Seagate STEL8000100 Backup Plus Hub 8TB External Desktop Hard Drive Storage

Works well and is an economical solution to external storage.

This large external hard drive purchase was right on time. My previous drive showed signs of soon to be failure and I needed to move my data quickly. This device was an easy plug and play. I elected to shrink the drive to 1TB for general use and allocate another terabyte for my music files. I left the remaining space unallocated for future to either extending the existing logical drives or creating new logical drives. It has a relatively small footprint IMO and I like the two USB ports for charging. During registration of the drive I was offered data recovery plan that provides coverage for hard drive failure, viruses, software issues, and other problems that can cause data loss. The rescue plan is also transferable which is a good as well. At only $15 for 3 years, this was no brainer for me.

bought this drive to backup my photos (mac user). not only is it confusing to set up, but i found out only after searching that there is additional software you have to download to even use it as an external drive. otherwise, you can only use it as a mirror - that doesnt help me at all since im trying to free up space, not just backup 8TB of data. my laptop isnt even 8TB, so why would i need a mirror for that? so the software is downloading now - it says itll take an hour - and then i found out that many of the best photo features (social) were discontinued earlier this year. so not only is it false advertisement, but its probably going to end up being another useless piece of equipment for the landfill. very upset that i made this decision. save yourself the headache if you are looking for an external drive for storage. UPDATE: after installing second piece of software, i was able to manage my photo files by simply dragging+dropping to the drive. the software doesnt do anything to help manage the files. just use it like a normal drive. now i just need to find a case that fits it since the one amazon suggests is TOO SMALL. UPDATE: I found this one - I think amazone was just showing the wrong item! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07F6BB2XY/ref=od_aui_detailpages00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Instructions (even online) are minimal or inadequate, and assume way too much about who is using the device. I hooked this up, registered, requested a Daily Backup and got an on-screen notice that I was all set! Indeed, since hooking it up, it ground and moaned and whirred--I thought its working!! Yay!!! Not so much. A week later I checked into the Seagate File to ensure my files were copied and safe. Nada. Nothing. Opened the Dashboard, and discovered I had to request a back-up manually. I admit I am not a coder or a programmer, but I NEVER had this issue with the WD My Passport (had to replace because I had maxed out the memory). Instructions need to be a lot clearer. More step by step. Frankly, written as if people are stupid, and dont know much. I am not certain that this device has caused my computer to completely freeze (even Ctrl/Alt/Del would not shut it down), but it is odd that all sorts of trouble have occurred since I hooked up this thing. Perhaps expert installation would have been the price, but geez, it shouldnt be this hard. Amending review on 8-25-17 While I still find the Dashboard feature confusing, after a lengthy conversation with Support, learned that the old school method of Drag & Drop will work just fine. What is lost on giving up the convenience of automated backup, is gained by being able to find your files without having to go through numerous layers of obscure file names (that you cannot change). All I want from an external drive is to back up my files and be able to find them with the relative ease I can on my PC. Drag and Drop does this. A back up is supposed to make life a little more secure, not more frustrating. Bottom Line: Forego the fancy-dan Dashboard and scheduling backups. Do a manual copy and update your files as you go. More hands on to be sure, but at least I know where the files are--and can find them. Big shout out to Adam at Support--professional and helpful.

If you compare this drive to a 7200RPM or higher RPM or an SSD than yes its slower. If you plugged it in an USB2.0 port than yes it could be slow. The specs said max. data transfer = 160MB/s. Using USB3 I could get peak upto 190MB/s and typical 130MB/s. Even with very small files I would get nothing below 50MB/s. If you use USB3 and get 20 something MB/s more than likely its your windows 10 drive policies setting. Windows 10 by default will set the drive policy to Quick removal instead of Better performance so that you can remove the drive fast without clicking Eject Device. You can change this policy. DO IT AS YOUR OWN RISK since you will have to remember to click Eject Device every time you want to remove the drive while the system is on. Its actually really safe but I just have to say it. Most people dont plug and unplug the drive everyday. Here is how: Open Device Manager, Disk drives and click on your drive then select Policies. Check Better performance box instead of Quick removal (default). Also check the box Enable write caching on the device. You should get your full speed now but remember to click Eject Device every time you want to remove it while your computer is on. I always do this anyway since its safer.

