Seagate Seven Review: Hands-On With a 7mm Thick Portable Hard Drive

[MacRumors]

Seagate debuted several new products at CES this year, including the candy-colored Seagate Wireless portable hard drive and the Seagate Personal Cloud, a NAS (network attached storage) option for home users, but the company's most attention-grabbing offering was the Seagate Seven.

Described as the world's thinnest 500GB portable hard drive, the USB 3.0 Seagate Seven is only 7mm thick, as its name implies, which means it easily fits into a pocket or purse, and it's fairly affordable at $99.

What's in the Box?

The Seagate Seven ships in a slim, padded box that contains the hard drive, a black fabric-covered USB cord to connect the drive to a computer, and a Quick Start Guide.

Design

Seagate describes the Seven as the culmination of 35 years of experience creating hard drives. Inside the Seven is Seagate's ultra thin 5mm hard drive, which is encased in 2mm of 100 percent stainless steel for protection.

At first glance the Seagate Seven might be mistaken for an internal drive due to its slimness and its industrial design, but it is a standalone portable drive. Without touching the Seven, it can be hard to imagine just how thin it is, but if you own an iPhone 6 or an iPhone 6 Plus, that is a good approximation of thickness.

At 7mm, the Seven is slightly thicker than the 6.9mm iPhone 6 and slightly thinner than the 7.1mm iPhone 6 Plus. It weighs 6.3 ounces (178 grams), which makes it just about the same weight as the 6.07 ounce iPhone 6 Plus (172 grams).

The Seven is 4.8 inches tall and 3.2 inches wide, which means it fits in a pocket as well as the iPhone 6 Plus. In the simplest of terms, it's really, really thin.

Its stainless steel design is simple but may not be appealing to all people due to its minimal, unfinished look, and it's worth noting that the casing has a tendency to attract fingerprints. The drive itself feels well-built and it can withstand scratches and wear and tear, but it's still susceptible to drops.


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Article Link: Seagate Seven Review: Hands-On With a 7mm Thick Portable Hard Drive

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Your list of pros is a single thing said 3 different ways.

Also, shouldn't the ugly appearance appear in the list of cons to consider?

 

[JaySoul]

That is pretty amazing.

Although give it 2-3 years and you'll get 512gb USB sticks for the mass market, maybe.

 

[windywalks]

I wonder how sturdy the casing actually is, does it give in much when pressed?
It does have a certain degree of coolness and kind of fits in the vanity hdd category the LaCie Mirror occupies - you pay more for a drive that certainly isn't cutting edge in specs in any other way than looks.

 

[AlecZ]

But it's Seagate. That counts as a con in my book.

 

[baryon]

Pretty nice, I use my 3.5 inch hard drives in a dock and the "naked" drives actually look much better than the cheap plastic/aluminum enclosures most manufacturers make. This drive is probably a drive and enclosure in one, which is how it can get this thin.

Though to me anything below 2 TB is tiny nowadays...

 

[keysofanxiety]

In terms of providing ultraportable hard-drives with a capacity of under 1TB, I see literally no benefit in trying to make an ultraportable physical hard-drive. They're slow and you can practically lose all your data if you drop it. Plus in my experience ultra-slim drives in portables fail much more quickly, possibly due to the tolerances due to the smaller components required compared to desktop 3.5", or even 2.5".

With SSD technology becoming more affordable and having so many more benefits, I'm surprised they wouldn't go more towards a 500GB ultra-slim SSD at an ultra-low price.

I know this is for tech enthusiasts, but it's like manufacturing a CRT monitor for the novelty factor.

 

[scaredpoet]

Seagate: Too bad it's a Seagate.

(Joke reference)

 

[technosix]

Very impressive, it'll be interesting to see what long term performance and reliability is like

 

[JoEw]

In terms of providing ultraportable hard-drives with a capacity of under 1TB, I see literally no benefit in trying to make an ultraportable physical hard-drive. They're slow and you can practically lose all your data if you drop it. Plus in my experience ultra-slim drives in portables fail much more quickly, possibly due to the tolerances due to the smaller components required compared to desktop 3.5", or even 2.5".

With SSD technology becoming more affordable and having so many more benefits, I'm surprised they wouldn't go more towards a 500GB ultra-slim SSD at an ultra-low price.

I know this is for tech enthusiasts, but it's like manufacturing a CRT monitor for tthe novelty factor.

Agree portable hart drives are for those who live dangerously.

I just got a Samsung 850 ssd 250gb for 105 for my build.. And it isn't technically portable, but performance and data integrity is better than any hard drive much prefer they use 250GB ssd.

 

[jclo]

Your list of pros is a single thing said 3 different ways.

Also, shouldn't the ugly appearance appear in the list of cons to consider?

I wasn't sure if that would be a con to everyone, or just me. Design preference is a pretty subjective thing.

 

[groovyd]

they need to sell the internals directly to apple to make the next gen iPod classic with

 

[jclo]

I wonder how sturdy the casing actually is, does it give in much when pressed?
It does have a certain degree of coolness and kind of fits in the vanity hdd category the LaCie Mirror occupies - you pay more for a drive that certainly isn't cutting edge in specs in any other way than looks.

There's a little bit of give when it's pressed, but not a lot.

 

[lincolntran]

That USB port looks so huge and old next to the DP port!!

 

[ColdShadow]

Looks industrial and ugly.
Also Seagate is worst in terms of reliability.

 

[GeneralChang]

they need to sell the internals directly to apple to make the next gen iPod classic with

Slap the screen and processor from an iPhone 6 Plus on it and boom, iPod Touch Plus. It'd be weird and way more fragile than anyone would want, but I'd be tempted just for the novelty of the thing.

 

[pdaholic]

That is one ugly mutha.

Not much I can backup with only 500gb.

 

[EthanLMT]

That USB port looks so huge and old next to the DP port!!

You mean lightning port?

 

[carrrrrlos]

Not bad!

 

[Kajje]

Too thin

Half-a-terra-bendgate ouch that hurts!

Alternative option:
Get two 256GB SD cards on Amazon for about 80 a pop, send them to XZibits garage for some bad ass chrome pimping. This most probably won't survive too much bending either, but they'll survive the occasional drop.

----------

Fingerprints on the canvas is actually a feature.

If one buys a Seagate, would he be able to look in the mirror anyway?

 

[Quu]

I wouldn't use a Seagate even if it was free. Complete junk, their stuff is only good as doorstops and paper weights.

 

[cube]

What is needed is a 2TB 2.5" hybrid drive.

It's already too much with Apple focusing on fashion rather than computing.

 

[orbital~debris]

I love the appearance of this hard drive. Very contemporary, yet with a retro element.

 

[maflynn]

I'm not sure why a 7mm drive is needed. Seems like a solution in search of a problem if you ask me.

 

[MH01]

Seagate is going for the "cool factor" with their products.

I really like it, but I like my data more. Wish they spent more on reliability than looks....