[Free Up Your Mac] Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Review

MacTakeAwayData Rank – 8 stars out of 10

You should look at the 2TB Seagate Backup Slim when you want to free up space on your Mac.

Need an external hard drive to put your movie collection on to.

So that when you’re ready for some quiet time, there they are.

And you’ve no need to wait for them to download.

Or are your just plain fed up.

Fed up of running out of cloud storage for your photos. And just don’t to pay for any more space in the cloud. You want to store them locally. At home.

Verdict: Using The Backup Plus Slim On Mac

When you need a decent sized external hard drive the 2TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim is a great drive to buy.

It’s the perfect size for storing all your videos of the kids. Or when you’re a household with several Macs.

You can reformat to use it to take Time Machine backups of your Mac. So you won’t panic when you delete a document by accident.

Or if you’re a fan of HD movies and you need somewhere to store your precious collection. Put them on this drive so that you’ve the freedom to watch then when and where you want.

*Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. And at no extra cost to you this site earns a commission through image links, Amazon button and text links should you buy.

Recommended Drive: Backup Plus Slim

If you’re already convinced.

Take a Peek at the Price of the Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB on Amazon Now.

View The Review

Backup Plus Slim Pros

When you’ve a lot of photos and music. The 2TB Backup Plus Slim is the perfect size to buy. Or have as place to save your large files like your videos.
You’ll find it comes in fun outside case colors. And a smart modern design.
It’s formatted as ExFAT. A format your Mac can drag and drop to when you plug it in.
And if you’ve a Windows PC and want to use your Backup Plus Slim for both. Your ExFAT formatted Backup Plus can plug right into your PC as well.
Straightforward set up and use. The Backup Plus Slim is powered from its USB cable. And that means there’s no extra cable to worry about.

Backup Plus Slim Cons

You’ll find no direct USB C plug in. Get yourself a USB adaptor up front if you’ve a newer Mac.
Just the 1TB and 2TB capacity. You’ll need to move up to the Backup Plus Portable for more space.
No hardware encryption. But don’t worry you can use MacOS’s inbuilt encryption for external drives.

YouTube Plus Slim UnBoxing Video

Want to see what’s inside a Backup Slim’s box when it’s delivered to you?

Take a look.

The video below gives you a peek at what’s inside.

It’s 1 minute 55 seconds long.

Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Unboxing

Video Credit: Santertainment

Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Review For Mac

What is it that you should know as a Mac owner before you buy the Backup Plus Slim?

Seagate Plus Slim Key Points

Capacity	1TB or 2TB
Format	ExFAT
Headline Speed	120 Mb/s
Connection	USB 3.0
Size	3.1″ x 4.52″x 0.5″
Weight	4.4 oz
Warranty	2 Years

Connecting Your Backup Plus Slim To Your Mac

Your Backup Plus Slim has a USB 3.0 plug on the end that plugs into your Mac.

It’s a Type A plug.

So what? I hear you ask.

Is your MacBook from 2016 or sooner?

Or is it a 2015 MacBook with a single USB C port. Or an iMac bought since 2017?

All these Macs will have a USB C ports.

Your Mac will talk to your Seagate 2TB Backup Plus Slim. But you’ll need a USB adaptor plug or cable.

They’re easy to get on Amazon. So buy one at the same time you buy your Backup Plus Slim.

Seagate 2TB Backup Plus Slim Portable’s Over All Looks

You’ll find your Backup Plus Slim has a brushed Aluminum cover.

And you’ll like that it’s attractive and neat.

And you can buy your Backup Plus Slim portable in an array of colors.

The Seagate 2TB Backup Plus Slim is available in Black, Silver, Light Blue, Red.

Seagate Backup Plus Slim Black Blue Silver Gold — Backup Plus Slim Black, Blue, Silver, Rose Gold

Plenty of choice.

And if you want. You can match your Backup Plus to the burnished silver of your Mac.

Seagate Backup Plus Slim in Silver — Backup Plus Slim in Silver

Or you could choose one of the other colors to match your purse or backpack.

Or go for the color you find attractive for no particular reason at all!

Size and Weight Of The Seagate 2TB Model

Handy.

And you’ll find I mean that literally.

Its over all size is 3.1″ x 4.52″x 0.5″. And it weighs in at 4.4 oz.

You can easily pick it up and carry it around with you.

