Conclusion:

Seagate has put out a large number of external hard drives over the last few years, and I'll admit that it can be hard to distinguish one from the other given all of the names, configurations, and so on. With the Backup Plus line up they seem to have taken the best features of many of these recent drives, dropped the confusing nomenclature, and made it clear exactly what you can/should do with it. Whether we're talking about family photos, important business documents, an expensive collection of digital downloads, and a variety of other things - Backing up your data is critical! The Backup Plus makes it easy to keep all of these things safer, while also extending the reach of your backup to include things that you may only have on your social media websites.



While offering a great backup solution is one of the key selling points of the Backup Plus series, it is nice to see that performance was no overlooked in the process. CrystalDiskMark confirmed that USB 3.0 read and write speeds in excess of 100MB/s were possible, and real world usage has been quite impressive, too. While the GoFlex Slim I like so much still beats it when it comes to speed, 320GB is the maximum available in that format. With capacities of 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB, the Backup Plus lineup is the definite winner since it comes within a few MB/s of the GoFlex Slim while offering over 3x the storage space.

In the end, the Seagate Backup Plus 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive earns the Bigbruin.com "Recommended" and "Great Idea" awards for the performance and useful/innovative backup solution included.



Pros:

» Convenient, useful, and innovative backup solution provided with the drive
» Social media backup is a great idea
» Drive offers fast transfers rates
» Available in a variety of sizes and colors
» Competitive pricing

Cons:

» Would like to see a GoFlex Slim style version - even smaller and even faster

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