Question USB 3 portable HDD purchase, please advise which to choose (Seagate) ?

[SaratDas1988]

Hi, I need purchase advice for a USB 3.0 portable HDD.

My old Seagate Expansion 1TB portable hard disk performance has been sketchy lately. I tried all possible USB 3.0 type A to type B cables I own but to no avail. I looked for new hard disks so that I can try to copy all my data over . I thought t is better to get a device with higher capacity since eventually I will need it anyway. I have narrowed it down to two but I am unable to decide based on a single factor : compatibility.

Seagate One Touch 5TB has USB3.2gen1 standard

Seagate One Touch 5TB External Hard Drive Black USB 3.0 (STKC5000400) - Walmart.com

Buy Seagate One Touch 5TB External Hard Drive Black USB 3.0 (STKC5000400) at Walmart.com

www.walmart.com

Seagate Backup Plus 5TB has USB3.0 standard

Seagate 5TB Backup Plus External Portable Drive USB 3.0, BLACK - Walmart.com

Buy Seagate 5TB Backup Plus External Portable Drive USB 3.0, BLACK at Walmart.com

www.walmart.com

While both will work favourably with my laptop (Acer Nitro 5 2021 with Ryzen5 4600H);
I want the disk to also be operable on my father's laptop and on my home PC when I go home.

Data sheet of backup plus states compatible with USB 2.0 but no such mention is there in the data sheet of OneTouch, as it states lso compatible with 3.0

I want to know if the disk with USB 3.2 gen 1 can be read from and written to on older systems having USB2.0 standards.

Apart from this, both devices have the same dimensions (I checked in a youtube video) and apart from technology upgrade owing to being a newer device, there is hardly any difference in box contents and bundled software plans.

Please help. Need to decide fast lest I lose my content on the older one.
PS: I already have 2 other 2TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim portable HDDs which have always been reliable for performance hence I am trying to go for the same lineup, despite other vendor competition.

-Sarat Das

 

[lvt]

All USB devices are backward compatible, you will have no problem to use a USB 3.x device on USB 2.0 ports (but the speed will be horribly slow).

 

[MWink64]

As already mentioned, USB is backwards compatible, so that won't be a problem. I know you mentioned wanting to stick with the same lineup but I'd suggest considering other brands. While I don't consider them as worthless as many, Seagate drives do seem to be appreciably less reliable. I've encountered at least four Seagate drives with issues this year alone. The only dying/dead WD I can recall encountering in the last decade (that wasn't the result of external causes) was an ancient ~10GB drive someone was using in an external enclosure (to store wedding photos, unfortunately).

 

[SaratDas1988]

As already mentioned, USB is backwards compatible, so that won't be a problem. I know you mentioned wanting to stick with the same lineup but I'd suggest considering other brands. While I don't consider them as worthless as many, Seagate drives do seem to be appreciably less reliable. I've encountered at least four Seagate drives with issues this year alone. The only dying/dead WD I can recall encountering in the last decade (that wasn't the result of external causes) was an ancient ~10GB drive someone was using in an external enclosure (to store wedding photos, unfortunately).

My father has a WD MyPassport 1TB. His data needs aren't as much a mine; but I have struggled with my laptop trying to recognise the disk. I have never faced problems with my Seagate ones being detected though.. from my first FreeAgentGo 320G which was a gift from him to every subsequent one I bought later on my own. The "Expansion" portable was purchased at a time when I had an emergency as my laptop back then had some issues, so it was more of "a store clerk suggestion that fits my budget" rather than an informed decision.

Half way mark on it now and it has started struggling not been a problem with other portable HDDs I have

 

[SaratDas1988]

All USB devices are backward compatible, you will have no problem to use a USB 3.x device on USB 2.0 ports (but the speed will be horribly slow).

The speed factor will obviously be an issue, but it's not like I will be frequently accessing the hard disk from the older systems; just enough to be using in time of need, or as per planned need to connect to older hosts.

 

[Dragos Manea]

With high capacity HDD you will have trouble powering them on a usb 2.0 (only 0.5A) compared with usb 3 (1A), i know because i had, 1TB and 2TB hdd works flawlessly on both usb 2 and usb 3 but my seagate 4TB does not power on correctly with usb 2 only with usb 3

 

[SaratDas1988]

With high capacity HDD you will have trouble powering them on a usb 2.0 (only 0.5A) compared with usb 3 (1A), i know because i had, 1TB and 2TB hdd works flawlessly on both usb 2 and usb 3 but my seagate 4TB does not power on correctly with usb 2 only with usb 3

O... then I suppose it will not work with the Bluray player at home... but obviously that is an extremely rare use case

 

[Dragos Manea]

O... then I suppose it will not work with the Bluray player at home... but obviously that is an extremely rare use case

This is not generally valid but it is a thing to take in consideration and test it.