So, if you need to take your MacBook Air with you. Taking the Backup Plus Slim 2TB in your case as well isn’t going to add too much weight.

Seagate Backup Plus Slim lifestyle female

But You’ll Find That The Slim Seagate Drive Isn’t Rugged

Even though you’ll find the Seagate 2TB Backup Plus sold as a portable external hard drive.

Your Backup Plus Slim has moving parts inside. And those parts can get damaged if you treat it roughly.

No dropping. Or shaking while it’s in use. Or you could find your beautiful 2TB Backup Plus Slim drive turned into a pretty useless brick.

You’ll find it best to carry your Backup Plus Slim in a case. And keep it nice and safe. Here are some of my preferred protective cases on Amazon.

Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Box Drive Cable

Feel Free to take a look at a Seagate 2TB Backup Plus Slim on Amazon by clicking on this link.

Cooling Of Your Backup Plus Slim Portable Hard Drive

Why think about how the drive is cooled?

Well, with any hard drive too much heat can shorten the life of your drive. The Backup Plus Slim is passively cooled.

What does that mean?

It means that the air flows to the drive through holes at the bottom of the casing. It has no separate fan.

It means the Seagate Slim is quiet when you use it. There should be no annoying hum or buzz from a fan.

Powering Your Backup Plus Slim

Your Backup Plus 2TB Slim HDD drive gets its power from your Mac.

Which is great.

It means that there’s no need for you to remember to carry around another plug and cable to power the drive.

One thing you may want to think about.

The cable in the box is about 18 inches long. And depending on where you want to put your Backup Plus when you use it, you may want a longer cable.

Here is my choice for a longer USB length.

Belkin 3 Foot Micro to USB Cable

Slim Backup Plus Portable Drive ExFAT Format

Seagate Technology sells your Backup Plus Slim in an ExFAT format.

Handy.

So?

You can drag and drop. Or copy and paste to it right away.

And it means that a Mac computer and a Windows PC can both use the drive. Because both computers can read an ExFAT formatted hard disk.

They can see all the documents, music or photos stored on the drive.

And without any changes to your drive.

But.

Your Mac’s backup software Time Machine can’t use an ExFAT formatted drive. And so you can’t use your Backup Plus Slim drive for your Time Machine backups. Not without reformatting first.

You’ll need to format your drive to APFS or HFS+ on your Mac.

And it’s super easy to do.

But what if you want to use your Backup Plus Slim for a Time Machine Backup of your Mac. And also share documents with a Windows PC.

You can.

But you’ll need to partition your Backup Plus storage device. Have one part – storage space for your Time Machine backups. And another area where you can store photos, music, movies, whatever you want.

But the first step is reformatting your drive. You’ll find out how in my document ‘Format Seagate Backup Plus‘ here.

Performance Of The Seagate Slim On Mac

The performance level of the Seagate Slim hard disk was reasonable. In testing, I observed 133 MBps reading and writing transfer speed.

And this means that when you copy your documents, music or photos to and from your Seagate Slim. Or when you use for your Time Machine backups you’ll get good performance.

What You Get In The 2TB Seagate Plus Box When You Buy?

Of course the Seagate Plus Slim external drive.

A Quick Start Guide.

All the quick start guides have the bare minimum on them.

A brief diagram of how you plug in with no real information on how to use the drive.

Should you need more. I have written an article on How to use the Seagate Backup Plus on Mac. You can learn more in that document about how you can use your Backup Slim.

Review What Other Users Think Of The Seagate Slim Drive

You’ll find there are many happy Backup Plus Slim users out there.

A great place you can check up on the latest comments is by looking at the Amazon Sales page for the Backup Plus Slim.

Seagate Backup Plus Slim

Click on the link above and scroll to the bottom of the Amazon web page to take a look yourself.

Warranty On Your Slim Portable Storage

Your Backup Plus Slim 2TB comes delivered with two years warranty. Not the longest of warranties but is the industry standard for this type portable hard drive.

Not Convinced? Seagate Plus Slim Alternatives

Still not sold?

Then you might want to look at Seagate Ultra Touch hard disk drive. You’ll find no fancy colors. It’s only in black and white but does come with hardware encryption.

Or the Ultra Touch SSD. Same colors. A much faster drive. But only in 500GB and 1TB sizes. And the SSD drive has a 3 year warranty.

Both drives come with a USB C adaptor.