Seagate Backup Plus 4TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive Review

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INTRODUCTION

USB flash drives may be the to go solution for most consumers looking for a compact storage media device with plenty of storage capacity to carry their files around with them but portable hard drives are still unsurpassed in terms of capacity and in many cases even reliability. Sure there are even 1TB USB flash drive models currently available in the market many of which are much faster than any mechanical drive out there and offer exceptional MTBF numbers but when it comes to price per GB there's simply nothing better than a classic portable hard drive. This of course goes double now since the very first 4TB 2.5" USB 3.0 PHD models made their debut a couple of months back by Seagate and Samsung and although we weren't certain of just what to expect from these new drives the Backup Plus 4TB by Seagate arrived in the lab just in time to alleviate our concerns.



Founded in 1979, Seagate is the leading provider of hard drives and storage solutions. From the videos, music and documents we share with friends and family on social networks, to servers that form the backbone of enterprise data centers and cloud-based computing, to desktop and notebook computers that fuel our personal productivity, Seagate products help more people store, share and protect their valuable digital content. Seagate offers the industry’s broadest portfolio of hard disk drives, solid-state drives and solid-state hybrid drives. In addition, the company offers an extensive line of retail storage products for consumers and small businesses, along with data-recovery services for any brand of hard drive and digital media type. Seagate employs more than 50,000 people around the world.



The Backup Plus 4TB portable hard drive by Seagate consists by a 15mm thick Seagate/Samsung Momentus ST4000LM016 2.5" SATA III HDD (features five 800GB platters with a rotational speed of 5400RPM and 16MB of cache) housed inside a USB 3.0 compatible enclosure. The Momentus drive used may be the very first 4TB 2.5" drive in the market but Seagate didn't stop there and so with the Backup Plus 4TB they also provide a two year warranty, two year 200GB OneDrive subscription, complete compatibility with the Lyve App (you can use it to collect, organize and enjoy your photos and videos) and finally via their mobile backup app you can use it to backup all your mobile data. Unfortunately since Seagate doesn't share much about the Momentus 4TB drive (just the basics mentioned earlier) it's up to us to check and see just how fast it is.