Review: Seagate's New Backup Plus Slim and Backup Plus Portable Offer Lots of Storage at Low Prices

[patent10021]

People used to say 2TB is always superior to 4TB in terms of reliability. Is that still true?

 

[GalileoSeven]

Still fine for backups.

Maybe for you, definitely not for me. After a full-size 1TB Seagate drive connected to my iMac went belly up and took most of my photography & media stuff with it (some of which I was able to recover), I swore off the brand completely - never had that problem with any of the WD drives I had.


That notwithstanding though, when I bought my latest laptop, I switched to an SSD (a Samsung T5) and won't go back.

 

[macstatic]

This thread warns people to stay away from SMR type drives; Isomorphic writes (emphasis by me):

Even for backups, I would avoid SMR drives if I had any choice in the matter, especially if your backups result in rewriting lots of small files (e.g. syncing incremental changes). The best usage scenario for SMR drives is for writing data that is read much more often than written, e.g. for media storage (not editing) or for archival.

And somewhere (forgot where) I read that all the higher/thicker 2.5" HDDs are SMR types. I believe this refers to any 2.5" drive with a capacity above 2TB. Correct me if I'm wrong.

This all sounds like a hopeless situation when I'm trying to find a Time Machine backup drive (to be constantly attached to a late-2012 Mac Mini) which will back up the Mini's 2TB drive.
Obviously it's a smart choice to go for a larger drive than the source you're backing up, so I've been considering a 4TB or 5TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable as reviewed here.
But now I'm not so sure.... and if there are any alternatives with capacities at 3TB or larger which aren't SMR
or...... if this SMR stuff is overblown and it's not really an issue for making regular backup for most people... opinions on this and alternatives to the mentioned Seagate I could consider?