Gadget review: Seagate 2TB Wireless Plus Hard Drive

Seagate's wireless hard drive allows you to back up directly from tablets and smartphones. Picture: Contributed

Seagate 2TB Wireless Plus Hard Drive

Price: £204

BACKING up files could never be described as a pleasurable pursuit. It is one of the dull but necessary chores of modern life, one for which you set aside an hour or two on a Sunday morning every other month, only to realise that it takes up the entire day. It is, then, an area of tech should be made as trouble-free as possible. With the new Seagate hard drive, no cables or internet connection or required, meaning you can back up anywhere without having to sit at a desktop.

Combined with an intuitive app for iOS and Android that allows you to upload and browse files on the hard drive, the wireless transfer capability encourages a much more diligent approach to backing up files and photographs of importance and sentimental value. When the process involves having to boot up a PC and attach cables, the temptation is to constantly put it off. Yet anyone who has lost precious information without making a copy of it should know fine well the folly of that approach.

For consumers with reams of photos on their smartphones, the Seagate allows for snappy uploading

With the Seagate - which can store around half a million photos - the process is made so straightforward as to invite regular backups, all without leaving the comfort of your couch. In fact, the technology involved is ideal for the growing number of consumers who do not regularly use laptops or desktop computers, instead favouring the use of tablets and smartphones. The increasing power and clarity of the cameras on such devices means that many people are carrying around with them portable photograph albums, and unless you make use of the likes of iCloud or Google Drive, there is a danger of losing the images if you misplace your phone.

Uploading photos to the Seagate - available from eBuyer.com - is snappy. During our test, we were able to send over 600 files to the drive in just over 40 minutes, while sending over a handful of images can be done during an advert break (all you have to do is switch to the Seagate WiFi signal being broadcast, load the app, and select the files). There were one or two times when the upload bar seemed to stall, but it soon rectified itself, and out of around 30 upload sessions, it only happened twice. With three devices able to connect at one time, it is easy for a family to back up their own files simultaneously.

The hard drive is great for streaming but it would be useful to have more control over how you arrange your files

Once you have your files on the Seagate, the images show up quickly as thumbnails on the app, although it is also possible to sort your view to see the image name, size and so on, similar to the options in Windows. Videos more than a few seconds in duration take a bit longer to show up, but it is easy to play them from a device; indeed, the Seagate is a fine way to stream media as well as store it. The one area where the app could improve is in how you sort your files. The Seagate automatically assigns folders to various devices connected to it, but it would be useful to be able to create new folders and sub-folders from the app. Overall, this hard drive is a superb option for those with a wealth of data but little time to do anything with it.

The Seagate 2TB Wireless Plus Hard Drive can be purchased from eBuyer.com here