Question 1

Can I just copy files/folders into the STCA3000101 or do I have to use the included backup facility?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it functions as any standard external hard drive. The backup software is there for you if you don't already have a backup method in place. Additionally, if you're using on a Mac and do not want to reformat the drive you do have to install their NTFS for Mac driver to write to the drive.

Question 2

Power supply details?

Accepted Answer

100-240V 50-60 Hz
0.5A max

Output
12 VDC 1.5A

tip is positive

Power Brick Approximately 2½ x 2 x 1½ inches (L x W x D)

Cord is about 5 feet long

Question 3

Is it compatible with widows 7 and 8?

Accepted Answer

Yes, i'm using win7 x64 with 32gigs of ram, runs seagate backup great, i don't even notice it running in the background.

Question 4

is this just for a mac?

Accepted Answer

If it is, I'm in big trouble on an Intel i5 running MS Win7. So far, my internal HDD is running fine as long as I use the software install so windows seven will recognize the complete capacity.

Question 5

How is the backup speed transfer on this product? I had an Iomega and it was very slow to load files. Has anyone had bad experience in terms of speed transfer rates and so forth? Also, can you do wireless backups or only via USB, TB, or FW?

Accepted Answer

In my personal experience,

First of all, I could guarantee that this device is definitely faster than Iomega device if you use a USB 3.0 port properly. Leakage of loading speed is rare but copying thousand of small files will be slower than one big file like 2~3gig movie file and this usually happens even if you use SSD.

Second, this device is working on wired only. I know that Seagate has several wireless line-up especially for mobile devices, but never had a chance to use it.

Hope this would be helpful.

Question 6

what is the spindle speed of this drive?

Accepted Answer

That is a very good question. NONE of the vendors, nor the Seagate site itself make ANY mention of drive specs, including spindle speed.

I ran Speccy (from Piriform) and it verifies that it is indeed 7200 RPM:

Seagate Backup+ Desk USB Device
	Heads	16
	Cylinders	45,600
	Tracks	11,628,000
	Sectors	732,564,000
	SATA type	SATA-III 6.0Gb/s
	Device type	Fixed
	ATA Standard	ATA8-ACS
	Serial Number	W1F3C3M1
	LBA Size	48-bit LBA
	Power On Count	20 times
	Power On Time	86.5 days
	Speed	7200 RPM
	Features	S.M.A.R.T., APM, NCQ
	Transfer Mode	SATA III
	Interface	USB (SATA)
	Capacity	2794 GB
	Real size	3,000,592,977,920 bytes

Question 7

Can I use this to back up my Mac? Can you add the way to do this? Never did this before. Thanks

Accepted Answer

I haven't used this hard drive to back up my mac, but I did with my old one and this hard drive works better with macs. Just partition the hard drive and use the time machine program that should be on your mac.

Question 8

What kind of internal hard drive does it use? What is it's RPM?

Accepted Answer

Uinsg Crystal Disk Info 5.6.2 my unit it shows it's a ST3000DM001-1CH166.  It is a 7200 RPM drive.

Hope that helps

Question 9

Is this compatible with MAC?

Accepted Answer

The product description explicitly states: "Install the pre-loaded NTFS driver for Mac, and use the drive interchangeably between PC and Mac computers without reformatting the drive." In other words, the drive comes formatted in NTFS. Mac OS X is natively able to read NTFS, but not write to it. Evidently, Seagate includes on the drive itself a Mac installer for a full read/write NTFS stack. So no, you DO NOT have to re-format the drive in HFS+ in order to use it with your Mac for general purposes. Note, however, that Time Machine is reportedly unable to use a directly-connected NTFS volume as a backup target. (NTFS-formatted network share drives are apparently OK, if set up properly.)

Question 10

will it read and play boy windows and mac without formatting?

Accepted Answer

Yes it will.

Brand	Seagate
Series	Backup Plus
Model	STCA3000101

Form Factor	3.5"
Dimensions	6.22" x 4.88" x 1.73"
Weight	2.38 lbs.

Seagate Backup Plus 3TB USB 3.0 3.5" Desktop Hard Drive STCA3000101 Black

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Item#: N82E16822178110