Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB Review

Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.

Performance Testing And Conclusion

Comparison Products

We chose three products to compare to the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB. We featured all three products in separate reviews, and they are excellent for their intended use-cases.

The Sony PSZ-HB2T and LaCie Rugged RAID were both designed for media professionals working on location outside of the office. The Sony and LaCie products differ in the number of drives inside the ruggedized enclosures but feature dual connectivity via USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt. The Sony uses a single drive, and the LaCie uses two drives in a RAID 0 configuration to increase performance.

Like the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim, the LaCie Porsche Design is another recently released model. It features a USB 3.0 port like the product we're testing, but it offers increased capacity (up to 4TB).

Scaling Block Sizes

In our first test, we read and write data to the external drives at different block sizes to measure performance with a single outstanding command. The LaCie Rugged uses its RAID configuration to leap above the single drive models in every block size over 16KB. The Sony PSZ-HB2T leverages the USB 3.0 connection to deliver slightly higher performance with small block sizes than the Backup Plus Ultra Slim. Sony designed the PSZ-HB2T for application performance with professional software, and not as a pure backup device.

Full LBA Span Performance

HDDs read and write at slower rates as the heads move deeper into the platter. As you populate the drive with more data, the read and write speeds decrease at a linear rate. We measured the best-case performance at just under 130 MB/s, but at the other end of the platter, the sequential 128KB block performance fell to 60 MB/s. The other single-drive products followed the same performance curve.

File Transfers

To demonstrate real-world performance, we have three tests that represent the type of data often stored on portable storage devices. The first test involves transferring a Blu-ray ISO of a popular movie to the drives. The test consists of a sustained large-block sequential transfer.

In the second test, we transfer the entire directory of rFactor, a PC video game. The test transfers both small and large data blocks simultaneously.

The third test involves a 15.2TB directory of files similar to what you have in your My Documents folder. We're mixing photos, Microsoft Office documents, MP3s, PDFs and a couple of small game save files.

The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB performed well in our tests and even outperformed the LaCie Porsche Design 4TB we reviewed earlier in the year.

Conclusion

The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim doesn't compel us to run out and buy a new backup HDD. It's a solid external drive with a great software package, but we could say the same about the other models in the series. The drive doesn't jump out at us; it's a flat note when we expected some jazz.

What the Backup Plus Ultra Slim lacks in excitement it makes up for in value. A Seagate ST2000LM007, also known as the Mobile HDD 2TB, is inside the case. The HDD sells on Newegg for $105 as a bare drive, which is more than the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB. It's like buying the drive at a discount and getting the case, cable and software package free. Seagate priced the Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB at $99, and you get a lot more than the price suggests.

MORE: All Storage Content
MORE: Latest Storage News
MORE: Storage in the Forums

Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.

Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
  • daglesj
    Nice looking...shame it has a Seagate HDD in it though...
    Reply
  • thundervore
    18637129 said:
    Nice looking...shame it has a Seagate HDD in it though...

    My thoughts exactly.

    No matter what Seagate does I will never forget the 8TB I lost I one swoop.
    Reply
  • 3ogdy
    DaglesJ and Thudervore have just read my thoughts. A Seagate HDD? No thanks, I still remember how they asked me for over $1000 in order to recover data from a 7200.14 2TB Barracuda that literally did nothing but sit in a case - all less than a year into warranty (they also asked me for the serial in order to invalidate the warranty with me on the damn phone - I can't believe it to this day I've been through this nightmare with Shitgate!). It wasn't my first dead Seagate either. Have multiple other drives lying around here. I'm done with this company and it's problematic producs they don't stand behind. Good design, too bad it's Seagate hardware.

    Nope, not touching that POS.

