it. I just want to back up my files. This time I was determined to use it to see how it worked. First: this is physically about the size of my hand (with fingers; I have small hands) and heavier than the 1TB drives I have bought previously. Nice and solid. The connecting cord is short as usual. It was immediately plug-and-play, and I registered it. Then I started the backup software. This worked okay, except it took forever. I usually back up my hard drive once a month, and via USB it takes two hours. This one went on for hours, to the point I had to stop it by shutting off the computer at bedtime; it continued backing up for an hour. It did back up my files on my separate D: drive, and also my entire e-mail folder. But it also backed up my C: drive with my Windows setup on it--what's with that? Anyone knows that if your computer crashes, it is better to just reformat and reload. That way you get junk and possible malicious software off as well. So maybe that's why it took so long to back up, it was copying all those Windows files. Not interested in using the other software, but a small 5TB backup for this price is good bang for your buck! I remember years ago (late 90s) when hubby and I bought a 300MB hard drive for $300 and we thought that was a bargain!

very small and thin; plenty of storage capacity

I ordered this Seagate 2 TB slim portable USB external hard drive to use with a slim Dell laptop computer with Windows 10 and an internal 256 GB SSD. I own several Seagate portable drives ranging from 1-4 TB in size, and they have always been very reliable. This 2 TB drive is perfect for this particular laptop to store large amounts of data without clogging up the SSD. The drive is physically very small and thin. It is smaller than all of my other external hard drives and is not a whole lot larger than a deck of playing cards. It would fit easily into a pants pocket or backpack. Included with this drive is a short USB connecting cable. It was not necessary to install any software to get it up and running on my laptop, although during online registration Seagate does provide a link for their Toolkit software (a basic backup program that mirrors data on the hard drive) and options to download trial versions of photo & video organizational software and Adobe photography software. I installed the Toolkit but didn’t bother with the other software since they require paid subscriptions after the trial period. There is ample storage room on this drive to make backups of my data and store photos, videos, and music long with an image of the SSD for recovery purposes. This is not the fastest USB drive I have ever used, but it is fast enough for my purposes. Its gray color matches the color of my laptop, and its small size makes for easy storage in my laptop carry case. Overall, I’m very pleased with this Seagate external hard drive. It meets my purposes very well, and with its current selling price on Amazon it is also very price competitive for a drive with this amount of storage. I try to write informative product reviews. If you have found my review to be useful, please let me know by clicking on the “Helpful” link.

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