Seagate Backup Plus Hub 8TB External Drive Review

With our requirements for storage growing so quickly, new products are being launched every day to cater and satisfy these needs. With Seagate being an industry leader, they tend to add to or refresh their product lineups a few times a year and in the second refresh of this year we have a few new backup solutions.

The Backup Plus lineup stretches between portable and desktop solutions and may be one of the more widely known models. The new solution we have in house today builds off of the Backup Plus 8TB from March offering more functionality for those that need to bring in flash drives or portable drives from the field and dump the contents to a desktop solution.

The Backup Plus Hub, as it is called, is available in 4TB to 8TB capacities in a piano black finish. Also, the enclosure houses two USB 3.0 ports on the front of the unit making access paramount with this solution as these ports can both transfer your files from your device while charging at the same time.

Compatibility extends to Windows 7 and above along with OS X 10.9+ with a reformat. The MSRP of the 8TB Seagate Backup Plus Hub comes in at $249.99 with a two-year warranty.

The packaging is quite similar to the portable drives with the Backup Plus branding on the front next to an image of the drive. Capacity is at the top right while we have mention of the two-year OneDrive offer at the bottom left.

Flipping the box around, we have a few use scenarios along with mention of its cross-platform capability.

With this solution, the scope of delivery includes the power adapter and USB 3.0 cable.

A closer look reveals both the piano black exterior and the front mounted USB 3.0 hub. Of course, we also have some Seagate branding down the spine.

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On the backside, things are rather simple with the USB Micro-B port and power input.

On the bottom, we have a few regulatory marks along with model information closer to the top.

The Backup Plus Hub comes with Seagate's Dashboard software. This software lets you configure your drive for backups along with the ability to pull content from your mobile devices, save your social media, and restore a backup if you ever need to.

In the backup menu, you have the option to let the dashboard software choose what to backup or configure manually through a backup plan.

Just like the LaCie P9237 I tested just a week ago, the Backup Plus Hub uses an 8TB Archive drive from Seagate.

The performance of this drive is nearly spot on to what we saw from the LaCie solution, topping 190 MB/s read and 180 MB/s write.

In my desktop setup, the Backup Plus Hub is a welcomed addition as a second backup location next to my NAS. The build quality really is quite good with this one. The plastic appears to be ABS, so it's quite durable, but at the same time, it scratches easily and gathers dust and fingerprints like a magnet thanks to its glossy finish.

On the performance side, the Backup Plus performed quite well. I was able to reach very close to 200 MB/s read while writes topped out around 185 MB/s. This is surely plenty of performance for archival purposes. The included backup software, Seagate Dashboard, has long been a staple with external solutions and offers a great alternative to the built-in Windows backup.

Overall, Seagate's Backup Plus Hub is a solid option at a fair price for those on a budget.