    REMEMBER: If you frequently fix computers and make I.T. decisions for people you hate, buy them Seagate hardware.
    Screw their pricing. Their plan is to sell super cheap hardware, then make tons of money off recovery services that cost an arm & a leg.
    Reply
  • takeshi7
    18637390 said:
    DaglesJ and Thudervore have just read my thoughts. A Seagate HDD? No thanks, I still remember how they asked me for over $1000 in order to recover data from a 7200.14 2TB Barracuda that literally did nothing but sit in a case - all less than a year into warranty (they also asked me for the serial in order to invalidate the warranty with me on the damn phone - I can't believe it to this day I've been through this nightmare with Shitgate!). It wasn't my first dead Seagate either. Have multiple other drives lying around here. I'm done with this company and it's problematic producs they don't stand behind. Good design, too bad it's Seagate hardware.

    Nope, not touching that POS.

    REMEMBER: If you frequently fix computers and make I.T. decisions for people you hate, buy them Seagate hardware.
    Screw their pricing. Their plan is to sell super cheap hardware, then make tons of money off recovery services that cost an arm & a leg.
    Hard drives fail. It's just a fact of life. You should have had a backup. Then you never would have needed expensive recovery services. There are 3rd party recovery services as well.
    Reply
  • dstarr3
    18637869 said:
    Hard drives fail. It's just a fact of life. You should have had a backup. Then you never would have needed expensive recovery services. There are 3rd party recovery services as well.

    Hard drives do fail. And most of those are Seagates. The last time I used Seagates, I bought a pair of 320GB drives. One for use, one for backup. The main one failed and was replaced. While I was restoring the backup, the backup hard drive failed and I lost most of the data on it. Been a loyal WD customer since. Have I had WD drives fail? Yes. Has the frequency of failed drives dropped substantially with WD? Also yes.
    Reply
  • ohim
    18637248 said:
    18637129 said:
    Nice looking...shame it has a Seagate HDD in it though...

    My thoughts exactly.

    No matter what Seagate does I will never forget the 8TB I lost I one swoop.

    In digital era if you don`t have backup you don`t have the info, if you put all your data in one drive then it`s your fault not the drive manufacturer. I have only Seagate since my 486 and only 1 drive failed on me till now, indeed they had some bad series but it happens.
    Reply
  • prince_13
    maybe give a chance on seagate :D
    Reply
  • prince_13
    i just wonder which is better external HDD ? toshiba or seagate ? :D which one is good ?
    Reply
  • 3ogdy
    18640190 said:
    i just wonder which is better external HDD ? toshiba or seagate ? :D which one is good ?

    I'd recommend HGST because of reliability. Toshibas are cheaper and I have some of their drives too. Haven't had a problem with them, honestly.
    Reply
  • 3ogdy
    18637869 said:
    18637390 said:
    DaglesJ and Thudervore have just read my thoughts. A Seagate HDD? No thanks, I still remember how they asked me for over $1000 in order to recover data from a 7200.14 2TB Barracuda that literally did nothing but sit in a case - all less than a year into warranty (they also asked me for the serial in order to invalidate the warranty with me on the damn phone - I can't believe it to this day I've been through this nightmare with Shitgate!). It wasn't my first dead Seagate either. Have multiple other drives lying around here. I'm done with this company and it's problematic producs they don't stand behind. Good design, too bad it's Seagate hardware.

    Nope, not touching that POS.

    REMEMBER: If you frequently fix computers and make I.T. decisions for people you hate, buy them Seagate hardware.
    Screw their pricing. Their plan is to sell super cheap hardware, then make tons of money off recovery services that cost an arm & a leg.
    Hard drives fail. It's just a fact of life. You should have had a backup. Then you never would have needed expensive recovery services. There are 3rd party recovery services as well.

    Oh, look! Here's someone who says I should buy 2x4TB HDDs and use only half of that because the other one is just to make copies of my files, all while SPENDING TWICE AS MUCH ON THE SAME SHIT. That's thanks to one's reasonable expectations of a product's usability & lifetime.
    Why? Well, because a dog gamn company can't get its excrement together, make reliable hardware and then stand behind its products (looking at you, SEAGATE)

    Reply