200GB External Hard Drive and Backup System - FireWire and USB 2.0

CNET editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Setup and ease of use : 6.0
  Features : 6.0
  Performance : 3.0
  Service and support : 7.0
  Overall score: 5.5 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Jon L. Jacobi
• Edited by:
  Felisa Yang
• Reviewed on: 06/03/2005

Seagate has entered the fray of retail storage products, and among its new offerings is the Pushbutton Backup External Hard Drive. Upon first examination, we were impressed with Seagate's new USB 2.0/FireWire external hard drive--that is, until we tested the drive's performance. The 400GB version we tested was slow with a capital S--falling so far short of the competition that we retested it on several machines to verify the results. Unfortunately, our original numbers were correct, and whether the problem relates to the bridge chip that translates IDE signals to USB and FireWire or whether it was something more subtle, this drive doesn't pass performance muster. If you like the idea of push-button backup, try the Maxtor OneTouch II.

The Seagate Pushbutton Backup is a boxy 7.125 inches deep by 6.5 inches wide by 2.25 inches high (while lying flat). However, being chunkier than the average external drive has advantages, namely, better shock resistance and air circulation. The Pushbutton Backup drive survived several drops, and it runs very cool. Alas, despite Seagate's claims of ultraquiet performance, the Pushbutton's read/write head made far more noise--in the form of loud clicks--than competing products. Seagate offers three capacities of the Pushbutton Backup drive: 200GB, 300GB, and 400GB.

The medium-silver and dark-gray drive is stackable, thanks to a round footpad on the bottom and a round indentation on the top, and if you need to place the drive in a horizontally constrained location, you can use the included pedestal to orient the drive vertically. The drive has a power switch, two FireWire 400 ports, and a USB 2.0 port on its back panel. The front panel houses a power/activity light and a backup activation button. It also ships with both USB and FireWire cables; many vendors omit the latter.

Many retail drives ship with Dantz Retrospect, but the Seagate Pushbutton Backup drive includes CMS's BounceBack Express. BounceBack Express is an effective, albeit sometimes ungainly, program that performs native file backups (copying files without compressing them to a single large file, as programs such as BackUp MyPC and NovaStor NovaBackup do). The software works well, but we had a few problems with it. For one thing, once the program is installed, if you switch from a FireWire connection to a USB connection (or vice versa), the pushbutton won't work; you'll have to uninstall and reinstall the program. Also, you must perform the first backup manually; only subsequent incremental backups are invoked by the button.

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• 1.0 stars

  "Try something else!"

  by rwical on November 21, 2006

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  "Disappointing"

  by Doriangrey on August 2, 2005

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  "great back-up tool"

  by voxdesigns on July 14, 2005

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Reviews from around the WebPowered by alaTest

• alaTest.com

  Summary: alaTest collected and analyzed 419 reviews of Seagate Pushbutton Backup External Hard Drive from international magazines and websites and compared these to 102217 reviews for other Hard Drives. Experts rate this product 69/100 and users 78/100. The amount of rated reviews for this product is too low to calculate a reliable alaScore™.

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• pcanswers.co.uk

  Editors' rating: 80

  Summary: Loads of storage, but disappointing speed

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• thetechlounge.com

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• macworld.com

  Editors' rating: 70

  Summary: Operation couldn't be easier. Setup requires plugging in the drive's external power adapter and cabling it to your Mac using either a single USB 2.0 port or two FireWire 400 ports. Once powered on and mounted on the Mac desktop, you must reformat the ...

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