So far so good. I'm like most, thinking that it's an external drive and I'm getting this incredible deal; I gave it to my wife for a backup drive when I realized otherwise. Dashboard seems to work OK although they could have given you a little more flexibility. Also, you have to be a somewhat creative if you want to back up one PC and then restore files to another, new machine from the drive. (I had just bought her a new laptop and was moving her off of the old). Speed is good to excellent, and it's easy to get up-and-running.
Since this is a very large drive, I purchased it for backup storage of archival data rather than as a working drive for creating and updating data in process. While I have not "stress tested" this drive with heavy activity to push it for durability, heat dissipation, or speed, in transferring files over several hours from other drives I have found it to be reasonably fast and cool running. To date I have experienced no errors, and the price was quite attractive for 4 TB of storage. It also has a sensibly simple, compact shape that fits well on a shelf like a book, rather than pretending to be an artistic centerpiece for the room. Finally, it is a simple drive, without any apparent imposed software or firmware interventions to gum things up.
The product is elegant, and performs well. I've gotten read speeds in excess of 150MB/s through USB3, outperforming most mechanical drives. The only complaint is that it doesn't have rubber feet that allow it to be placed horizontally rather than vertically, as I would rather not have it vertical, thus risking it getting knocked down and damaging the drive. If you disconnect the USB cable, the drive spins down by itself, so you never have to pull the power cable out. As such, while there is no mechanical power switch, there isn't a need for one either. The LEDs are white, and understated, unlike many consumer electronics these days which have overly bright lights. There is an activity LED and a capacity meter, which are the vertical LEDs seen in the picture.
I had a slight problem with the drive but Looking online I found the Instructions of how to set up a 4TB on XP , It had to be formatted for XP. Took a couple minutes & I was on my way to having the storage Drive I wanted. I must admit I do Enjoy the Seagate Brand better than all other Brands! Ease of Use.. Their Home page allows me to get Info quickly... & I do love the detachable Base from Drive Enclosure Option.
I was looking for a drive large enough to hold my DVD collection in digital form. This drive fits the bill. I reformatted the drive with a Mac mini and copied the movie files with no dramas. The drive is quiet, sufficiently fast for my needs, runs cool and uses USB 3. It does everything I require and didn't cost the earth. What more could I ask for?
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