Great drive and enjoy the space as well as the built in usb hub for that one item that you ran out of space for. It is perfect for what Im using it for and the price is the reason I gave it 4 stars. I have used 2 4TB usb drives and my machine is in use 24 hours a day. But with such use I found that having such a setup I have overworked the power supply and the machine is in need of a new power supply. However I have 4 more and will put one of them into place and over the next few years I will see if the self powered drive fix the power supply problem. With a total of 13TB I maybe able to fit all my games on one Xbox and not two or more as in the past running 9TB per machine.

The Seagate external hard drive provides a useful means of storing just under 7 TB of data. However, this hard drive has a two-year warranty and the end user should take this period seriously. Like all electro-mechanical devices, this hard drive has a finite life, typically up to 10,000 hours of operating time or less. As soon as you detect ANY unusual behavior, back up your data on a separate storage device because it is likely that your Seagate drive is about to fail. Examples of failure Ive experienced include: Windows failure to detect the hard drive due to a device I/O error; and the device format will change from NTFS to RAW suddenly. At that time, you will need to use data recovery software and hope your data is recoverable. You have been warned!

I was forced to replace my (now discontinued & without Apple Support) Apple Airport Router/Time Capsule because it was no longer backing up my equipment without much cajoling and finagling. Finally, after losing all of my backups in a final effort to keep the thing running, I selected this item, having already been using a much smaller version for my photos, games and other bulky items that take up a lot of space. So far I am very happy with its performance and hope that I get the same longevity out of it that I got with my Airport... Ive only had it for perhaps 2 months but thus far, all is well.

Got this at a good price. I removed the drive from the case and put the drive in my PC (voids warranty). The units casing has has three parts, the body and the two panels. From the vertical orientation you can remove the smaller beveled side panel by prising it open along the seams. The other panel is curved in the front where the USB ports are. The other The panels are attached with multiple clips which are in the form of squares. The tabs on the other panel rests in the centre of these clips, so it is quite hard not to break them. Four large rubber washers hold the drive in place on molded ridges on the casing. The drive is attached to a metal plate which runs under the PCB. The PCB is screwed to the larger side panel. Do note that it is thicker than your usual 3.5 drive. This drive will become hot if run continuously , and I would suggest it be placed in a well ventilated bay. As an external drive with no forced cooling, I believe it would get quite warm as well. Performance (in terms of copying large amounts of data) exceeded my expectations. [Update January 2018] Bought a second drive in September 2017. My first drive was a ST8000AS marked as an archive drive (which still works fine). This time I got a ST8000DM004 marked as a Barracuda compute. This model is still a SMR drive with a small cache and spins at over 5000 rpm. This second drive started to give me problems after a few months. It would connect and disconnect sporadically and Windows would ask me to reformat the drive whenever it become acessible. Tests with Seagates seatools would show the drive passing all tests. I tried changing cables and putting it on another sata controller to no avail. Today, it finally failed the seatools. Unfortunately as Ive extracted the drive from the case, Ive no further options. If you get the drive version I did, you would be well advised to do some testing before committing your data to it. Revised my rating to 2 stars based on this.

I know one can get a lemon sometimes, but how Seagates customer service dealt with the matter left me discouraged. Seagate states they provide a 2 year warranty, but let me share with you my experience in dealing with the dead drive covered by support/warranty ... The product was purchased about 90 days ago, but was not used for several weeks; and thereafter, usage was light (for example, Time Machine backups for a couple laptops). Then after about 2 months of use it died last week. I attempted to locate another adapter to confirm that the adaptor was not the issue, but was unable to locate the unique one that comes with this unit (Seagate power supply: 12V 3A / barrel outside 5.5mm inside 2.5mm center positive). Therefore, I contacted customer service regarding the matter and they asked me to purchase one to test their drive. Yes, they wouldnt send me a replacement adaptor to test their product, but rather wanted me to purchase one. So with that support interaction, I elected to return the unit under their product warranty coverage. That is when I was informed that they only warranty the product and DO NOT cover sending the product back to them to replace. And BTW, their warranty replacement unit will be a refurbished unit, not a new one ... another surprise in warranty coverage. Today I mailed the drive to Seagate, and my wallet is another $20+ dollars lighter ... YIKES. Therefore, due to the experience of the units life (60 days with light usage) and Seagates support/warranty, I have to rate this product a ZERO!