Seagate Backup Plus Slim 500GB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0, Black STCD500102

This is a fantastic drive. I am a major hardware geek, especially when it comes to drives (desktop, mobile, SSD, whatever). Your life and work (or school) are stored on drives, so I keep many around, usually in pairs -- one of which I keep in a fire safe at all times.I also have this drive in the larger (thicker) dual-platter size, and I don't like it nearly as much. Although the price difference is small between the 500GB and 1TB drives, I like the 500GB better. It is plenty big for OS and files -- about anything other than video. The 500GB drive is just super slim and SUPER quiet. It is about 9mm versus the 12mm listed on this page.I am burned-out on loud drives, and this sleek, thin drive is not only quiet but well-built and handsome. I got this as part of the VINE program, but I subsequently purchased a twin silver one in 500GB. I then purchased the 1TB (thicker), but I don't like the 1TB drive nearly as much. It is thicker and louder.The tops of these are real metal with a nice machined logo on them. The sides are shiny plastic which I don't like as much because it scratches easy and shows fingerprints. The bottom is a nice, matte, textured black plastic. The LEDs are white and in a slit which has a nice effect. The slimmer 500GB also minimizes the black sides while emphasizing the nice top.I have not had any problems with any of these. I was tempted to buy some of the 2TB drives, which are a fantastic price, but they are even louder, and you basically destroy the nice case if you try to extract them. In fact, the 2TB drives are louder than my WD Green desktop drives.So, despite the price, the 500GB is really my pick of the litter. They also make a Mac version in silver which, instead of a brushed silver finish, comes in a matte silver finish.

Some Background:ive always been an seagate user since my old external drive that nedded power to work burnt on a voltage overload and it survived! the overload just fried the case of the drive all date was there! THANKS SEAGATE! 1TB back in that time was like A LOT!. and now i hook it into my pc and use it as a regular HD. been more than 5 years since that overload and i just took it out of my pc not because it failed, just because i bought an SSD. so it worked flawlesly! now lying on a desk with some old data.In the meantime i bought one seagate backup plus 500GB red, ill never forget because it had the ability to swap the usb cable from USB 2.0 to 3.0 with a little upgrade. it worked great until some guy decided to stole it...Ive had a few other internal drives of course.So as you can see ive been a long time seagate user.Actual Review:This drive performs great! just as the USB 2.0 version i had back in the day... some might think that 500GB its not to much, and i agree, but as i learnt after my last HD got stolen, NEVER EVER USE AN EXTERNAL DRIVE AS A BACKUP OF YOUR STUFF! never do this! you can drop it, lose it, broke it... and if you do use it for backup keep it always stored safe, dont use it to traverl and transfer all kind of things all the time.I bought this version because im always moving data from a pc to another, and since theres almost no archives larger than 500GB i figure this would be enough. been with me like 1 year and no problems at alli really recommend seagate as a brand, the pricing is ok and they have nice warranty on every product.

I just purchased this drive for my personal use and the G Drive Thunderdrive for my work computer. This drive was half the cost of the G Drive Thunderdrive that I purchased on the Apple website. This drive was half the cost but also took 10x longer to back up the computer. Granted, I do have more files on my home computer (photos, etc) but it took really, really long to back up via TimeMachine. I would recommend the Thunderdrive G Drive over this drive if you can afford it as the Time Machine backup takes 2-3 seconds and the initial backup takes a couple of minutes. The USB is pretty slow but I still give it 3 stars because the price is pretty good for the amount of storage that you get though it takes a while to backup.