Seagate Ultra Touch (2023) review

Annually some know-how journalist predicts the ultimate demise of the standard exhausting drive, and in every new product season, that obituary proves untimely.

For these corporations that make typical exhausting drives, like Seagate, these operations have years of expertise making these merchandise reliably and profitably. Until NAND flash modules ever attain worth parity per GB, we’ll see this stuff for a while but.

The Seagate Extremely Contact is a straightforward however efficient exterior USB exhausting drive, which is available in 2TB, 4TB, and 5TB capacities from a 2.5in mechanism inside its minimalistic case. Every of these choices gives a considerable quantity of house, an quantity that’s splendid for these wanting to hold a big knowledge set round or to again up a neighborhood machine.

The distinctive pitch of this product sequence is that it has eco-friendly aspirations, in {that a} wholesome proportion of this product is manufactured from recycled supplies.

Is shopping for the Extremely Contact a real contribution to saving the planet, or is it merely one other merchandise for the pitch of diminishing assets?

Design & construct

• 30% recycled by weight
• Included cable is USB-C solely

Seagate went out of its solution to make the Extremely Contact as primary and minimalist as doable. From the skin, it’s a two-tone block of plastic with a USB-C port and an exercise LED on one finish. It is available in Pebble Gray and Cloud White, and these colors have a pure speckling like a refined granite end.

In keeping with the Seagate promotional materials, “This drive accommodates at the least 30% post-consumer recycled supplies by weight for eco-minded backup”.

The packaging is 100% recycled, and printed on the field is a observe declaring that 30% of the drive is made up of reclaimed aluminium and plastics. The 30% quantity is predicated solely on weight. Subsequently, weighing 267g, it accommodates about 80g of recycled metallic and plastics.

That doesn’t sound a lot however ought to Seagate make 100,000 of those, that might represent 8,000 metric tons of recycled content material, which isn’t insignificant. The difficulty right here is that the opposite 70%, making drives and chips and distributing them throughout the planet, most likely outweighs no matter recycling Seagate is doing.

As with most exterior drives, the enclosure can’t be opened, and subsequently the quantity of recycling that Seagate is keen to embrace patently has limits. Our evaluate pattern was manufactured and assembled in Thailand and dated 2023.

However, no matter that, these behind the Extremely Contact made being extra accountable with assets the main focus of this product, and if it sells effectively, that is perhaps an impetus for extra recycling. The computing trade has a genuinely abysmal environmental file, and any makes an attempt to deal with these shortcomings have to be saluted, even when the outcomes are modest.

Included within the field is a 50cm USB-C cable. A good size, however the lack of assist for these with USB-A ports is just a little jarring. Did Seagate not realise that these utilizing older tools usually tend to be eco-warriors than these with extra fashionable methods with USB-C?

Together with the cable Seagate has a number of paper-based choices that embrace a 6-month Mylio Pictures subscription, a 6-month Dropbox backup plan, a fast set up information, and a few notes in regards to the Seagate Toolkit Software program and Rescue Knowledge restoration providers. The Toolkit software program is mentioned in additional element in our ‘person expertise’ part beneath.

The Mylio and Dropbox provides aren’t globally obtainable as a result of restrictions on each these merchandise in some areas, like China.

Specs & options

• Customary 5400 RPM drive
• Encryption supported

Contained in the Extremely Contact shell is a traditional 2.5-inch exhausting drive, and CrystalDisk Data reveals that it’s a Seagate Guardian BarraCuda ST5000LM000, a five-platter design with ten heads that has a rotational pace of 5400 RPM.

It’s a greater mechanism than we’d sometimes see in an exterior drive, and the retail price of the exhausting drive alone is often greater than the asking worth of the Extremely Contact.

On this design, like so many others, the drive makes use of a SATA to USB interface, and the limiting issue on efficiency is the bodily platters and heads. Connecting by USB 3.2 Gen 1, the efficiency of USB on this context is much better than the drive is able to, making the drive the bottleneck.

One good side of this product is that it helps encryption, one thing lacking from lots of the cheaper exterior drive options.

There may be comparatively little else to report. It’s an exterior exhausting drive that makes use of USB, like one million or extra that we’ve seen earlier than.

Person expertise

• Seagate Toolkit software program is superb
• Free backup and restore choices

Most likely the most effective side of this product, apart from the recycling angle, is that Seagate engineers thought fairly deeply about this product, people who would possibly use it. and what they could want.

On the drive are some functions designed for Home windows, Mac, and Android customers that include the banner title of Seagate Toolkit. We’ve seen instruments like these with many exterior drive merchandise, and so they’re often a hook to get the client to put money into one thing higher. However that’s not the case right here, because the performance supplied is exactly what most homeowners would require to get essentially the most out of this {hardware}.

