External Hard Disks are of 2 types mainly. One is for desktop use(3.5") and the other for laptop users having better portability being much smaller in size(2.5"). In India, 2 dominant sellers have captured above 80% of the data storage market.they are Seagate and Western Digital. There are other companies too like Toshiba, Sony, Samsung, Transcend etc. but they dont have that much significant effect like the said duo.
I have recently bought this external HDD from a local store for Rs. 4400/- inclusive VAT. I was skeptical at first because for a long time I am a Seagate user and love their storage devices.so I was hesitating in time of purchase, but lastly took it as I was in a tight budget and Seagate variants cost approx Rs. 400-500/- more. After using it for 8-10 days, I think it was a decent buy.
Look-wise it is a stunner. It has a matte-like finish with prominent black color. It looks very nice unlike Seagate. I have 2 Seagate Back Up Plus Portable Hard Disks each of 1TB capacity. This HDD is smaller in size and lighter than those. The corners/edges are not sharp like Seagate, rather curvy, easy to carry and dont hurt your fingers. There is a tiny light beside the USB connector which blinks after u connect it to USB ports.
Build quality is pretty good. There are no loose ends. In recent Seagate Portable Hard Drives u will notice that the part where u connect the USB cable can be detached(with some circuits within it). This provision is given in case the connectors go bad u can replace. But this provision means the HDD lost the unibody design. In case of Western Digital, there are no loose ends. It feels sturdy in hand and more comfortable to carry.
Now about the performance. In my desktop I dont have USB 3 ports. But they are present in my wife’s HP laptop. I transferred lot of data to take a back up as I was going to re-partition the laptop and install Windows 8.1 afresh, and the Write speed I got was astonishing. At first I could not believe my eyes coz I am used to see a max of 32-35 mbps speed in USB 2. For my pleasant surprise, the speed went on to 125 mbps at first, stood steady there for 9-10 seconds and then reduced to 88-90 mbps and was stable afterwards. I transferred nearly 60-65 GB data at a time and the time taken was much less than USB2, even it was also less than the Seagate HDDs which also support high speed USB3 data transfer. I must admit that I am impressed.
Dont get me wrong here, I am not telling that Seagate HDDs are not good, but it was proved that this HDD has better transfer rate for USB3 ports. I purchased Seagate HDDs one year back at least and may be now they are also producing same quality HDDs.but those 2 which I possess never gave me such a monstrous transfer rate. This hard disk is very much recommended from me as the price-performance ratio is very high.