Question 1

Is this compatible with a mac book?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The hard drive comes formatted for Macs right out of the box. Just plug it to a power outlet and USB port on your Mac and it will appear as a Mac formatted drive on your Macbook. Been using mine for several weeks and have had no issues.

Question 2

If my computer is USB 2.0 will this work?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it is backward compatible. It will be slower than described and take longer for the initial backup. The Seagate Backup Plus is still a fast and easy way to have an continual backup of an entire computer.

Question 3

Hi. I want to be more specific regarding my last question. I daisy chain three Firewire drives with my older MacBook Pro. I do not see any info about the connections on this HD. Are there  FW800 connections on this HD? Thanks.

Accepted Answer

No doesn't have a Firewire connector. Looks like a Thunderbolt, or USB 3.0. Info on Seagate site is unclear but looks like they may offer a adaptor, USB to Firewire.

Hope this helps. By the way I purchased the drive as a Xmas present for my stepson, and it is at his home in another state.

Question 4

Does this use flash memory or moving parts?

Accepted Answer

Hi Reny, Inside this Mac storage is a Seagate 3.5" Sata HDD, so there are  moving parts as a matter of course. You should look for Flash Memory- small capacity- or SSD/ Solid state drive for higher capacity and faster speed of data transfer.  They belong to differrent categories of Data Storage. Hope that this helps. Thanks for asking.

Question 5

Can I use this with Windows 7?  Do I need to reformat it?

Accepted Answer

You would need to reformat it using Windows 7. Accept all the default format options and it will be formatted as NTFS and work just fine. I've done this many times with Mac formatted external drives for use on a PC.

I use both Mac and PC computers in my job and have also bought PC formatted drives when on sale and just formatted them on my Mac and they work just fine on there too.

Note that some of the external drives come with software (for backup and/or other utilities), and those software packages are computer specific. However if you just need to use the drive for external storage and not their automated backup function, then the external drive works just like a thumb drive, just extremely large and much faster than one of those.

Question 6

would this work for my DVR?

Accepted Answer

I did not buy this drive,

newegg accepted my order, then cancelled it two days later, causing me to miss the sale and my intended use of the drive. As a result I was very displeased at not being able to use the drive as planned, and would have had to purchase one locally since there was no time to re order either from them or another vendor.
   As one might imagine I was a bit disappointed.
So, I thought not as disappointed as they might be
since their deals are not that great anyway, and I especially don't like being jerked around, I decided not to do business with them again if possible.

Good Luck,
YourMileageMayVary......

Question 7

Can this be used to back up any computer type files?

Accepted Answer

As far as I know.  It appears to be backing up everything on my iMac.  Of course you never know for sure if it has absolutely everything until you have to use it and can't find something.
There is a folder on the backup entitled Incompatible Software.  It contains Parallels and an old version of Flip4Mac.

Question 8

Hi, so i have a macbook from the summer of 2008, im buying an external hardrive to transfer all my videos and such, is this a good option? will it work with such an old laptop?

Accepted Answer

Iffy: on a really old Mac--older than yours (os x 10.5) -- it sometimes doesn't show up in finder. Unplug and plug in again and it shows up in the finder. Eventually. Not the fault of the drive, I suspect. Works fine on up-to-date macs.

Question 9

Can this be re-formatted for Windows 7 use?

Accepted Answer

Basically, a drive is a drive. Regardless of its initial manufacturer format (Windows or Mac), you can connect it to the opposite type of computer and reformat it. All you'll lose (if anything) is OS-specific backup software that they include. In many cases, though, software for the OTHER computer is frequently available for download from the manufacturer's site -- or it may already be on the drive (check before you reformat it). If this is a concern, check the website first.

Question 10

how do I use this in my iMac Thunderbolt port?

Accepted Answer

You'll need Seagate's Desktop Thunderbolt Adapter, which for this drive should be part number STAE129. However The adapter is really expensive and does not include a Thunderbolt cable either.

Questions & Answers