Seagate Backup Plus 8TB Desktop Drive review

This drive has no competition if you are looking to buy the biggest single drive on the market. Sure, it probably costs less to buy two external 4TB hard disk drives (currently about £90 each, around $130, or AU$175) but it will just make things more convoluted and less elegant.

As it stands, I don't see anyone (Toshiba or WD) competing with Seagate yet. WD consumer storage solutions max out at 6TB and Toshiba at 5TB, and neither have yet to commit to deliver anything close to 8TB. The lack of competition might actually encourage Seagate to push up the price of the device.

We liked

Other than the SMR-related weakness on random writes, the Seagate Backup Plus performed admirably on our tests, achieving some remarkable numbers while keeping the price per TB fairly low for what is a very new product. In operation, it was quiet and didn't sip a lot more power compared to lesser-capacity drives.

We disliked

The design could have been a bit less aggressive – as always, this is a subjective matter and others might appreciate the clear cut, clean lines of the drive.

Final verdict

If you can live with the random write issue, then the Seagate Backup Plus 8TB Desktop Drive will probably be a safe investment for a long time. Its Dashboard application is basic but does the job and is intuitive. Overall, the device is a very enticing proposition.

I would however advise caution when it comes to storing everything on such a big drive. Losing 8TB of data will be life changing so do think about backing up. Plan for it and do it – don't procrastinate.

This Seagate Backup Plus 8TB review sample was provided by Ebuyer where it costs £262 currently (around $380, AU$500). You can however get it for less elsewhere.