Speed testing the Backup Plus drives on my Dell XPS 15 showed no important difference between clean formats of exFAT and NTFS. I wish I had my backup drives set to exFAT from the beginning, even though I never thought it would be necessary. Short story: last year I switched from Mac to PC - something I never dreamed I'd do - and it was no fun at all having to offload my external drives, reformat them from the Mac OS Extended format to exFAT, and reload them with my files. Unlike the older generation, these new drives come formatted as exFAT which enables them to be used on both Mac and PCs out of the box. That satisfactory performance is what interested me in checking out these new models. It's lasted me years and on many airline trips and has read, wrote, and stored thousands and thousands of raw files to it. Previously, I've owned an older generation Backup Plus Portable which is about the size of the now Slim.

The Portable also comes in a 5 TB capacity and the Slim also has a 2 TB model. Seagate sent to me the 4 TB Backup Plus Portable in black and the 1 TB Backup Plus Slim in black. Both sport an LED activity light and USB 3.0 connectivity with the included cable. The Backup Plus Slim is about 4.5 x 3 x 0.5 inches and weighs 4.4 ounces.

The Backup Plus Portable measures in at about 4.5 x 3.25 x 1 inches and weighs 8.7 ounces. This refreshed series of Seagate Backup Plus external hard disk drives features a new brushed aluminum finish on the topside that comes in black, blue, red, and silver. Here's a first-look review at these inexpensive travel-sized storage options. Announced at CES 2019 earlier this year, Seagate showed off their updated line of Backup Plus external hard disk drives.

Format seagate drive with backup plus