I've had rotational drives during the initial 'burn in' period that show a increase in some of the so called negative indicators (bad sectors reallocated) but then 'settle down' and continue working fine for years afterwards with no increases. There are several industry studies which have shown that correlation between SMART data, predictions made based on the data and actual failure rates, is NOT that strong.possibly only correlated in less than a third of hard drive failures. these ratings need to be taken in context, or at least take with grain of salt. Once data is returned, then SOME programs that try to calculate and give a 'probability' of failure or life expectancy rating. There really isn't any enforcement to keep manufacturers in line as far as how their devices report. Ultimately, the manufacturer of the drive decides how and what to report back. In many cases, manufacturers themselves don't adhere to the same interpretation of what a particular data field means relative to their product. No such problems on a Mac (even if Time Machine is running using a partition on the drive).Users need to realize, this app (and similar ones) are dependent and/or influenced by several external factors.ġ) The information returned by SMART is open to interpretation.

However, I find it almost impossible to eject the drives under Windows 10-it is always 'in use' (either because of Dashboard, or Windows Backup, or Norton Utility and I have to shutdown the machine to remove it.

I had the 2TBs for over a year an d they perform well. I also have the 4TB Backup Hub and it is very bulky in comparison (its advantage is it has its own power and can connect other drives to it). Please note that there are many Seagate 4TB models, and not everyone is a slim one (the box DOES NOT say it is slim, but it is if you have the Model STDR40000100. The 4TB has the same footprint as the 2TB, only a bit thicker.

Now I can simply take the drive on a trip and boot up any iMAC. It is certainly not the fastest drive but good enough for my day-to-day archiving purpose as well as running it as a boot disk on USB (even USB 2.0 on a 2009 iMAC (whose internal HD died, and buried inside since I don't want to open the iMAC). The Backup Plus Slim series of HD are excellent (I have two 2TB and 1 4TB) and affordable.

Seagate disk utility mac