Seagate Skywalker 2TB external HDD review: Star Wars storage on the go

Price When Reviewed

$110 for 2TB

Best Prices Today: Seagate Luke Skywalker Special Edition HDD

Apparently, Star Wars sells (or pays) properly—the newest drives we’ve seen from Seagate have practically all been themed to that fantasy universe. However, after Mandalorian Beskar, the corporate has reverted to old-school Star Wars with photographs of Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Han Solo adorning the corporate’s newest particular version exhausting drives.

Why the originals quite than Rey and Kylo? Don’t know. But one would possibly guess it’s primarily based on which merch sells higher.

To that finish, these are the characters of their ’70s/’80s prime, not the grizzled variations from the newest trilogy. Luke Skywalker on the 2TB drive that Seagate despatched us is the brash, optimistic, soon-to-be Jedi in his X-Wing flight go well with, not the green-milk swilling cynic that Disney corp put on the market.

Note: This overview is a part of our ongoing roundup of the best external drives. Go there to find out about competing merchandise, what to search for in an exterior drive, and shopping for suggestions.

Seagate Skywalker USB HDD: Design and options

The $110 MSRP, 2TB Luke Skywalker particular version is essentially your customary 2.5-inch, 7,200rpm exterior HDD. It follows Seagate’s latest styling behavior of squaring off the corners on its storage merchandise. This makes for a placing kind issue, but additionally produces sharp edges which may catch on shirt pockets, backpack linings, and so on. Still, I’ll take it, snags or not.

As famous, the highest of the drive I examined incorporates a rendering of the unique optimistic SW hero in his orange flight go well with and helmet on a medium grey background. It’s a suitably inventive and nostalgic rendering that I fairly like. I’m much less impressed with the separate backside floor, which is tan and sports activities a Lucas Film emblem, and doesn’t appear consistent with the theme. The high and backside sections create a sandwich for the RGB lighting.

Said RGB lighting is one thing I quite get pleasure from about Seagate’s storage merchandise. Not a lot for the rainbow sample or FX (breathe, spectrum, blink, slide, and so on.), that are entertaining sufficient, however as a result of I can coloration code the sunshine in line with the content material the drive holds. Of course, you may label your drives for simple ID, however the place’s the enjoyable in that?

You’ll must obtain the Seagate Toolkit to manage the lighting. Toolkit sits within the system tray for simple entry and performs a lot of different capabilities as properly. You can see the related RGB settings within the display seize proven under.

I need to admit, whereas the SWTOT (Star Wars The Original Trilogy) drive is a retro homage, I used to be nonetheless stunned that Seagate opted for an old-school powered micro-B USB port on the drive. Seagate embrace the suitable cable, however orientation-agnostic Type-C would’ve been a pleasant contact. I suppose Seagate has plenty of the older connections nonetheless available—waste not, need not.

It’s additionally a bit odd that these particular version drives are solely accessible in 2TB capacities. I’d posit an analogous clarification about inventory available, however then I is likely to be labeled a conspiracy theorist.

There’s not much more to exterior exhausting drives past the ports and lights, however the unit measures 0.57-inches thick, by 3.15-inches broad, by 4.82-inches lengthy and weighs roughly six ounces. Not burdensome within the least for a backpack, however a bit giant for shirt pockets.

The drive is warrantied for a yr and Seagate features a free yr of knowledge restoration. I’ve by no means had a tough drive fail inside that window that didn’t fail instantly, however hey, it’s at the very least a hedge in opposition to main defects.

Seagate Skywalker USB HDD: Performance

Being a 2.5-inch exhausting drive, the Skywalker is hardly an X-Wing when it comes to efficiency. Think of it as extra of a land speeder—strictly restricted in pace in comparison with the best know-how (SSDs.)

That mentioned, 119/120MBps studying and writing is on par with any single 2.5-inch exterior USB 3.0 5Gbps exhausting drive. It’s additionally simply quick sufficient for delivering films, and most video games—as horny as SSD speeds are, they’re additionally extraordinarily overkill for a lot of duties.

Note that the throughput of smaller HDDs has not elevated because it has with bigger 3.5-inch items, the quickest of which might attain 250MBps. Read seeks as calculated by AS SSD have been very quick for a tough drive, at round .25 milliseconds; nonetheless, for some weird purpose, write seeks have been 255ms. That’s slower than something we’ve ever seen—by so much.

That stupendously gradual write entry time is likely to be one other occasion of the phenomena that brought about CrystalDiskMark 7 and 8 to misfire on the Skywalker HDD (which is actually only a FireCuda HDD in a flowery wrapper). After 45 minutes into each these artificial benchmarks, the primary check nonetheless had not accomplished, so I went again to model 6 to get the outcomes you see above. Seagate has not gotten again to me with remark or an evidence of those oddities as of the unique publish date of this text.

CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD are in fact designed for SSDs; and in any other case, the drive carried out completely so we’re not too involved. That mentioned, these exams use direct entry which could have implications for the brand new Microsoft Direct Storage know-how.

Should you purchase the Seagate Skywalker USB HDD?

As you may get a 5TB Seagate Basic HDD for less than $10 over this drive’s MSRP (to say nothing of the value it’s presently listed at on Newegg); or get the 2TB Basic HDD for roughly $50 much less, the particular version Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, and Han Solo HDDs (to not point out the Beskar HDD) are removed from being cut price storage.

They are, however, numerous enjoyable—particularly factoring within the RGB lighting. Performance is on par (glitch excepted) with Seagate’s different exterior HDDs, so don’t fear about that. If they tickle your fancy, by all means purchase one.