Mark Pickavance

It provides 4 features: Safe, Backup, Restore, and Mirror. As you’ve most likely already guessed, the Safe performance permits drives with built-in encryption to be secured and unlocked. Nonetheless, utilizing this assumes you can run an unlock software on the drive for all of the units you’re prone to join.

Technically, this function is password encryption, however the Extremely Contact does assist full AES-256 Encryption in {hardware}, permitting the OS to encrypt the drive and supply a way to unlock it elsewhere with out additional software program.

The password unlock safety is related to a MySeagate account that that you must create, however that does permit you to reset the password utilizing your electronic mail do you have to neglect what you used to configure it. However should you use {hardware} encryption of your complete drive, then forgetting that password consigns no matter was saved on the Extremely Contact to oblivion as a result of there is no such thing as a backdoor means to get well that token.

Backup and Mirror are primarily the identical amenities: a stay backup that syncs between the system and the drive. Backup is the short and simple methodology the place all of the vital knowledge areas of the system are copied to the drive, and Mirror permits particular folders that is perhaps outdoors of that hierarchy to be duplicated to the drive. Offering a simple means to duplicate recordsdata from one machine to a different by configuring the identical mirror guidelines throughout them.

Lastly, Restore is merely an automatic software for pulling again broken or deleted recordsdata from a backup.

General, these are the most effective instruments we’ve seen on a small exterior drive, and so they elevate the Extremely Contact above what is usually supplied (if something) with exterior storage.

Efficiency

• Lavatory-standard efficiency
• Greatest suited to incremental backups

When the eco-friendly curtains of the Extremely Contact are pulled again, they reveal typical exhausting drive know-how. Whereas a dependable know-how nowadays, it isn’t the quickest or most power-efficient storage for people who want to maneuver knowledge to and from a PC quickly.

Mark Pickavance

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With disks of this measurement, a rotational pace of 5400 RPM, and 5 heads, the outcomes are predictably common. People who estimate round 150MB/s for each studying and writing will probably be in the suitable ball park, though that worth represents the sting of the disk, and because the drive fills up, the pace will decline.

These numbers indicate that if that you must catch a aircraft, practice, or car and are ready on this drive to safe knowledge to tackle that journey, you would possibly miss your trip.

If that’s a difficulty, this isn’t the product for you, and Seagate has some glorious USB-connected One Contact SSDs that may switch eight occasions this pace.

It’s additionally price noting that at this switch pace, it’s going to take 33,333 seconds to maneuver your complete contents to or from the Extremely Contact, or at the least 9.2 hours. Subsequently, it’s debatable if your complete contents might be transferred in a single day in both path.

What the Extremely Contact is finest made for is incremental backups that happen over an extended interval relatively than dumping 5TB of knowledge. And, as we’ve already talked about, the software program Seagate gives is effectively suited to that course of.

Value

The Extremely Contact begins from $79.99/£99.99 for a 2TB model, going as much as $124.99/£139.99 for 4TB, and $139.99/£164.99 for 5TB, making this one of many pricier exterior exhausting drives round – although in observe it’s already on sale for lower than these figures.

You’ll be capable to discover both Seagate’s One Touch or Expansion Portable drives for much less, so you’re paying a premium for the eco-friendly design and easy software program.

Learn our rating of the most effective moveable exhausting drives for just a few extra choices.

Verdict

Eco-products with an extra price over much less environmentally pleasant options may be problematic to advertise. The exhausting economics of many shopping for choices usually trumps being environmentally pleasant, even when they’re finally not sustainable decisions. That’s to not say it ought to, however individuals and firms have budgets and extra prices from recycling would possibly exceed these limits.

Mark Pickavance

That stated, the brand new Extremely Contact HDD isn’t far more costly than the One Contact sequence on the identical capacities, and by shopping for this product, you would possibly encourage Seagate to go more durable on recycling than it might need beforehand thought of.

Inexperienced credentials apart, the Extremely Contact is a well-considered product mixed with the brand new Seagate Toolkit software program specified to carry out the backup or mirror jobs most customers want on a laptop computer.

That Seagate has included a correct backup software with this drive might have an effect effectively past this firm, as others would possibly now scramble to supply one thing as helpful with their exterior drives.

It’s not quick, and the supplied cable solely helps USB-C computer systems, however adapters are low cost, and it’s fast sufficient to carry out stay backups throughout a working day.

General, the launch worth is perhaps barely excessive, however as soon as market forces come into play, this might be the exterior HDD to personal, if just for the Seagate Toolkit and its capacity to safe knowledge progressively from the pc.

Specs

• Mannequin No.: STMA5000400
• Capacities: 5TB/4TB/2TB
• Capability examined: 5TB
• Examined sequential efficiency (Learn/Write): 148.42/146.95 MB/s
• Connection: USB 3.2 Gen 1 (USB3.0) utilizing Kind-C
• Encryption: Password + AES-256 Encryption
• Dimensions: 115.3 x 80 x 23.1 mm (WxHxD)
• Weight: 267g
• Guarantee: 3 years