 

[SaratDas1988]

Reviews on walmart n best buy for OneTouch are saying it stops working after a few days... but OK ... though that will be a problem with some, many are saying data transfer speeds are not upto the mark. How much do people expect the speed to be ? I am having no problems with speeds on my existing two Backup Plus Slim disks of 2TB each.

 

[SaratDas1988]

Would this be a good alternative?

Toshiba CANVIO Advance Plus - Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0 4TB - Green (Includes both USB-A and USB-C Cables)

https://www.walmart.com/ip/868825218

 

[Wolfcaller]

I would suggest the Samsung T7 Shield it’s a 4TB SSD with mil spec ruggedness and USC c v3.2 2x2 so extremely fast and you can get a usc c female to USB a 3.2 male adaptor for cheap. Their reasonable, large, rugged.
I use one on my NETGEAR Nighthawk AXAe1200 for network //readyshare and it works great, it’s part of my “bug-out” stuff as it has ALL vital documents backed up to it.

Purchased on Amazon for $250 USD.

I recommend it.

 

[SaratDas1988]

I would suggest the Samsung T7 Shield it’s a 4TB SSD with mil spec ruggedness and USC c v3.2 2x2 so extremely fast and you can get a usc c female to USB a 3.2 male adaptor for cheap. Their reasonable, large, rugged.
I use one on my NETGEAR Nighthawk AXAe1200 for network //readyshare and it works great, it’s part of my “bug-out” stuff as it has ALL vital documents backed up to it.

Purchased on Amazon for $250 USD.

I recommend it.

Hmm SSD is better anyway... Will check those out during Black Friday sales or some other time when I can afford . Right now I would be going with an HDD due to immediate need and budget constraint

 

[SaratDas1988]

Bought a 5TB Seagate Backup Plus at the local Walmart. Data transfer is in progress at the moment from my Seagate Expansion.

Weighing all options between the final choices of OneTouch 5TB and Backup Plus 5TB,
I decided based on 2 factors

1. Backup Plus has NTFS by defaut whereas OneTouch has exFAT to make it easily Mac Compatible. I am not using or going to use an Apple machine , but I do have older Windows systems at home so why get that extra feature which may not be detected
2. I read on a reddit thread that OneTouch is being marketed more owing to newer standards etc., but there is a high possibility that this is the intended replacement of Seagate Expansion series and may eventually also replace Backup Plus.
My 1TB disk was a Seagate Expansion disk and had been giving problems since the early days. So better to stay away from the "Expansion" name.

Additional update: Currently while copying data over system is facing read errors as disk tends to disconnect, despite me using my best available cable micro USB B to USB 3.0 A BlueRigger cable with the Expansion 930gig disk (sad I have just one and cannot find similar online here in US). So I am using Fastcopy path by path for the same action.

 

[SaratDas1988]

How do I close the thread now ?

 

[MWink64]

With high capacity HDD you will have trouble powering them on a usb 2.0 (only 0.5A) compared with usb 3 (1A), i know because i had, 1TB and 2TB hdd works flawlessly on both usb 2 and usb 3 but my seagate 4TB does not power on correctly with usb 2 only with usb 3

This isn't strictly true. Realistically, power delivery varies from port to port, not always by USB version. A good USB 2.0 port my be able to deliver more current than a poorly made USB 3.x port. There are a LOT of terrible USB ports that can't deliver the amount of current they should be able to. I've seen some that can't even do 500mA without the voltage dropping way out of spec. This is one reason I hate self-powered USB hard drives.

Reviews on walmart n best buy for OneTouch are saying it stops working after a few days... but OK ... though that will be a problem with some, many are saying data transfer speeds are not upto the mark. How much do people expect the speed to be ? I am having no problems with speeds on my existing two Backup Plus Slim disks of 2TB each.

Last I heard, all 2.5" hard drives over 1TB were SMR. This could cause massive performance problems for people doing a lot of small writes. Someone doing mostly sequential writes may not encounter an issue.

1. Backup Plus has NTFS by defaut whereas OneTouch has exFAT to make it easily Mac Compatible. I am not using or going to use an Apple machine , but I do have older Windows systems at home so why get that extra feature which may not be detected

Either could easily be reformatted with the desired filesystem. Personally, I avoid exFAT (actually, all FAT) whenever possible.

 

[Misgar]

If you are having data corruption problems with USB3 cables, check the length. I use 1ft (0.3m) Startech leads connected to the computer rear panel. Avoid poorly constructed 3ft (1m) leads. They sometimes result in dropped connections.

 

[Wolfcaller]

Do g oh have a USB c port on your system? You could always go with a 2TB M.2 NVMe Samsung 970 Evo Plus for $160 in an ASUS ROG Strix Arion aluminum M.2 NVMe SSD enclosure for $53 on Amazonan inexpensive 2TB non-moving parts drive that’s really fast at transfers? We’re talking Gbps not Mbps. Is that better?