A hard drive for the season of sharing

For those whose lives are defined by how much digital data they consume, a hard drive that fits everything they need to keep will be the best gift this Christmas.

While external hard drives are an obvious choice for storing videos, music, photos and documents, choosing the right peripheral device is important. Storage capacity, transfer speed, and accompanying software should be considered according to a user’s specific need. Whether the gift is intended for a hardworking Dad, a selfie-happy sister, or a techie best friend, there should be one in the market that will suit them, regardless of what computer hardware they use.

Data storage giant Seagate has hard drives for PC and Mac owners, giving the gift-giver an exhaustive list of choices that come not only in huge capacities but also in attractive colors.

No strings on me

The Seagate Wireless Plus is the ideal family or barkada storage device. It functions like a standard external hard drive, allowing users to expand their device’s storage capacity via a USB cable or SATA port; but where it truly shines is with its streaming capabilities using Wi-Fi.

Wireless Plus allows up to eight devices to access the media it contains, even without Internet. All they need to do is to connect their smartphone, tablet, or laptop to Seagate Wireless Plus—the same way they connect to a Wi-Fi router—and they can stream videos, play music, or view photos inside the hard drive. This hard drive comes in 1- and 2-terabyte models.

Eye candy

Those who pick gadgets the same way they select their wardrobe should look no further than the Seagate Backup Plus Slim – the slimmest portable hard drive in the market today. This hard drive offers a hefty 2-terabyte storage space to accommodate large amounts of photos, documents and videos, but does so in a device that measures 4.4 by 2.9 by 0.4 inches only, and weighing no more than 0.6 ounces. It is small enough to slip easily into one’s pants pocket or small purse.

Pre-loaded is an installer for Dashboard, a software that allows users to automatically back up their PC or Mac files, files from their Android or Apple phone through Internet or WiFi, and uploaded content to social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Flickr. Dashboard allows access to a cloud service that adds more storage capacity on top of the hard drive.

Backup Plus Slim is available in red, blue, black, and silver aluminium finish.

Pocket monster

The bigger they are, the fatter they look. But that’s not really a bad thing for external drives, especially if they can store up to 4 terabytes of media. The 2.5 inch Seagate Backup Plus Fast is just that: big enough to store one’s biggest files, and does it at 220 megabytes per second, twice the speed of any other portable drive in the market. Its blazing speed is due to two 2-terabyte internal drives that work in RAID 0 mode. This is the perfect gift for the movie buff, photographer, audiophile or anyone who has a massive library of content.

But despite being bigger than its siblings, it is still handy and can fit jacket pockets and laptop cases. This model is bus-powered via standard USB 3.0 cable or Y cable, so there is no need to bring an additional power source. Social media and cloud saving are also available through Dashboard.